Google+ is entering into the Wild West of Social Media against heavy hitter favourites Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn. Is a showdown on its way? Nope. The truth is, there is no need for a showdown as each product has a purpose and benefit that is different and distinct. I read an article recently posted by my favourite site, Inc.com which raises many good points on why you should get using using Google+. Here are another batch of reasons why Google+ is worth your time and effort.

1. It’s owned by Google

It is owned by Google who happens to own the top search engine around. Using Google+ increases your Google ranking and search-ability.

2. Recruiters are using it

It is being used by recruiters now as it has fewer restrictions than LinkedIn. So if you are in recruiting (or want to be recruited) you should get familiar with it.

3. It’s not congested (yet)

Google+ gets your message seen by more people because it isn’t a congested social media space like Twitter and Facebook.

4. Circles can become an online database of contacts

Google+ allows you to create as many categories of contacts as you need (a.k.a. “Circles”), almost like an online database for you business contacts.

5. It’s a hub of productivity

It can become your workspace hub of productivity: In one space you can work with your Google apps, track/research topics of interest in your industry and network with other like minded people.

After checking my Google+ stream I came across this glowing recommendation from digital guru Amber Mac:

Dear Google+ users,

I’m starting to love you more and more. As my entire social stream continues to explode with tiny meaningless updates (including a few of my own – oops), it’s a treat to jump over here and discover a little more depth.

Enough said. Go register for Google+.

—Leigh Mitchell discovered entrepreneurship when she was 12 years old. However, wanting “job security” she decided to settle into the security of a career in health promotion marketing.  While on maternity leave Leigh spent time connecting with women on Twitter and then decided to take the online relationships to the next level with in-person events. That, in turn, became the Women in Biz Network, which specializes in connecting, empowering and training digital women entrepreneurs through workshops, conferences and online learning. Leigh has been featured on CBC Radio, the Toronto Star, the Globe & Mail and in other media, and was a speaker at Blissdom Canada – Canada’s first social media conference for women.

womeninbiznetwork.com
@womenbiznetwork
Leigh@womeninbiznetwork.com

Wave is 100% free online accounting for small businesses. Save time, save money and eliminate headaches, while getting on top of your finances.

Wave is taking part in some of these events, including the Small Business Forum which occurred Tuesday (October 18th) and the Financial Technology Show coming up today (October 20th).  To continue our celebrations, we’ve complied this list of awesome blog posts for small business owners.  Whether you’re planning to launch soon, just starting out, or a seasoned entrepreneur looking to finesse their business practices, we’re hoping you’ll find some helpful advice below.

Launching your small business

• Top 5 misconceptions about running your own business
• Angels vs VCs: Which is right for you?
• How start-up barriers can help you succeed
• High tech, low tech, any tech: Know your target market

Daily operations

• 7 ways to control chaos in your small business
• Cashflow: The lifeblood of every small business
• A smart brand strategy trumps small business marketing
• How to set performance standards for your startup’s new hires

Managing your tech presence

• Get your Canadian business online: Google gives small businesses in Canada free .ca domain, website
• Using social media to market your small business
• Are blogs a meaningful tool for startups and small businesses?
• Ultra effective brand reputation management tactics
• A guide to starting your small business blog

I see a lot of skepticism about social media from photographers in various online forums. A recent comment on the business forum at NatureScapes.Net, for example, stated that there are “no clear examples of anyone ever having any success marketing in this fashion,” that social media has never helped sell “hundreds of units of anything,” and that, therefore, it is a waste of time.

The truth is, social networks can be a waste of time for photographers, if you don’t leverage them wisely. But dismissing their value out of hand is a huge mistake.

Social Media = Word of Mouth

Used well, social media is a highly effective form of word-of-mouth marketing. For example, I hear all the time that (insert name of wedding/commercial photographer here) doesn’t have to actively market his/her work anymore because he/she is getting so much referral business from (insert form of social media here).

It’s not difficult to understand why this is the case.

