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When it comes to taking on client needs social media, like the search engines, is constantly changing and evolving. These changes sometimes we love and sometimes we hate. This is one that we're kind of in the gray area. What does this mean for you on building engagement and brand awareness for your business? Glad you asked! There's a ton that this will do to actually help you grow your business, you will be able to build your brand awareness through your website and showcase your awesome company culture through the use of Facebook groups.

I constantly read from experts that get upset over the phrase “Content is King”. Is the phrase over used – yes, to a degree. That doesn’t make the phrase any less true. Your life and your business has a story and that story should be told. We remember stories not only because they are easier to remember than facts but because they resonate with us.

We are living in a time where computers are becoming more engrained into our lives. Some machines are starting to become aware of their surroundings. For many this can be a scary time while others it is truly an exciting time. Change is already taking place and the question is are you, and your business, ready for this change. We all have seen movies like the Terminator where the machine not only takes over the world but destroys all of humanity. This is far from the truth (today) of what is happening, and we are all a determined group of individuals to prevent it from getting out of hand (so we all hope). Machines are here to help reduce the repetitive nature of our lives. It is up to us to determine how we utilize these machines to better mankind as well as augment we mere humans.

It is the ones that push the limits around them that get noticed. There's nothing wrong with being different. In fact, we find those that are different are the ones that change the world for the better and most remembered. This is why we've changed our name to Business YETI from JM2 Webdesigners & Marketing. There are many reasons for this but the biggest is we are not like any other marketing company out there. We are focused on return on investment (ROI) and showing it to you. We never pushed people to realize that half of our revenue comes from paid advertising for our clients on Google, Bing, LinkedIn, and social media. This goes along with our idea we should be a silent partner helping our clients grow.

Online sales are continuously increasing. We know this as we buy more online, those we talk to are buying more online, and eCommerce has become a large focus of what we do as an organization. The problem with all of this is people are still being tricked into bad situations even on sites they expect to be reputable. We are going to cover our most popular tips that will help you buy online safer.

We know that sometimes dishing up thousands for a new website is not an option, especially when you are starting your business. You want your business to be found and you want it to be custom made to promote your business. What you don’t want is to pay for a website that will put you out of business. You want your website to generate business and help you grow without nickel and diming you around every corner.

We create videos for our clients, edit videos they’ve created or had created for them, and we use their videos straight as provided. We often find ourselves using a custom video player or use the YouTube video with the branding turned off. There are several reasons with the top two being increased search engine optimization or SEO and also to relieve the burden from your web server streaming the video. This not only will make your website faster but provide a better user experience.

A few years ago, when we started working with marketing companies, we talked to them about tactics and what the best items to do were when it came to helping businesses grow and be found online without spending tons of money on paid ads. Most of these companies worked with medium-sized businesses while we focus on small business. This brought in a ton of different ideas and topics that helped all of our businesses grow. One highly talked about topic was review and reputation management for companies. The marketing companies we talked to were going “old school” (e.g. postcards, flyers, or letters) as they had specific business reasons and we were moving to the electronic frontier for our small business customers. Both methods are valid and I can say the marketing companies we work with in Illinois and here in Indiana are now all digital for several reasons but it did take them, and their customers, to realize the old school method was making them look like dinosaurs. I am going to look at three ways old-school marketing companies are (or were) doing review management and why it is hurting your business model if you are doing so.

I grew up in the small historic town of Chesterton Indiana. I have been fortunate to see great communities all around the world. Every move I have ever made has shown me a vast array of great communities. Some are struggling and some are vibrant and growing. What I find is the communities that are truly growing all have one thing in common. They have a strong community and even with the big box stores, they buy from local businesses that support their community. I now live in Valparaiso Indiana with my wife and family but get to Chesterton often as it’s just a short drive. I know deep down it’s this support of choosing a local small business before a big box store that makes these communities great and I truly feel good about it.

Although I am calling this small business growth hurdles it actually applies to any business small or large. It is about keeping to your core strengths and not letting them go. This is something every business needs to stay aware of. Being I have never run a large business my knowledge there doesn’t apply beyond working at some of the best large companies in the world. My focus here is on common mistakes business owners make and that can cripple, if not kill, your business. I am going to cover six of the items that I have not only come across but done myself in the past five years. I have overcome each of these and each has taught me several valuable lessons and made us stronger.

We are hearing this more and more from companies talking with us. They ranked high once and now they are dropping and their competitors are ranking higher. These can be local or national companies organically (e.g. free) ranking higher than they and they think it’s because these corporations are outranking them because they are spending money. The answer is yes but not in the way they are thinking. They are ranking not because they are paying the search engines to rank to get those organic listings. They could be paying for ads but that doesn’t measure into the organic listings. They are paying their employees or a digital marketing company to make them rank that way. Let’s take a look and see what a business owner can do to fix this problem.

Our company is going through the biggest change of any growing business. I know there are many ways of phrasing it but I am calling it the “Business Owner Role Transition” and to me, it is the pivotal point for any small business owner that is growing. Many will feel caught in a trap right before or during this part. Many will sell their business when the end reward is just in front of them. They aren’t quitters but quit anyway as they don’t feel they can do it and they really can with that extra needed “push”. Many will not talk to others in the same spot and lock themselves into silos rather than reaching out and talking with those people – not friends, other businesses that you may consider competitors. I also see it as the hardest point in my 30 years of working.