Awhile back I wrote an article about Undergrounds Coffeehaus in Fort Lauderdale, who opened two months ago to begin brewing for the coffee lovers and those simply seeking an alternative to the nearby bar. This small business does not have their own website with its own domain name. All the have is a MySpace profile page.

This got me thinking. Does a small business really need their own domain name to establish a presence on the web? In a word, no. Undergrounds Coffeehaus is just another example of a small business who is leveraging the power of social media. Social media describes the use of online technologies and practices that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives. It is the building of an online network of friends that can generate either positive or negative word of mouth for a business. For those of you looking to start up a business and do not have enough money to build a website, consider signing on with one of the social media sites. It does not have to be a custom design and fancy looking. A plain and simple one will do just fine. If you have the money to build a website, signing on with social media sites will expand the brand of your website.

Undergrounds Coffeehaus, still alive and kicking, has built a powerful friends space and keeps them informed about events happening at the establishment. However, can they do much more with their MySpace profile page to build their brand on the web? Absolutely! For example, using the groups feature, they can create discussion groups on a variety of topics, such as having online reading groups discussing your favorite book, or having discussions with local artists who are having their work featured at the company. Undergrounds Coffeehaus is currently featuring the artwork of Travis Wright. To expand their brand on the web and on the MySpace community, a group discussion page can be set up to allow the artist, Travis Wright, to discuss his artwork and his inspirations.

Obviously if you have your own domain name, leveraging social media in this manner to promote your website is a valuable tool that cannot be ignored. Knowing your target audience is key to effectively leveraging social media to build your online brand. MySpace is geared towards the twenty-somethings, whereas Ryze is focused on the working professional. There are other social media sites out there, such as Newsvine, Hi5, Friendster, and FaceBook.

The key is to know your target audience and tailor your group discussions towards that audience. As the group discussion grows in popularity, more people will see the link to your website, thus will click on it for more information. You are also building relevant links to your website, and in the eyes of Google, is powerful enough to increase your page rank as well as search rankings. Quality, and relevant backlinks are still a major factor in page rank.

Other small business resources that can be used to build a web presence with or without a website include the use of the Google Local Business Center, Google Base Online Classifieds, and Google MyMaps. The Google Base Online Classifieds can be tied in with a pay-per-click campaign. Google Notebooks, the equivalent to Microsoft OneNote, has proven to provide good search rankings. You can add links to websites that you find on the web to your Google Notebook, and share with the world by making it public. I have created several Google Notebooks for a variety of websites, and those websites have shown up in the search results.

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I was browing through Craigslist looking for freelance web projects when I came across an ad. This person was looking to create a MySpace page so that she could blog about real estate trends, investment, etc.

She said that she needed someone to create an image and profile and marketing effort setting up and maintaining a MySpace page. She claims to be a 30 yr old female, former model now in commercial real estate in New York City trying to get more clients and business. She wants a photo section obviously but also wants to have a Realty Blog section where she can talk about real estate trends, real estate investing, forecasts, recent deal signings, dealmakers, etc that will help her get more business. Basically she is trying to get alot of exposure and more clients.

As I gave this some thought, I responded to her ad with my thoughts on how to effectively utilize social media after thinking about what search engine marketing really is.

Some of the naive people continue to think that seo and search engine marketing are two completely different animals, when in fact, SEO is really a part of SEM. To better help you explain this, take a piece of paper and draw three circles in a triangular pattern. Have one circle at the top, and two circles at the bottom. In the top circle, write in SEM. In the bottom two circles, write in SEO and PPC respectively. What this simple diagram shows is that search engine marketing consists of two categories: search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the free, organic links, while Pay-per-click are the paid links. Being ranked in the organic search results has much more value than pay-per-click since most of the clicks come from the organic listings.

I began to tell her that she should start a blog as a standalone brand with its own optimized domain name. To find an optimized domain name, begin thinking about what you want your blog to be about. In this example it would be about real estate investing. Do a check in Overture to see how many searches your targeted keyphrase is attracting. Next, type that phrase into Google with the quotes around it to see how many competing pages are presented. By using quotes, you asking Google to show only those pages that exactly match your keyphrase. This is your primary competition. To be effective at ranking, the number of competing pages should be less than 1,500.

After you have chosen your targeted key phrase and registered it as a domain name, you can create a MySpace profile page that is very simple and basic. Download FriendBlasterPro and use it to find and add friends to your friend list. Next, create a group on MySpace. If you are into real estate, then call the discussion group “Real Estate Investing for Beginners.” Since the audience at MySpace are typically twenty-somethings, you can then tailor this group discussion to the twenty-something crowd that exists on MySpace that interested in real estate.

