Taking BIG Steps In Your Small Business – Join Us for A twitter #StartupChat on July 25th

Are you ready to take your small business and go BIG?

“Never let your small business make you small minded,” says Brendon Burchard.  Isn’t that good food for thought?

Do you ever get caught in that trap?  ”I can’t do _____, I’m just a small business/entrepreneur/solo-entrepreneur/mompreneur.”

Well, stop it!

(Wink.)

But, seriously, it’s time for you to take your business to all new places.  It’s time for you to get out of your own way and hit those sales goals.  It’s time to launch that new product.  It’s time to make more money!

That’s why we’re partnering with DailyCandy on next week’s #StartupChat.  We’re going to share with you some ideas and strategies to go BIG with your small business. (You may also want to enter their Start Small, Go Big Contest.)

If you’re new to #StartupChat, check out “What is #StartupChat and How Do I Participate” here.  Follow the conversation, answer the questions and share your tips for going BIG in business.  We want to hear from you!

Where: Twitter

When: Wednesday, July 25th, 2012 - Noon MT/2:00 ET – 1:oo MT/3:00 ET.

What: Sharing and learning tips for going BIG in business

Take a minute now to mark your calendar for Wednesday, July 25th from Noon MT/2:00 ET – 1:oo MT/3:00 ET.

And with DailyCandy on board, it’s bound to be a SWEET conversation you won’t want to miss.

Looking forward to tweeting with you!

AND, if you think you might be joining us, leave a comment below with your twitter name and we’ll follow you before Wednesday’s chat!

- Michelle

Friday Forum – Do you handle your own social media efforts?

For today’s Friday Forum, I’d love to get your input on how you manage your social media efforts.
What percentage of your social media do you personally handle?
Do you use assistants or outsource your social media strategy?
Do you utilize programs like HootSuite to schedule tweets and Facebook posts or do you think that should happen in real time?
Share your tips in the comments below!

“Friday Forum” is a new column on StartupPrincess.com. It’s designed for entrepreneurs to share ideas and strategy on a specific subject. We hope you’ll join in!

What is Touchpoint?

Startup Princess began in 2006 as a much needed resource for women starting and growing businesses.  Today Startup Princess serves as a connection point offering resources, coaching and events to support women entrepreneurs in every stage of their business.  Now, five years later, StartupPrincess.com was just listed as number four of the top ten resources/sites for women entrepreneurs by forbes.com and @startupprincess is in the top 20 of business people to follow on twitter.  Twittergrader lists @startupprincess as number twenty five of influential women on twitter.  Startup Princess has gone from 25,000 followers on twitter to over 89,000 in just three months.

On the heels of these great honors, Startup Princess is pleased to announce the Touchpoint – The 5th Annual Conference for Women Entrepreneurs presented by Bank of American Fork.  This two-day event is the largest event hosted by Startup Princess annually.  “Touchpoint is a unique event that not only provides education for starting and growing a business, but it provides connections for women to support each other as they walk (sometimes run) the course of business ownership,” says Founder, Kelly King Anderson.

Touchpoint, will be held at the Hilton Garden Inn, in Sandy, Utah on Thursday September 15th and Friday, September 16th, 2011.

Startup Princess continues to bring in top talent from all over the country and are pleased to announce their keynote speakers for Touchpoint 2011.  Our keynote speakers on Friday, September 16th are Anita Campbell, founder of smallbusinesstrends.com from in Cleveland, Ohio; Ishita Gupta founder of fearlessstories.com from New York, New York; Tiffany Peterson, founder of The Lighthouse Principles from Salt Lake City; Carley Knobloch Chief Twirler from digitwirl.com from Los Angeles, California and Heather Ledeboer founder of Mom4life.com from Idaho.  These women not only exemplify what it takes to run a successful business in tough times, but they are everyday women balancing the other demands of marriage, life and motherhood.  Anderson says, “It’s an honor to share the stage with these successful businesswomen.  Their expertise and talent is inspiring and their messages are timely.  Their insights will help our attendees, in any stage of business, grow with confidence and strength.”

In addition to powerful keynote speakers, on Thursday, Startup Princess is hosting an Image and Media workshop in conjunction with Touchpoint.  Attendees will learn how to prepare themselves to be “ready for media at any moment”.  Topics include “Stepping Into Your Power” by past Miss Utah Cherie Burton, “Developing Your Style For Success” with Allison Czarnecki from PetitElefant.com and “How to ROCK Your Next Media Opportunity” with Jeanette Bennett, editor of over a dozen magazines including Utah Valley BusinessQ.  Thursday is sure not to disappoint and will help attendees set themselves up for media success.

