Small Biz Trends Small Business Influencer Awards 2012: My Recommendations ~ Links for Easy Daily Voting

Each year, Small Business Trends hosts the Small Business Influencer Awards to recognize the Top Influencers in the Small Business Market.

981 approved nominees are listed for the 2012 SmallBizTrends Influencer Awards.

These are the nominees I feel will most benefit my readers
and small businesses based on my years of experience.

Here is how the awards voting works:

Those nominated are judged 40% by voting where each person may vote once every 24 hours for as many nominees as they choose.To make it much easier for me to support those I collaborate with or admire, I create a post that provides links for easy voting.

“New for 2012 is a completely separate category of award, called the
Community Choice Awards, based 100% on the community voting.”

I encourage you to vote daily to support key people we know and those who have exceptional and recognized expertise in their specialties.If you are nominated, I recommend you DO vote for yourself as well, so I include GrowMap in the recommendations found below.

Below you will find my @SMBizTrends
2012 picks as Small Business Influencers

Vote for each influencer you choose by CLICKING THE LINKS that say >>> VOTE FOR [Their voting link]

These are people who are widely recognized as experts in their respective specialties. Most I have interacted with while others I have recommended for years but they don’t know me.

Conspicuously absent are any nominations related to conversion optimization or landing page testing so I haven’t included any experts yet. I may add them here later.

Follow the social media action surrounding
the Small Business Influencer Awards
on  Twitter @SMBinfluencer
or using the hashtag #SMBinfluencer

There are hundreds of other nominees, so if you can make the time you may want to peruse the many pages of other nominees to see who else is there.

I included in my picks the very best experts – many of whom I
have been learning from online for going on eighteen years now.

I hope some appreciate the many hours that go into an effort such as this from paging through every page of nominations to adding all those links to make checking them out and voting daily easier for my readers.

Do please consider voting daily for those who give away
their time and expertise so that others may succeed.

Disclosure: GrowMap is a media sponsor – by choice – for the Small Business Trends Influencer Awards and the Small Business Trends Small Business Book Awards.

Top Small Business Books – How My Picks for
SmallBizTrends 2012 #BizBookAwards Finished

Tagged as: small business, small business experts, small business resources, social media marketing

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How to Use Twitter for Business

There are various ways Twitter can be used for business. It’s a great platform for potential customers to be introduced to a product and to gain affinity for the business.
People all over the world can read your tweets and learn more about your company. Twitter has the ability to make a company grow in popularity and success.
First let’s hear from Murray Newlands with some tips on how to tweet successfully:

A company’s presence on Twitter shows how popular they really are with customers. One of the easiest ways to grow in presence is by having a good profile with a clear picture and a personal description. This allows potential followers to know what your business does. Users can easily identify the company when they see it outside of Twitter and know who they are.
Active engagement with Twitter users is needed to keep a company’s presence popular on Twitter. Having conversations with users on the public timeline allows others to join and increases engagement for the company.
Make your tweets re-tweetable so others can share them with friends and re-tweet a user when they mention the company or it’s products. This shows followers that you are aware of their presence and respect their opinions.

Get More Tips in the GrowMap Twitter Best Practices Roundup
[TIP: Right click on that link and open it in a new tab
so you can read it AFTER you finish THIS post.]

Twitter is highly valuable when launching a new product. Tweets that promote contests or show sneak peaks of a product can create buzz. This can lead to more potential sales by fans that become invested in the company by tweeting and re-tweeting about a product.
The product can be a success months in advance of its release based solely on the conversations people are having about it on Twitter.
Highlights:
Gaining more followers on Twitter using simple methods.Interacting with users daily helps a company’s online presence.Businesses can create buzz for products by interacting with followers.

Be sure to click on this link to get your free white paper
on increasing and improving your business Twitter presence.
Click Here >>>  How to Get More Twitter Followers

Twitter chat Thursday July 12, 2012
4:00 EDT / 3:00 CDT / 2:00 MDT / 1:00 PDT
Using Twitter Effectively for Bloggers
(Tips ARE applicable to businesses, too.)

See the points to be discussed at BlogEngage
Use Tweetchat to join in and ask questions or just
search for #BlogEngage at the appointed time.

Tagged as: small business, smm, social media, Twitter

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