In the old days (that is, a few years ago), a bride who absolutely loved your work at her wedding might have gushed about you to a few people in her social circle — and shown the photos to an even smaller number. Today, she can put up the whole gallery on Facebook or e-mail the link to your blog post on her wedding to all the guests, reaching hundreds of people at once.

If one of that bride’s friends is considering hiring a wedding photographer, who is she more likely to call — someone out of the phone book or who places ads in wedding magazines, or someone who comes highly recommended from a person she trusts?

Buying In

Certainly, it’s smart to approach social media marketing with both eyes open — and to think about the reasons the naysayers cite for their skepticism.

Here are five:

1. It can be a time sucker if you let it.
2. It’s difficult to be heard over all the “noise.”
3. Very few of the people you interact with are potential customers.
4. There’s no tried and true methodology for success.
5. Measuring effectiveness can be difficult.

To these arguments, I would counter with these five responses:

1. It doesn’t have to disrupt your day. You can conduct your social media activities on your iPhone while on a subway commute.
2. The cream tends to rise to the top, just as it does for traditional marketing.
3. You can reach much larger audiences for less money than ever before.
4. There are a lot of opportunities to make a name for yourself through innovation.
5. Brand awareness has real value, even if it is hard to quantify.

Social media is not for everyone, nor every type of business out there. But if you want to take advantage of this little thing called the Internet to build your business, it is essential.

What the skeptics might not realize is that by posting a comment on NatureScapes.Net, or even by reading Black Star Rising, they are already buying in to social media — and adding to its marketing power.

—Richard Wong

Richard is a Los Angeles photographer and his portfolio ranges from the front cover of Budget Travel magazine to in-store displays at Whole Foods Market.

Richard Wong Photography

RWongPhoto.com/
LinkedIn.com/pub/richard-wong/3/4b5/34b
Twitter.com/RWPhoto

James Cavanaugh recently posed this question to members of LinkedIn’s ASMP group: “A client wants you to create photographs that they can use on social sites so they can ‘go viral’ to promote their company. It means potentially countless people may use your copyrighted work. How would you approach such a request?”

I suggest handling the job as an all-rights assignment. Forget about copyright. Make sure you earn enough from the assignment to cover your costs, overhead and profit. Since it is highly unlikely that your name will remain attached to social network uses, do not discount your price based on some imagined promotional value.

And do not worry about — or expect to earn anything from — residuals, but do retain the right to license other non-exclusive rights to use the images.

There is no way we will ever control the use of imagery made available on social network sites, so stop agonizing over it, accept the paradigm shift of our industry and adapt to the new reality.

You have two choices. Either establish a fee that makes it worthwhile to produce the images without any hope of residuals, or refuse to do the job. Do not factor in, in any way, a potential value for residual use of the images.

[Everyone has different opinions on how to charge the client.  For a different view, check our our previous post, How to Start Your Photography Business.]

Calculating Your Fee

There is a simple formula for calculating what the fee should be. First look at all your overhead expenses to operate your business, not counting expenses specifically applicable to shooting various jobs. Assume $75,000.

Add what you need in take-home pay before taxes. Assume another $75,000.

Thus, the jobs you produce need to generate $150,000 annually.

Now, estimate how many jobs you will be able to do in a year given the pre- and post-production time and marketing time involved with each one. Let’s say 100.

Divide the number of jobs into the total you need to produce, and you get an average of $1,500 per job.

You should charge that fee per job, plus all the expenses related to the particular job. (Obviously, your own numbers may be higher or lower than these illustrative figures.)

Some jobs will take a lot longer than others. If the job is not going to take much time you might want to charge less, but when thinking about time involved do not forget pre- and post-production time, waiting time and travel. For those jobs that take a lot longer or are a lot more complicated, you want to charge proportionately more than your calculated average.

In some cases, you will want to take into account the value the customer will receive from using the images produced and add appropriate fees — for example, charging more if the images are to be used in a major ad.

Retaining Future Usage Rights

If the original customer is paying the full cost of producing the image, why retain the right to license other non-exclusive rights to use the image? Because there may be future opportunities to do so despite the wide distribution through social networking.