This year, Startup Princess is also hosting the 3rd Annual Video Marketing Competition as part of the Touchpoint festivities.  Companies and individuals have the opportunity to submit a marketing video to be judged on creativity and a compelling call to action.  Judges will select five winners who will receive free full conference Touchpoint pass, and attendees will select the grand prize winner as part of the conference events.  The winner will receive a digital video Camera along with other prizes.  For more information about the competition go to here.

Early Bird Registration is $199 for a full conference pass (two days).  This price is good through August 15th, 2011.  Register now to receive this discount.

For the full agenda and registration details go to http://www.startupprincess.com/touchpoint. Additional details can be found at http://www.startupprincess.com.

For more information about Touchpoint or Startup Princess, event details or sponsorship information, please contact Michelle McCullough at 801.592.1101 or michelle@startupprincess.com.

 

From Hello To PR

Public relations is about building relationships and every relationship starts with a conversation. Every hello has potential and in today’s hyper-connected world, you should never run out of people to say hello to.

It’s true today’s conversations are occurring in new forums and across new media, but in the end, the most effective tool available to promote your brand is a good old-fashioned conversation. You still have to write press releases and optimize your site for search engines and analyze keywords but in the end, that’s not how the word spreads.

If you’re an entrepreneur and you don’t have a backlog of people to contact who might be interested in what you’re doing, you’re not doing enough for your brand. No matter what your niche, you can use a few simple online tools that will turn your inbox into a conversation finder. Only you can actually start a conversation, but these tools will help you find people to talk to.

• Google alerts are easy to set up and will help you find bloggers, journalists and other entrepreneurs to talk to. Identify the keywords relevant to your industry and opt for the once daily email. Read these daily emails religiously and you will undoubtedly find people to talk to.
• Blog subscriptions do more than clutter your inbox. When you come across blogs that are particularly relevant to your business, subscribe and take the time to at least glance at them each day. Where possible, subscribe also to the comments because those people are also potential hellos.
• Targeted news subscriptions will vary greatly by industry but choose periodicals relevant to your startup and sign up for the daily email summaries. For my business, it’s the New York Times, The Huffington Post, and Publishers Weekly and these publications serve two purposes – I find people to talk to and I find things to talk about.
• Twitter is probably the best news aggregator online and if you follow the right people (again relevant to your industry), you will see all the important articles each day and you will meet people to talk to. Twitter doesn’t just come to your inbox, you have to go there, but conversations can actually happen 140 characters at a time.
• Facebook is probably the least useful tool on this list for starting conversations but it’s one of the most useful for continuing conversations. Once a conversation starts, remember to find that person on facebook and stay in touch. Gradually these new friends will result in new conversations.

Unfortunately it’s easy to get lost in the miasma of the internet and miss the most important thing available online – people. If you’re doing it right, you should find so many people to talk to that you literally can’t keep up. Of course, none of these tools work if you’re just lurking online without reaching out to the people.

You will also have to strike a balance and learn to scan emails and web pages for relevant content, but you get good at it very quickly. At first, the volume of messages in your inbox might seem overwhelming but you can scan and delete fairly quickly while setting aside or adding a link to your favorites when you stumble upon an interesting person. When you get behind, start a list and gradually chip away, one hello at a time.

Some hellos won’t pan out and some hellos will only result in short conversations, but every hello is an opportunity for your brand and you’ll be surprised how many people respond.

Wanda Shapiro wrote a novel called Sometimes That Happens With Chicken and decided she didn’t need a publisher to sell books. She’s taking literary fiction indie and bringing her debut novel directly to readers. For more information, visit http://www.onegirlonenovel.com where you can learn all about the girl, the novel, the plan, and how you can help. Or find her on twitter @WandaShapiro.

Maximize Your Travel Experiences by Connecting with People in Your Industry via Social Media

This week I have the absolute pleasure of a work/vacation ‘down under’ in Australia and New Zealand. Since I’m an uber-connector, the first thing I wanted to do when the trip became a reality wasn’t to cuddle koalas (although that’s #2) was to meet lots of wonderful entrepreneurial women.

