I’d like to invite you all to a virtual conference to be held online this weekend. Just use a service like tweetchat.com and enter the hashtag #usxsw (that’s on Twitter, so you will need a Twitter account). Check out the schedule for each of the days (I’m hosting a chat...  More »

Dear New Business Owner, I’ve been where you are. I don’t envy you the path of the next few years. But I do want to encourage you and pass on a couple of things I’ve learned in the last 2.5 years. 1. Having a new business is kind of like...  More »

About 5 years ago my wife Jill told me that she wished I would help the kids make more handmade gifts for her. So in my infinite wisdom I decided that it would be easy to make a candle with the kids and she would really like it. I remember...  More »

I was honored when my friend Margie Clayman asked me to participate in her Women and Social Media series. I even knew what I wanted to write about- how women and men seem to use social media differently, with men tending more towards using the various platforms to “get ahead”,...  More »

Most businesses have realized by now that social media (SM) is the new frontier in marketing. Of the many choices, Facebook and Twitter have become the standout social media platforms for most new marketing initiatives. With millions of users worldwide, both Twitter and Facebook are excellent avenues to pursue and...  More »

If you’re involved with social media (particularly Twitter), you probably know what Klout is. If not, here’s the brief summary. Klout is a metric that measures your online influence and sums it up as a number. Some people live and die by their Klout number, holding fiestas when they gain...  More »

Most small businesses put quite a bit of thought into their marketing. After all, you can have the best business in the world, but if no one knows about it, you won’t be around for long. But what’s the best way to spread the word about your business? Do you...  More »

1. It is important. As of June 2010, social media accounts for one in every 4.5 minutes spent online, according to Nielsen. New studies indicate that by 2015, 94 % of smart phone users will communicate through social networks, outranking voice and text. So if it’s worth having a presence...  More »

The two most intimidating things about social media for small business owners are keeping up and knowing where to start. Keeping up is certainly an issue. There’s the question of finding time to keep up with actually creating and implementing your social media plan, and then there’s keeping up with...  More »

We just finished the design for a local upscale Italian restaurant here in Houston, TX. We really enjoyed working with the owner on this one. Check it out by clicking here. We are also running their Facebook and twitter campaigns. So if you are interested in how we run a...  More »