Everyone writes and blogs about trends and predictions for the coming year, so we’ll join the crowd. John Arnold wrote about 10 online marketing trends for 2010 on Entrepreneur.com. We’d like to list them here and debate whether or not we agree with his assessment to “test, invest or rest” the tactics. Many we agree on but there are a few we disagree with so here’s ou...

Is your small business a franchise, or are you interested in running a franchise? If so then you don’t want to miss the #smbiz Twitter chat on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2010, from 8-9 pm ET. Join the first #smbiz chat of the new year for a special session focused on running a franchise. Joel Libava, The Franchise King, will be our special guest answering all kinds of questions that pertain to operati...

You’ve heard it before: social networking sites are useful tools for finding and connecting with new clients. But what are the best ways to do that? How can you use LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to find new clients? In this blog post I’m going to let you in on a few secrets and give you a guide to getting started on these social networking sites. LinkedIn Linkedin is a powerful networking too...

Here are six great small business marketing ideas that are easy to implement for any entrepreneur. 1. Position yourself as an expert If a client sees an article that answers some of their key questions, written by an expert (YOU), they are more likely to trust your company. Here are a few suggestions on becoming an expert: Expert Articles Find an industry publication and contact the editor about w...

Small business owners and entrepreneurs view marketing and PR differently than at the beginning of 2009. Is it safe to say a year from now small business will have again made significant strides in the kind of marketing they’re doing for the companies? After all, two years ago it was a little strange to think a small business owner would be so focused on social media. But look at all the ent...

The following UnderstandingMarketing.com column is a first-hand view of how to implement small business marketing strategies. As a small business owner we are often required to be a jack-of-all trades. And, seeing as how there are not too many degrees to that effect, it is often through a combination of entrepreneurial intuition, diligent research and experience from school of hard knocks that we...