Friday, March 26, 2010

5 Best Business Articles of the Week (March 22-26)

As a new feature on the KDF Blog each Friday we'll be posting some of the best articles, blogs, or other business related content from around the web. Please enjoy and make sure you check these out,  there is some really helpful information below! 


1.) Is Your Office Ready to Go Virtual?

Great article which details the advantages of having a remote working policy for small businesses. 


Thinking about launching a product online? This interview with Peter Shankman CEO of The Geek Factory and Founder of HARO is a must read. 


Social Media plays an increasingly important role for businesses of all sizes. If you're struggling to develop a strategy for your Facebook page check out this article, it offers some great tips. 


The title really explains it all, but there are some excellent ideas spread throughout the article on how you can use some of the important dates and holidays during the month of April to promote your business. 


Once again the title is pretty self explanatory. However, if you need to make a presentation anytime soon this could makes things a little more interesting, 

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The 5 Best Ways to Advertise on a Budget

 Google AdWords-

For many small and medium sized businesses Google AdWords has been the ultimate game changer. It allows these companies to compete head on with large corporations for the same keywords. In essence if you are able to write an effective ad that is keyword relevant to your home page you can beat any company targeting those same keywords.

With AdWords you are truly in the driver’s seat. You set your budget, you choose your keywords, you design the ad, and you determine where and to whom that ad appears.

Best of all you only pay for results. If your ad doesn’t get clicked, you don’t pay. It does not matter how many computer screens your ad appears on, or how many impressions it makes, those are all yours free of charge.

For more information on Google AdWords follow the link http://bit.ly/9bhqHB


Social Networking-

You may not like them for personal use, but there is no denying that social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn can be very powerful tools for your business.

Twitter and Facebook allow you to connect with clients and customers on a more personal level and if utilized properly can be very effective promotional tools.

LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to connect with leaders in your industry, join groups of like-minded individuals, or reconnect with old friends and colleagues.

With the introduction of Google Social Search, Social Networking Sites impact will continue to grow.

And as an added bonus they are free and as everyone knows free is awesome.

Create a Company Website/ Blog

Establishing a strong online presence is easier today then it ever has been and is also essential if you want your business to be a success.

There are many obvious reasons why you should have a website, but mainly it affords you the opportunity to expose your products or services to a larger customer base.

In today’s world most people understand that a website is an essential tool for their business, but some forget that establishing a company blog can be just as essential.

Blogs can help to increase traffic to your website, can position you as an expert in your industry, and afford greater visibility in search engines. All things which can help your business profit.

Outdoor Advertising

For a fraction of the cost of most “traditional methods” of advertising you can get some innovative, well designed, outdoor advertising that provides great ROI.

Vinyl banners, vehicle wraps, and signage are a really effective and cost friendly method to spread the word about your business, or advertise new services and products.

While not a method of advertising for those on a "shoe string" budget, vehicle wrap advertising in particular has been statistically proven to be one of the most effective methods of advertising that currently exists. 

Craigslist.org 

Another great way to spread the word about your business is by posting a free advertisement on Craigslist or similar sites. 

These postings if written with search engines in mind by targeting the correct keywords will be highly visible to those looking for your particular service or product and of course once again its totally free! 

Friday, March 12, 2010

5 Ways To Become A Social Media Super Star

By Matt Valentine

When you really think about what Social Media is, why it started, and why its become so popular, it boils down to one basic thing...a need for attention. It's that primal human instinct to be wanted, to be liked, and to be accepted. This instinct, originally engendered in us as a method for survival, has continually evolved around the social structures we create and so, where once we needed to belong to a tribe or clan as a way to ensure the continued existence of our species and our own personal survival, this instinct has taken on a new form. In todays day and age this instinct is shaped by a desire to be accepted and noticed on a mass scale, not because it is necessary to survive, but simply because it makes us feel feel all warm and fuzzy and special when people pay attention to us.

Now, some of you may be thinking that this isn't true. That you use Social Media as a means to project your expertise, to let people know about your business, to fill your friends in about whats going on in your life, etc. etc. but let me ask you one simple question: If a tweet doesn't get retweeted does it make a sound?

The simple fact is Social Media is a numbers game. We are all in it for more followers, more fans, more friends,more retweets, more likes, more whatever, and anyone who says otherwise is a liar!

But, enough with the serious talk and on to the reason why you came here in the first please becoming a Social Media Super Star!

Allow me to take you on a little journey, a quest if you will. Allow me to be your Sherpa on your mountainous traverse to becoming a Social Media Super Star!And on too...