Do not count on the revenue such situations will bring — but do not preclude it, either.

For instance, someone may need a large file for a poster, a billboard or an ad, and you can license a non-exclusive use for such a purpose. You can also place the images into an online database where customers may find them easily. They will pay to use such images, even when the images are also available for free on a lot of social network sites, because they do not necessarily know about such sites or cannot easily find the image on them.

Keep in mind that some images on microstock sites have been downloaded more than 16,000 times — at microstock prices. Certainly, those images have been used occasionally on social network sites and your customers could find and use them without paying. But despite this fact, 16,000 customers have been willing to pay something to use these images.

The main reason they are willing to pay is that they are able to find the right image easily. But when they buy rather than steal the image, its creator benefits.

There is a good chance that any image you post on a microstock site will never earn more than a few dollars, but whatever it earns is additional profit — the proverbial icing on the cake — because you have already been fully compensated for the cost of producing the images.

Regardless of whether or not you try in some way to generate residual sales, the important thing is to not depend, in any way, on such income to support your business or your lifestyle.

— Jim Pickerell

Jim has been involved in stock photography since 1963, with over 35 years of experience as a photographer. He also started writing at www.selling-stock.com, an online newsletter that deals with the business aspects of stock licensing. More recently, he launched his website Photo Licensing Options in 2010 to provide individual consultations on pricing and stock photo industry related issues.

www.selling-stock.com
www.facebook.com/Jim-Pickerell
www.twitter.com/pickphoto
http://www.linkedin.com/jim-pickerell

Green and Smith are like two peas in a pod.  Not only does he work with sustainable businesses, he enjoys a sustainable lifestyle, too. By his own admission, he’s currently having a love affair with someone other than his wife: his bicycle.  “I ride it every day, whether to work, meandering about Portland to indulge my wanderlust, or challenging myself to set land speed records racing my wife home from the grocery store, she in her car.” Who wins? Paul, of course!

Paul’s primary clients are consumer product companies. Through already-established networks, Paul is able to reach the right people to get the best results.  It doesn’t hurt either that Paul has extensive knowledge in green business education which helps him build better and more eco-friendly businesses.

Before and After Wave

Before Wave, I would rather have trained a pack of Chihuahuas to be my Iditarod race team than do my accounting.

How did your accounting and bookkeeping look before Wave?

“I mostly ignored it/procrastinated, until I had to get things together for taxes. And in general, I’d leave it to my wife to track the day-to-day finances. Now, I’m telling you, user interface is everything – I found myself preferring to go onto Wave rather than my online banking interface!”

How does your accounting and bookkeeping look now?

“Squeaky clean! But seriously, I’m feeling lots more relaxed about it, between a system that capably manages both business and personal, a Wave staff that clearly cares about me having a good experience, things are looking good for 2011 onwards.”

Money Saved:

“Probably $150.”

And the best part?

“When I saw that Wave automatically updates account transactions every night, that was just a smile-producing clincher for me.”

Company Info

GreenSmith Consulting
http://greensmithconsulting.com/
paul@greensmithconsulting.com
http://twitter.com/#!/greensmith

Be a Wave featured customer

What’s your story? If you’d like to have your company profiled in Wave, please contact us at info@waveaccounting.com.

In typical deals, both the merchant and the deal site split the revenue. If a deal sells for $10, both sides receive $5. In the past, merchants absorbed almost 75% of the costs and saw minimal revenue. But in this fast growing business, retailers are finding ways to get a bigger piece of the pie.

Is Groupon good for small business?

What makes these deals appealing to small businesses? The ability to lure customers with minimal effort. For example, Groupon has more than 60 million users in over 500 markets, according to the WSJ piece. By participating in a Groupon, a small business can make an impression on millions of people.

But as the WSJ points out, the phenomenon isn’t without its problems. Many business owners say they don’t make any money on the deal itself, and only see a return if the customers come back another time to pay full price.

Some of the lessons to be learned from the article:

1) Read the fine print. An owner once overlooked a contract detail that ended up costing him $5,000 in shipping.

