Best Damn Site for Starting a Business: How to Write a Business Plan

Pardon the expletive, but I did a little web surfing yesterday and found one of the best step-by-step plans for “How to Write a Business Plan” on Mahalo, a human-powered search engine. There are all sorts of other resources that you can find in the article including how to write your marketing plan.

If you’re starting a business or reviewing your business plan, this is a great place to start.  And, if you don't have a business plan, you really should put some of your thoughts and company direction in written form somewhere.  While it doesn't have to be as comprehensive as the guide on Mahalo, putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) will help you think things through.  Writing down your thoughts will bring clarity, serve as a reminder and keep you on track.  In my experience, entrepreneurs really have a lot of drive, but they need to focus it in a direction and be disciplined about it. 

As for Mahalo, I have no idea what it’s supposed to be.  Human-powered search engine?  What the heck is that? 

Twitter for Tech PR

OK.  I’m completely obsessed with Twitter. So sue me.  If you’ve been on Twitter, you might be asking yourself, what the hell am I supposed to do with this?  So, I can blast out every move I make, where I am and read the same about other people’s lives.  But, who cares?  The question should be “what’s the practical use?”  I work with a lot of marketing/media clients and, for the most part, they get it. But for my tech PR clients, they haven’t quite made the leap yet.

Twitter is a utility to reach influencers, prospects and other important audiences.  Granted that at least 60% of the tweets are about getting coffee, venting and seemingly useless information, but when you look closely, is it really?  There are discussions on what people are interested in, what they are reading and industry debates.  The reason it’s important, the people are your target audience in some way shape or form.

Visibility is the key reason for why tech companies (or any company) should use Twitter – from the CEO to the head of sales to your marketing/PR department.  And, Twitter retains loyal little Tweeters as outlined in Gregor Hochmuth’s TechCrunch article - Why Twitter Hasn’t Failed: The Power of the Audience

1-      Get to know reporters and become part of their conversations.  Reporters are people too  and have lives, special interests, hobbies and viewpoints.  Follow your Tweets and becoming smarter about who they are.  More importantly, get into the conversation, share your viewpoints and show your expertise.  It’s a great way to become a resource to individual reporters and, potentially, to make it into their articles.

2-      Twitter is a great way to get to know your clients and to generate prospective leads, especially if you’re targeting the C-suite executive.  If you’re targeting CIOs or their direct reports, it’s nearly impossible to break the barrier using traditional marketing tactics.  The IT folks are so skeptical about marketing – even of their own internal marketing communications.  So, get on Twitter and start getting to know these folks.  Make sure you start a conversation with them on a topic they care about, not what you want to talk about.

      3-      Connect to influencers in your industry or even in vertical industries.  See what they are saying about trends, your competitors and your company. Industry analysts, pundits and prominent bloggers are (nearly) all on Twitter. You just can’t miss this opportunity.

4-      Keep an eye on your competition by seeing what they are tweet, tweet, tweeting about.  I’ll bet you lunch that they are keeping and eye on you….and, if not, their lost.

I admit I'm obsessed.  But Twitter is a great microblogging tool and it's served me well.  You won't be instantly gratified and you definitely need to spend some time building up your social media connections and participate in conversations, but when Twitter does "give back", it'll be worth it.

Why Blog?

I recently had three separate conversations about blogging and was surprised to find that people still think that blogging is social media marketing and that it’s a great strategy.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Blogging is not a strategy. It’s a tactic that should fit into an overarching strategy. 

So, why would you need a blog?

1-      To build a community and communicate with them effectively

2-      To target select communities – influencers, investors, customers, prospects, etc. If you’re a start-up, you can use your blog to communicate vision.

3-      Create a second online destination site for you company (the primary site being the company website).  A great example would be Approva’s blog.  Approva is a company  that deals with risk, compliance and operations and the official site is the usual corporate sell.  But the Approval blog has great information on the topics of risk, compliance and operations AND serves as a platform to launch campaigns, such as the singing CPA belting out Happy Birthday to Sarbanes-Oxley. That crazy online campaign spread quickly and really jacked up the eyeballs to the site.

4-      Get your groove on and become the expert you’re meant to be.  Just do it publicly.

5-      It helps with search engine optimization.  Big time.

6-      Great way to attract employees to your culture as blogs is less formal than website (usually).

