I was just rocking my 4-month old son to sleep. In that peaceful quiet few minutes, 3 important marketing ideas came to me:
- One was how to move forward on something I’ve been stuck on;
- One was a new way to offer something that will help generate more referrals from my network;
- And a third [...]

I thought I would send you this cool example of how social media can take your message viral, creating exponentially more exposure for you.
1.) I posted this on our Facebook Fan Page:

LeTip of Oak Park & Forest Park
Thank you, Erica Cuneen at Beyond Properties Realty for her presentation this week, telling us about an exciting new [...]

I just received yet another “anonymous” LinkedIn invitation.
Ok, people (and I mean bad, evil, people that do the above mentioned LinkedIn “sin”, and those that are considering it :).
I’ll try to explain this.
First impressions are everything in relationship building. Relationship building is everything in networking. Networking is one of the best ways to get business.
Ya [...]

Recently, I’ve seen a lot of people setting up a second Facebook profile that they intend to use as a “professional profile”, so that they can keep their personal one for connecting with Friends and Family, and their professional profile for business and career use.
On the surface, this makes some sense, especially for people that [...]

One of the single best ways to connect with potential clients in a way that they get to understand how you can help them is to speak to groups of people – a very powerful way for others to get to know, like and trust you.
This can be done in person via speaking engagements, workshops, [...]

This is a fantastic and to-the-point list of best and worst ways to use your Facebook Fan Page for business from HobSpot.
A few of these might sound familiar, as you may have read or heard me gripe about now and then ;)

The 9 Worst Ways to Use Facebook for Business
Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/6898/The-9-Worst-Ways-to-Use-Facebook-for-Business.aspx#ixzz1318LgGd2

I especially like #3 [...]

Whether you market B2B or B2C, make sure you speak to the benefits of your services beyond the obvious.
How do they impact your client personally? By having more time with family, less stress, higher income, better health, more energy?
Those are the kinds of motivators/drivers that appeal to potential clients and that they really [...]

The Small Biz TIP of the DAY is up at http://facebook.com/GrowYourBiz 
Want to GET MORE REFERRALS from your current clients?
Here’s how in TWO EASY STEPS that you CAN DO TODAY…
1.) Start a dialog with the question, “What has been the most helpful for you about our work together so far?”
Asking this question helps to reaffirm and reinforce the value [...]

Last Week’s Digest of Small Biz “Tip of the Day” from http://facebook.com/GrowYourBiz
Feel free to comment with your thoughts, experiences, and share your insights with the other members. The more you share and post, the more exposure you get for your business…
* FRIDAY Tip of the Day: Prioritizing and efficiency -> When making your To-Do list [...]

Ok… they’re actually still called “Fan Pages.”
But many people have been commenting on the fact that Facebook has switched  from the “Become a Fan” button to a “Like” button.
The thinking is that people will be more likely to “Like” a page rather than “Become a Fan” of the page. I assume this is sort of like the [...]