2) Look around for different options.  Some small businesses have found success on smaller deal sites, while others prefer larger ones. Study each one, and see what other merchants have done business with them in the past. This gives you an idea of what kind of customer the site is tailored to.

3) Use success of previous deals as leverage. For example, Avi Marko of KidsSocks.com offered a deal of $16 worth of goods for $8 on Mamapedia. The deal was ultimately bought by over 600 people. Later on, Marko decided to do the deal again but changed it to $20 worth of goods for $10. Due to his earlier success, he was able to keep Mamapedia’s cut at $4, increasing his revenue split to 60/40.

4) Don’t feel overwhelmed with sales pitches from dozens of deal sites. Take your time, and use the competition to structure a deal that works for you.

Enter the virtual assistant, or VA. I caught up with Sophie Zollmann, a Tennessee-based VA who’s been “helping entrepreneurs get out of overwhelm and back to doing what they love most” for 10 years.

Q. What are the most common tasks you do for your clients? Is that common for VAs?
A. The top 3 tasks I do for my clients are project management, email, calendar and social media management and website/blog management. These are common tasks for most VAs. Some VAs specialize in a particular area such as social media while others cover the VA task spectrum. I have a team of VAs working with me to be able to cover as many different tasks as may be needed by my clients and to help as many people as possible.

Q. Is there anything that really doesn’t work as a task to be outsourced to a VA?
A. In general, VAs can do almost anything a client can ask of them. Most VAs will have specific tasks they don’t do for various reasons and therefore don’t offer them. However, it doesn’t mean they cannot be done by another VA willing to do those particular tasks. That’s another way specialization comes into play for some VAs.

Q. What do people not understand about working with a VA?
A. VAs are your partner in business. They’re not just an assistant. They can help you in ways that a regular secretary cannot. One of the biggest advantages of hiring a VA is no overhead. We are independent contractors. You do not have to pay for office equipment, office space or benefits. We take care of all of that. By giving a VA the day-to-day tasks, the business owner can focus on the business itself. That means business growth and higher income potential. Plus, they can have more time for self-care, family and friends.

Q. When it comes to accounting or financial tasks, what do people most often look to VAs for?
A. VAs can set up and maintain a company’s bookkeeping software. We can create reports within that software to help them better manage their money especially the outgoing cash flow part. We can pay their bills, balance their check book, send out invoices to their clients, receive payments, and update their accounts accordingly. We can also manage collections for clients who get behind on their payments. We can research purchases and services they may need to locate the best quality and price before they buy.

Q. What financial tasks do small business owners most overlook, that a VA could help with?
A. Maintaining their books on a regular basis to keep them from a time-crunch situation at tax time each year.

Q. What about you? Do you outsource tasks for your own business?
A. Currently, I outsource the design and maintenance of my website. I also outsource any design changes I make to my Facebook pages as well as logo, business card and stationary design/updates. I have an accountant who handles taxes but I maintain my own books.

For more information about virtual assistants, or Sophie’s business offerings, visit SophieZo.com.

Though you can find thousands of blog posts on how to use Facebook for small business marketing, Brookes does a good job of cutting to the chase.

To my thinking, the two recommendations that small business owners need to pay most attention to:

1. Promote the local community: Adding to what Brookes says, you need to pay attention to the “social” part of social media. You have to be part of a community, and the conversation has to be two-way. When you set yourself up on Facebook, Twitter or any other social media vehicle, if your communication amounts to “Look at me!” you’ll find yourself alone very fast.

2. Encourage posts from your customers on your Facebook page. Yes, that means giving up some control over the message, and there’s a chance that a cranky customer might say something negative about you. But social media gets its power from the community, and the more engaged people are in your page – posting messages, photos, videos, etc. – the more marketing value you’ll get out of the exercise. You’ll even benefit from the classy way you deal with the cranks.

If you’re doing more self-study on social media, make sure you follow Mashable, the website all about Facebook, Twitter and the other social media beasts. You’ll find great info for beginners and experts alike, especially in its small business section.

(This entry originally appeared in an earlier version of the Wave Accounting blog for small business.)