THE LIST

1. Be a Gorgeous Woman

Unless you are a really ridiculously good looking man, much like myself, one sure fire way to become a Social Media Super Star is to be, or become a good looking lady; because if there is one thing social media nerds of the male variety like more then social media itself, its hot women who like social media. Look it up, its a fact.

If you're not a beautiful woman and you don't want to invest the money to turn yourself into one (sex changes are not as simple as they look), a simple suggestion would be to find and use the picture of a hot woman as your profile picture. Tip: try to get permission first, or risk suffering the legal ramifications.

2. Be Someone Who is Already a Celebrity or Athlete

Believe it or not already being famous seems to be a great launching pad toward Social Media stardom.You can even be a huge douche like Ashton Kutcher and still have a strong following.  Yea, I don't get it either, but stats don't lie. The real question is how does one become a celebrity in the real world?

Becoming a celebrity in the "real world" is no easy task, well relatively speaking anyway. My advice, have a bunch of kids, the more the better, if you can top somewhere in the vicinity of 20 you're a ready made star, (this is more of a long term strategy), if instant stardom is what you're after have 8 or 9 kids in one shot and I can almost gaurantee a contract with TLC will be waiting for you in the nursery of the hospital.  This strategy is the only one I could think of that nearly everyone can do, because let's face it if you were going to become a star athlete I am pretty sure it would have happened already.

3. Be Unique, Very Funny, or Find Someone Who is and Exploit Them


For most of our lives many of us have been led to believe that we are special and unique, like beautfiful snowflakes. Let me just clear this little misconception up right now, you're not and you never will be and anyone who told you otherwise was probably obligated to by law or by paternal instincts.

If we were all really that unqiue and always had unique and important things to say then there would be no such thing as trending topics on Twitter ( I know, pretty sound logic, because how could anything be trendy if we were all saying wonderfully unique things?). So, tweeting that Corey Haim died just 20 short years after his career did, while completely awesome and hilarious and possibly offensive does not qualify as being unique.

In fact, here's a little test. Ask ten people what makes them unique and see if more then two of them have an answer that actually makes sense. Personally, I have an awesome answer because I have three nipples and that totally qualifies as unique, but most people will not even come close to that level.

What was I talking about? Oh right, will since you're not unique and being funny is a gift god bestows upon so few of us you're going to have to find and exploit someone who is funny or unique, or you could just pay me to do it...either way.

Finding this person will be difficult. As previously stated, funny and unique people are rare breeds and seeing as how most of these people are probably already using some form of Social Media, finding one that isn't will makes this task that much more difficult.

I recommend finding on old person. This old person should be generally grumpy, but capable of dropping charming tidbits of wisdom about life much like the Old Man on Pawn Stars (if you don't know who that is look it up, that guy is amazing) or this guys dad http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays cus he's funny too.


4. Be an Animal 


Are you an animal? Can you type? If you answered yes to these questions then I have no idea why you're reading this because in all likely hood you already have a bigger following then most people do. If you are not already an animal the chances of you one day becoming an animal are sadly enough, pretty slim. I know, it's depressing. I'm just hoping I live long enough to see science catch up with my dream of becoming a Beagle. No, not the dog, but a hybrid bear/eagle. Much like this:


In case you were wondering this cat http://twitter.com/sockington has over 1.5 million followers and counting.


5. Be the Founder of a Social Media Site


Everyone knows Tom from MySpace mainly because we've all been forced to become friends with him, but thats the point. If you are the founder of a social media site you can literally force people to be friends with you. So what are you waiting for? Go make it happen.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Sneaky Little Trade Show Success Secrets of the Pros Seminar




Hello everyone. 


I’d like to thank all those in attendance at the seminar myself and Michael Lake presented last night at the senior center in Warwick, New York. The presentation was a great success and we hoped that you all walked away with some new knowledge about trade show presentations and had some fun while doing so.


If you weren’t able to attend and would like to see what the seminar was all about, or you just enjoyed it so much you want some more, a brief video demonstrating some of the basic topics covered during the seminar can be found here: http://kdf-comp.blogspot.com/2010/02/trade-show-success-secrets-of-pros.html 


Once again, I would like to thank all in attendance and remind you that if you have any questions, I am always available to discuss your trade show and large format graphic needs, as well as, all the other services KDF provides. So please feel free to contact me at: steve@kdf-comp.com. Thank you all. 

Sincerely, 

Stephen Hoey