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Ten applications to connect your home office to the world
July 05, 2010
Here are my top ten software applications that can enable you to connect your home office to customers, contacts and partners in the world beyond.
Attend meetings
Say ‘hello’ and talk business with contacts by using these online tools and services:
- Dimdim – enables you to attend live meetings, demonstrations and webinars
- Ketchup – enables you to share and record meeting notes
- Pow Wow Now – free conference calling at ‘Open Access’ level. Priced packages also available
- Skype – free and easy to use conference calls for Skype users
- Tinychat – group video conferencing, for free
- GoToWebinar – host a meeting of many and present to potential customers by inviting them to join you for an interactive webinar
Manage projects
Stay on top of projects and in touch with partners via one of these project management tools:
- Basecamp – allows you to create projects, invite people to view them, upload files and make comments. It’s effective online project management that can be accessed from anywhere
- GoogleDocs – share documents via Google with GoogleDocs. You can edit on the move, choose who accesses documents and share changes in real-time
- Glasscubes – this tool offers project management, collaboration and CRM (customer relationship management) all in one package
- Huddle – offers simple and secure online workspaces. Huddle is hosted, so there’s no software to download and it’s free to get started
There are also technologies you can adopt to ensure your business travels with you. These include: webmail systems that enable access to your emails from anywhere; a remote desktop offering files and folders on the go; or web-based office systems such as Google Apps or Open Office, so your entire business is stored online and in easy reach. I’ll cover these in detail in a future piece. Until then, happy homeworking and connecting with the globe.
Emma Jones is Founder of Enterprise Nation the home business website and author of ‘Spare Room Start Up – how to start a business from home’ and ‘Working 5 to 9 – how to start a business in your spare time’.
10 ways to attract and retain Facebook fans
June 02, 2010
If you’ve set up a Facebook page, you’ll probably be wondering how to (a) attract fans and (b) keep the fans you already have interested. You need to focus on the fact that your fans are people like you and me, so this isn’t a ‘business to business’ transaction. You need to be fun and keep it light.
The idea behind a Facebook page is to create a public profile that enables you to share your business and products with Facebook users. They’re very easy to create by going to Facebook, clicking on “Advertising” at the bottom navigation, and then on “Pages”.
Here are some top tips on creating an interesting page with updates that people will want to read:
1. Make sure you add an eye-catching profile picture to your page that represents your business.
2. Add pictures, photographs or videos to your page as you would with your personal account. Images of your products, events, services, employees or even the office dog will add interest to your Facebook page and give it a personal feel. Remember to tag your friends!
3. Before you start inviting your friends or business leads to become fans of the page and recommend you to others, try to pre-populate it with relevant and interesting updates. You could even ask friends and colleagues to start up a discussion or wall post that fans can get drawn into.
4. And this is intrinsic to point 3: Make sure your updates appeal to your fans. Bear in mind that your fans could be teenagers, pensioners, builders, bankers or bakers so it’s essential that your updates are inclusive, and friendly with a distinct tone of voice.
Let’s use a chocolate shop as an example.
BAD status updates:
10am: “Buy our chocolates! They’re delicious!”
2pm: “Have you tried our chocolates yet? They’re delicious!”
4pm: “Check out our website!”
6pm: “We love chocolate.” and so on…..
GOOD status updates:
10am: “If you could invent your very own chocolate, what would it be? The most inventive answer will win a bag of our delicious Pecan Pralines!”
2pm: “Did you know a piece of dark chocolate a day is good for your heart?” (link to a news story)
4pm: “Stop press: New shipment of Willie’s Chocolate now in! Get yours before they’re snapped up!” (link to relevant page on your website)
6pm: “Order anything in our shop between 1pm and 2pm GMT tomorrow and we’ll give you 20% off! Quote ref: FB03” (link to your website)
Hopefully you get the idea. Put yourself in your fans’ shoes – if they get inundated with mundane, corporate sales messages they’ll soon switch off. But make your updates varied, interesting and interactive, and your updates will be shared, commented on, and recommended to others.