7-      Get early feedback to your ideas or validate assumptions.

People have to stop thinking of blogs as just another marketing vehicle and treating it as such.  Everyone – I’m betting yourself included – is sick of advertising and marketing double-speak.  So, stop treating online tactics as traditional marketing vehicles that carry company-focused message and start thinking about them as a method to show your smarts.  Everything else around building a blog then becomes tactical to support the strategy.

The conversation about having a blog is similar to the one about having a public relations program.  You want it.  You know you need one.  But, you’re not sure why.  If you have defined goals and an overarching strategy to support those goals, you now have the answer to the question of why. 

Look for my upcoming topics on blogs as this is only just the beginning:

·         What the blog are you talking about?

·         If a blog falls in the forest, but no one is around to hear it….

·         One o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock…blog.

·         Where in the world does my blog belong?

·         Blog-a-licoius; Twitter me Pink; Ning the Subject

Free Media Relations Tools For Just About Anyone

More than ever, companies can do some basic media relations internally instead of hiring a company. Now, it hurts me to say that, but it’s absolutely true.  The gotcha moment is always when the person assigned to go after media has to spend time research, reaching out and having conversations or building relationships with reporters.  They’ll find it isn’t so easy and it’s time consuming.  At the end of the day, I believe these companies will hire someone to help them and I’ll be there to lend a hand.

Some tools that companies can use:

Help a Reporter or HARO – a free service delivering specific reporter requests 3Xs a day

HubSpot’s Press Release Grader – evaluates and grades your release based on language and content, search optimization and marketing effectiveness (don’t use industry jargon!). It’s a little bit like handing in your first book report.  I’m not a big fan of press releases as I believe they are over-used.  There should be a reason for a release and it should be written not as marketing or sales fodder. 

Mondo Times – a media directory to find newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations around the world by local media or by major media outlets by topic.  A good place to start if you don’t have access to the PR industry’s supersized media database, Cision.

As I’ve said, I’m not too fond of releases in the first place, but if we have one and need to use a wire service, I would suggest PRWeb with the BusinessWire add-on feature if it’s really newsworthy.  Using BusinessWire and the dreaded PRNewswire are just too expensive.  Spending nearly $1000 or more on sending out a release makes me cringe.  I think the only companies who should do that are major brands with hot, hot, hot news, a company with news that could change the world or an industry, or a company with very deep pockets.  OK…there are other scenarios, but those would be my top 3. 

If you believe Jason Calacanis of Silicon Alley Insider, he believes that anyone can fire up the old PR engine and even outlines how in his August On How to Get PR For Your Startup: Fire Your PR Company blog entry.  It’s an interesting read and Jason has many valid points, but he’s forgetting about the time and resources needed to pursue media.  My take is that the CEO – even of a small start-up company – has other priorities.  Jason happens to be amazing at self-promotion, but majority of CEOs are not – either because they don’t have the time or the inclination.

Another great read, Brain Solis wrote PR Secrets for Startups earlier this year as a 12-step program (my words, not his) that is a great guide for any company even thinking about PR or getting some ink.

Lastly, I want to point out to you that “getting ink” is not the only aspect of public relations.  It’s driven me crazy that people think that the only thing PR people do is publicity.  It’s only one aspect and if the tools that promotional-savvy executives coming out of Gen Y are an indication of where PR is heading, all you “I’m a publicist”-only folks may want to think about sharpening up your other skills.

4 Online Survival Tools for Just about Anyone

Whether your a small business or a multinational organization, here are 4 online survival tools - especially if you're marketing, PR or sales.

1- Constant Contact - For staying in touch with customers and prospects.  It's a great way to get announcements out, newsletters and other forms of communications. 

2- Evernote - I'm betting that you're like me.  You have a lot to remember and a lot to do, but not enough time for it all.  Well....ever since finding this clever "remember anything and everything" online tool, I don't have to rely on memory. 

3- Trillian - Who has time to sign onto 4 different IMs?  As a virtual marketing communications firm, we've found that a combination of tools keep us all connected.  Instant messages are still the best way - even with the clients, reporters, industry analysts and our partners.  But, everyone is on a different IM.  So, Trillian helps keep it altogether.

4- Addict-omatic - A way to track trends, company/competitors and just about any anything.