2 The Next Level

Archive for the ‘Social Marketing’ Category

John Lawson from ColderICE.com has been recognized by StartupNation (http://www.startupnation.com) as one of the top businesses in its 2009 Home Based 100 competition under the category of Savviest in Social Media.

Many of the StartupNation Home-Based 100 submissions revealed that business owners are bucking the current economic downturn and finding business success in these tight times. Historically some of today’s most well known businesses started in a downturn, including Microsoft and General Electric.

“The 2009 ranking shows that the home-based business is more relevant than ever. The current recession has spurred a new wave of home based businesses as a response to loss of jobs, the need for supplemental income and the sheer passion for blazing your own trail and running your own show,” said Rich Sloan, co-founder of StartupNation.com, one of the leading small business networking and advice websites. “Home based businesses are the biggest block of all businesses in existence and we expect numbers to grow ever greater as extra bedrooms, kitchen tables, basements and garages become host to the innovative thinking and pursuit of success by millions of Americans.”

“This is by far one of the coolest recognitions ever for me” said John Lawson, editor of ColderICE.com, a education portal for internet business owners. “This is the first year that this category has been acknowledged and to be the first winner is truly trail blazing. Social media is officially on the map and now I get to be the first pin.”

The StartupNation Home-Based 100 highlights 10 top-ten lists making it not just your ordinary business ranking. From the wackiest, to the most innovative, to the savviest in social media – this unique and diverse list highlights the home-based businesses that usually go unrecognized, but still play a vital role in the economy today. MSN publishes the ranking as well in an editorial collaboration with StartupNation. The ten categories for 2009 include:

· Recession Busters

· Savviest in Social Media

· Most Innovative

· Boomers Back in Business

· Greenest

· Yummiest

· Wackiest

· Highest Vote-Getters

· Most Slacker-Friendly

· Most Glamorous

John Lawson was selected from among thousands of contestants by a StartupNation judging panel, which issues the ranking results annually in the November.

The full results of the Home-Based 100 ranking are available on StartupNation’s website at http://www.startupnation.com/homebased100/. The 2009 ranking was sponsored by Microsoft Office Live, Infusionsoft and FedEx Office.

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I had a great time with the members of the Dekalb Chamber of Commerce last week. We had a packed house and a very eager audience who really wanted to know more about social media. I only had 90 minutes to give them a better understanding on how to use Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin in their businesses. The pressure was on but I was up to the challenge. Here are some of the comments I received after the event.

Jeff,

Great presentation on Social Media Marketing. I thoroughly enjoyed the information you presented and am currently focusing my attention on this area of marketing to provide as a service to my clients. Your presentation helped in making everything more clear for me.

Thanks for everything,
Sharla Bell
Triniti Business Concepts
A Virtual Assistance Company

Jeff,

It was great to meet you at the Dekalb Chamber of Commerce today.

I am already taking some of what you talked about to heart and will apply them to my blog TheSocialSet.blogspot.com.  I’d also love to talk to you about wordpress.

Sincerely,

David

David S. Cohen

Social Media Copywriter

JB

Attended your seminar today — it was FABULOUS!!! Let’s connect

Jennifer Whitaker
Executive Coach and Management Consultant

I want to say a special thank you to all of the staff at the Dekalb Chamber of Commerce for allowing me to speak before their members and the staff of the Dekalb Convention and Visitors Bureau for the use of their great facility. Please go to both their websites to learn more on how both their agencies can help your business.

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Lewis and I would like to thank all of those who were able to make the teleseminar on Social Media and Linkedin. If you were not on the call and want to hear the replay please click here for the Get Linkedin, Ask Lewis Howes replay. This blog will also give you the opportunity to ask your Linkedin Questions that we were unable to cover on the teleseminar. Lewis and I will be monitoring the comments so please feel free to tell us what you thought of the call and give us some feedback on how we can do better with future events on social media and especially Linkedin.

Here are the 5 tips Lewis gave our on the call that can help you take your Linkedin profile 2 the next level.

1. Put a professional picture on your profile.

2. Write a compelling headline

3. Give and Get recommendations

4. Use a custom URL
(http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreyalexanderbrathwaite)

5. List your website:
Instead of  (My website) use (Twitter Marketing Case Studies)

Please ask your questions as a comment below.

Thanks again

JB

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Not to long after our new President of the United States was sworn in change instantly happened to the White House website.

The new Whitehouse.gov website is run by Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House.

http://change.gov/ is now redirected to http://www.whitehouse.gov

There is even a new White House Twitter account @whitehouse_gov

According to TwitterCounter the Whitehouse twitter account added 4,764 followers yesterday and predicts another 7k the next day, with 76k by the end of 3o days.

There is no sign of an official Facebook page for the White House yet but if one does crop up I will keep you posted.
If you see one before me please shoot me an email or send it in a comment on this post.

My favorite part of the website currently is the THE BRIEFING ROOM. President Barack Obama plans to publish a weekly video address every Saturday morning of his presidency and you can find it under this heading. The Briefing Room also has a section for the official White House Blog. I look forward to seeing and reading the many post but I don’t yet see a way one can make comments to the blog.

President Obama did a masterful job using the Internet leading up to his eventful election and will continue to use social media as a way to stay in touch with the many Americans that helped put him into office.  President Obama gave us many lessons on how we as Solopreneurs and Small Business people can use social media to help promote and market out businesses. Please see my blog post Barack 2.0 Will Help Solopreneurs Understand Social Media Marketing to learn more.

If you would like to take a look at the old  George W. White House Website take a look at the link below.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070910183923/http://www.whitehouse.gov/

I, for one look forward to the change our country is headed toward and I am so proud to not just be an African American  like our new President but finally proud to be an American.

All the best

and May God Bless our New First Family

JB

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Happy New Year. I have to apologize first to my many readers for taking so long to post for the new year. I have been trying to determine what I am going to focus on both professionally and personally for 2009 and could not get my act together until now. This post will be short and sweet because I just want to pay homage to just one Web 2.0 application that has really made an impact on me and many millions of others.

Twitter, oh and by the way my Twitter address is @jbrath. If you don’t have a Twitter account yet get one NOW. It is free and will bring you into a whole new world of social media interaction. I got so wrapped up in Twitter I grabbed the domain name Twarketing.com to study the many companies using Twitter as a marketing tool.

There are many books on Twitter but I am personally waiting for the release of Joel Comm’s book Twitter Power to come out next month.

If you are new to Twitter, one of the best blogs to get up to speed is Twitip.com TwiTip is edited by Darren Rowse from ProBlogger

There are even more Twitter application to support your using Twitter. Some of my favorites are Tweetdeck.com, SocialToo.com and Twittercounter.com

You can also use Twitter’s search engine when  you want to do research on something and get real time responses.

So I would have to again say that Twitter made the largest impression on me in 2008 and I am looking forward to what they have in store for 2009.

Have a blessed and prosperous 2009 and please tell me your experience with Twitter Good or Bad.

All the best

JB

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