You can do the same thing by creating a Ryze account. The audience on Ryze is effectively working professionals; so you can create a group also titled “Real Estate Investing.” However, the discussion needs to be tailored towards the working professional since the majority of users on Ryze are working or mid-career professionals. There is one thing to note. To create a group on Ryze, you must upgrade to at least the Gold Membership. The free account does not allow you to create groups.

So if you are a real estate professional looking to establish a web presence, here you have two target markets: the twenty-somethings and the mid-career working professional. By conducting and moderating these group discussions on these two communities, it will expose your blog as a standalone brand and strengthen it; allowing you to be seen as an expert in this area.

Since MySpace and Ryze are both trusted sites in the eyes of Google, this can allow you to effectively use social media to promote your websites, thus increasing your rankings as a result. You will also have incoming links coming from trusted sites that will be related to your blog. When link building, you want to stay away from reciprocal linking since Google is beginning to discount these types of links. Creating discussion forums on sites such as MySpace and Ryze and dropping a link to your web site is a more effective way of link building and using social media.

Popularity: 10% [?]

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By Liz Handlin

I was talking to a client today about what kind of accomplishments he should list on his resume. This particular client is in a sales job so pretty much everything he does is measured with numbers. Measurable results are the very best accomplishments you can list on your resume.

Here are a couple of examples of measurable accomplishments that look great on a resume:

“Achieved 110percent of 2006 quota of $50 million in sales.”

“Created and launched a marketing program to promote our new software package that generated $400,000 in sales within the first month of the campaign.”

Sometimes quantifying results can be challenging because (a) your job doesn’t have any obvious metrics, or (b) because financial information at your company is highly confidential. The way to work around such constraints is to be creative about the information you share. For example:

If you are an administrative employee with few quantifiable results available for your job you can list accomplishments like this:

“Consistently received performance appraisals of 5 (outstanding) on a scale of 1 - 5 where 1 is needs improvement and 5 is outstanding”

or

“Awarded Employee of the Month in October 2006 by senior management for exceeding expectations and completing our department’s voice mail implementation ahead of schedule”

If you can’t discuss actual revenue or cost reduction numbers, you can describe percentages such as:

“Increased revenue in the North American operation by 70percent between 2000 - 2004″

or

“Reduced costs by 50percent by improving operating efficiencies and reducing employee turnover”

They key to a great resume is to describe your accomplishments rather than simply offering a laundry list of your day-to-day duties. Companies want to hire employees who deliver results and by listing accomplishments on your resume you show potential employers the kind of results that you can drive.

About Liz Handlin

http://ultimate-resumes.blogspot.com/2007/05/best-accomplishments-include-metrics.html

This article is courtesy of Recruiting Blogswap at http://www.recruitingblogswap.com , a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com at http://www.collegerecruiter.com/, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

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Dealing with office politics can be a tricky situation. When dealing with office politics, you are people co-exist in an office relating to that organization. A supervisor at a company with a temporary workforce of 70% has a serious issue to content with. She was moved from an office to a 1/2 cube when she was on maternity leave. She was told months ago she was next to have an office when 1 opens up. Well, 2 are open and mgmt plans to move temporary workers into them. She feels upset becuase she is a permanent, higher level employee who has been with the company over seven years. Her cube is not suffient for storage, as she also has the office purchasing agent, manager of security, medical and safety.

First of all, it sounds as if management at this company is involved in playing favorites. From a practical standpoint, why would you give an office to someone who is classified as a temporary worker? I personally do not know of too many temporary workers that were given a private office. In companies that I have been in, a few are given a cubicle, while most are not given any permanent desk. In other words, they would get whatever desk is available at that given time.

However, for this case, I would NOT approach management from the perspective that you “deserve” an office due to your longetivity (i.e. “permanent”)status. Management will then see you as a whiner. Think in terms of making a business case for the kind of work space you need. Talk about the kind of information you must store in your work area, in terms of both volume and sensitivity and confidentiality. Also talk about what you do that may require privacy - are you helping staff with health claims or employee relations issues? If that doesn’t work, begin a search for a new job.

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Search engine marketing tips about search engine optimization, internet marketing, SEO tools, SEM chat and high tech forum.

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It has been a proven fact that an increasing number of women are entering the workforce at alarming rates. Many of these women are single moms who are trying to support their children. Many employers still frown on the fact that women have to take time off from work to care for their children; resulting in fewer opportunities for growth. As a result, many women are venturing out on their own to start their own businesses. It seems to be their only way to get ahead in the business world. This is where Mommy Mentors comes in. Mommy Mentors, a social network for women, was founded in 2004 as a resource for all women– young and old, single, married or divorced, mother or not –to come to find nuturing support to grow personally and professionally.

Popularity: 7% [?]

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