5. Check in to your page regularly and respond to comments from your fans. It’ll reinforce your brand and personality as well as proving that you’re not just logging in to make updates now and then.
6. Don’t neglect your Facebook page. It’s all too easy to forget about it when you’re busy and you could end up leaving it sad and lonely for a few weeks. In the meantime your fans will have forgotten you exist or they might even “cull” your page if they don’t deem it interesting enough. Like a pet, keep your page fed and watered!
7. On the other hand, don’t over-do it either. If your fans are getting 30 updates a day clogging up their news feed, they’re not going to be impressed. It’s all about quality rather than quantity.
8. Have a go at “hacking” your profile picture. You can make so much more of the space available if you have the time to learn to do it. A simple Google search will find plenty of websites that can teach you how to do this.
9. Upload pictures or videos that you can tag your fans in. Unfortunately you can only tag your Facebook friends, but if you’re inventive you’ll find a way.
For example if our chocolate shop awarded a bag of Pecan Pralines to a fan they were also Facebook friends with, they could post a picture of the bag and tag it with the fan’s name and a caption “Congratulations Joe Bloggs! You’ve won!” Joe Bloggs’ various Facebook friends would receive the news in their feed and it could tempt them to also become a fan of your page.
10. Although you’ll ideally grow your page and fan base organically, if you want to kick start your Facebook fan attraction campaign, advertise your page by using this link. Make sure your advertisement is eye catching and unique or your investment could be wasted, and above all do some research on your target demographic before you start your ad campaign.
Alex Astell of Manage My Website
Lessons learned at Small Business 2.0
January 28, 2010
Small Business 2.0 was held on Saturday 23 January. Now in its second year, it’s an event dedicated to helping small businesses profit from the web. Emma Jones went along and picked up some useful nuggets.
Business at the weekend
One of the reasons I like the Small Business 2.0 event is that it’s held on Saturday. Not only does this mean it’s accessible to 5 to 9ers (those holding down a day job and building the business at nights and weekends) it also means there’s a relaxed feeling about the place as attendees listen, learn, and meet new people in an informal setting.
These ingredients came together well on Saturday and were the recipe for an interesting and enjoyable day. Here are a few things I picked up:
- A bit of trivia – the first item ever sold on eBay UK was a Scorpions CD at the price of £2.89.
- eBay has more than 17 million monthly unique visitors and offers more than 15 million items for sale. There are 123,000 full time eBay businesses, generating more than £1.7 billion per year in turnover. To date, $600million worth of business has been driven through the eBay iPhone application. The company expect this to become an even more popular way to shop.
- E-commerce continues to climb: the numbers of people shopping online – and the amounts they are spending – is increasing at a rapid rate. So it’s still a very good time to be starting an online trading business.
- Customers are becoming more demanding: the majority of customers expect their online shopping experience to be as good as, if not better, than an offline shopping experience, placing the onus on the store owner to make it as simple and enjoyable as possible.
- The secrets to success in creating a successful online venture can be summed up as having: Great products, Competitive prices, Outstanding service, Giving something back.
(eBay report that even though sellers participating in eBay for charity give 10 per cent of the sales price to charity, their products are 20 per cent more likely to sell, at a better price. This resulted in $50 million being raised for charity in 2009).
- Enterprise is alive and well: I met a number of people in the early stages of starting a business, from Domino Duhan who is soon to launch Flog.com as a place to create a free online store, to Steven and Zoe who travelled from Worcestershire to pick up tips for their new venture selling cottage gifts.
Altogether, there was a great vibe and positive signs that 2010 will be another exciting year for anyone starting and growing an online business.
Emma Jones is the founder of Enterprise Nation and author of ‘Spare Room Start Up – how to start a business from home’. Her next book ‘Working 5 to 9 – how to start a business in your spare time’ will be published in May 2010.
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