Thanks to Twitter, I’ve connected with about a dozen fabulous women and have some fun meetups planned during my trip. The easiest way for me to find the type of women I want to connect with who share my goals/intentions is to do a search via Twittergrader and search first for city and then scan the list for who looks like an interesting match for you based on bios/profiles and then simply send them a “@” message to get their attention and say something like this: @____ I’ll be in Auckland 3/26-27 and organizing a tweetup for women in biz, would love to connect, pls DM if interested. This is such a simple, easy tool for us to reach out to new people we’d like to connect with and just consider the possibilities for business and new friendships!

Now, one thing I’d definitely remind you that if you’re going to approach complete strangers and invite them to meet with you, always meet in a public place during daylight hours is best and meet in small groups if possible. Also, I’d recommend that you have a good look at your Twitter profile and link before you send out requests because no doubt people will be checking out your sanity and background before they accept your invite (at least I always do!!)

Enjoy meeting new people IRL (in real life) in foreign cities when you have the chance, your trip will certainly be more rewarding if you do. Connect with me on Twitter, I’d love to meet up on your next trip to Utah, I’m @startupprincess

Kelly King Anderson is the Founder and Managing Director of Startup Princess. She loves to connect, say hello!

Twitter for Business

(Originally presented at BYU on March 12, 2009) Listen to the AUDIO here.

What is Twitter?

Microblogging. It’s like a series of Facebook status updates in 140 characters, but better: more interactive, more open. Combines elements of StumbleUpon, Facebook, Email, IM, social/business mixers, and blogging.

Why should I be on Twitter?

It’s the fastest way to share and get information on the web. It takes time at first to build p followers and a good list of followees, but once you’re established, you can do anything on Twitter.

If you want to have any sort of online presence, you should start with Twitter (which can automatically update your Facebook account and your blog, so it’s really not adding too much extra effort).

What can I do with Twitter?

Network. Connect with people across the world (@Kirstyt in AUS) and locally (@sahans in UT). (e.g. Why I’m here instead of @StartupPrincess tonight).

Share stories/pictures/ideas. Send news articles (shorten links using tinyurl.com or tr.im), upload photos (twitpic.com), or take a poll to see if an idea is interesting.

Promote your product/website/brand. Tweet giveaways, events, sales, links to special posts. When people offer to stumble, don’t be shy.

Provide customer service. Set up an RSS feed for your brand name on search.twitter.com (e.g. Chris Brogan).

Build Relationships. Have real people (more than one, if possible) at your company tweet. Be personable and likeable (use humor). Interact, link to other companies.

Find mentors/sponsors. Follow people who are doing what you want to be doing, or who give opportunities to the people who are doing what you want to be doing. (e.g. Leapfrog, @morethanmommy).

Where should I start?

Sign up on Twitter, then explore the different platforms to access Twitter (on the web, on your iGoogle homepage, on your phone, on your desktop). Find an app that works for you. Many people like Tweetdeck and Twhirl. iPhone users like Twitterfon. I use BeTwittered – a gadget on my iGoogle homepage.

Add followers, but do it slowly, trying to keep your followers and followees pretty equal. And tweet – at least once a day, so you don’t look like a bot.

Want to know more? Try these:

How To Twitter (Wall Street Journal) (Note on settings – WSJ is mistaken. You can (now) determine whether you get all @replies or none, or only those that are between people, both of whom you follow).

50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business (Chris Brogan)

Shannon Johnson (Jane @ What About Mom?) is as committed to motherhood as she is to writerhood, which is to say that she should probably be committed. She lives in Utah with her husband Dick and their three daughters.

Video Clips from Provo Startup Princess Lunch & Suntweet

What a whirlwind of events this past week…I’ve been trying to capture some of the great people attending events. Enjoy these short fun/casual videos:

Provo Lunch speaker, Tara McCausland, Life Coach, Allison Czarnecki, Petit Elefant and April Atwater, Sweet Life in the Valley

Suntweet sponsor, Jeremy Hanks co-founder of Doba and Kelly King Anderson, Startup Princess talk about Launchup.org

Suntweet panelist, Jyl Patte of Mom it Forward and April Atwater of Sweet Life in the Valley



Why Twitter and How to Add Value

Last week I had the opportunity to speak about Twitter, my beloved social network (yes, Facebook fans, love it more than Facebook). Here’s a video from the presentation at What’s Up Down South, St. George, Utah. There’s other great social media presentations by the co-presenters on our You Tube Startup Princess channel.