Are you an e-commerce merchant looking for iPhone or iTouch apps to make your life easier, especially on the move? Look no further. There is a wealth of electronic evolution for Apple products that are geared to making your life easier and more fun. Here are my personal favorites. Social Media has taken the Web by storm but it also has a vital place in mobile technology. One of the best ways to keep in contact with your customers, and to maintain a valued relationship, is via social media and there are apps that help you do just that. Take the Meebo, Twitter and Facebook applications to start with. You can share views, news, images and even videos. Check out the Apple App site for a wealth of other social apps that allow all types of possible interaction and functionality. Anyone that cares for their business should care for their customers and using social media is one way to do so. – Read the full article
The Internet has provided many businesses with new exciting opportunities. We know that an increasing number of consumers are turning to the Web when it comes to purchasing products and services. As a business owner, this means that it’s vital that you maintain an online presence. You’ll want to give potential customers the best possible chance to buy your services. The first step on the road to achieving this will be to build a website. Many small business owners take that first step, but too few think about what to do next. The reality is that having a website will be of very little value unless consumers can actually find it. This is what makes search engine optimization (SEO) so vital to any business that’s aiming to succeed online: appearing at the top of the search engine rankings will give you the best chance of being noticed. Hiring a suitable SEO consultant is thus going to be important to your – Read the full article
Online business meetings bring the world to your presentation or discussion. Unfortunately, online business meetings can cost the human element that makes a sales relationship lasting. Let’s discuss the pros and cons of an online business meeting as opposed to booking meeting rooms. Pros of an online business meeting Anywhere, Anytime – Anytime, anywhere, by anyone and to everyone was one of the promises of the Internet. Online business meetings can fulfill that promise. Online presentations can be offered by sales teams around the world, reaching audiences everywhere at once. Economy of Scale – Both the digital broadcasting hardware and receiving hardware in the form of computers have become commonplace, reducing the cost of producing as well as receiving online business meetings. Online meetings also make meetings more affordable to everyone with the hardware to view it. Whether thirty interested experts attend or three thousand potential customers listen in is only a limit of the processing ability of the server. – Read the full article
What if you could control and monitor your image across all social media? What if you could sign up for all the important social media sites out there and hear all the conversations being made about your business or brand? It sounds like a lot of work, but not if you’ve heard of KnowEm. A few months back we wrote a post that focused on this extremely useful social media service, which, as a kind of username detective, basically helps small business owners, startups, or even enterprises and larger companies check for the use of their brand, product, trademark, personal name, or username instantly on over 400 popular and emerging social networks or social media sites – including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Multiply, WordPress, MySpace, Formspring, Blogger, Posterous, and many more. KnowEm is a great brand management tool, too. You can grab your name and secure your brand before someone else does – someone who doesn’t have the authority for – Read the full article
Tracking time and invoicing clients are important office tasks that you may often wish you don’t have to do. If only, right? But regardless of whether you’re a freelancer, a consultant, a small business, or a corporation, you just have to have some form of system to keep that income stream running smoothly – plus, of course, a staff member employed specifically for the purpose of managing that system. Enter FreshBooks, a web-based accounting, time billing, cost estimate, and invoicing application that has been dubbed “the leader in online invoicing”. It’s designed to help users save time and money in performing such accounting tasks as tracking income, managing estimates, creating and sending invoices, receiving customer payments, and generating accurate year-end financial reports. It’s definitely a great concept, but does FreshBooks perform better than if you just hired an accountant or a third party? Our answer: yes. A resounding one. We here at Lakeshore Branding have recently incorporated FreshBooks into our – Read the full article
There is a multitude of ways that a company can catch the attention of their target audience. More and more, companies are turning to social media outlets to gain the attention that they need for their brands to increase in popularity. These programs can be taken even a step further through the use of mobile marketing as well. The first thing to know about marketing through mobile services is that there are laws which surround this. You are not allowed to use leads which have been purchased as you have to have permission to send messages to clients. If you do not have permission, you face legal difficulties due to the FCC anti-mobile telemarketing laws. There are ways that you can make sure to have a lucrative marketing through the mobile market and a lot of it has to deal with social media marketing. This is because when there is a good social media marketing plan, you can reach new – Read the full article
Search engine optimization may be difficult to effectively utilize, but it can be crucial to staying competitive in the Internet age. Your business is competing against other companies who are using search engine optimization techniques to increase their presence on the Internet and boost their brand recognition. It is important to ensure that people are visiting your website if you want to succeed as an Internet business, especially for ecommerce sites. If nobody visits your site, how do you expect to sell anything? To avoid this problem, here are some SEO tips to help get you started on your path to a larger web presence. Keywords are a key factor in your website’s ranking. In order to ensure that people are able to find your business, you should invest some time in figuring out the optimal keywords for your website. Work with a local search engine marketing company to find what keywords will work best for you. The keywords should – Read the full article
Something big is going to happen this October 14 to 16 in Las Vegas. It’s called the BlogWorld & New Media Expo, the first and only tradeshow, conference, and media event created for the rapidly growing industry of blogging and new media. We here at Lakeshore Branding are going to attend the event, but if that’s not enough to convince you to come and join us (it should be more than enough to convince you, though!) then here are the top six reasons why BlogWorld & New Media Expo is a can’t-miss. Money? Influence? Or both?: If you’re a small business owner, Internet marketer, e-Commerce store owner, corporate executive, online journalist, podcaster, broadcaster, or personal or professional blogger who has some form of stake in the web, then surely you’ll have plenty to gain by attending the event and learning more about the top strategies, tools, and technologies used in developing content for the web today. BlogWorld 2010 is where – Read the full article
