According to a recent survey from office services firm Regus, SMB’s are increasingly successful at customer acquisition via social networks. Bigger firms, despite a generally larger marketing budget, are not quite as successful in social acquisition.

While customer service and interaction remains the main function, more and more companies utilize social networks for acquisition and retention. Because of its sizeable business opportunities, social marketing will continue to grow. Read the full article on emarketer.

image: courtesy of emarkete

Whether you are a start-up or a freelancer, marketing will possibly be something, you cannot afford. But it is marketing that starts your business off just right, so here are some tipps on how to market your business or knowledge without any costs, except for time.

Write and circulate press releases
Online public relation is by far easier and less complicated than classic public relations offline – and absolutely worthwhile. No creating extensive mailing lists, no connecting to the press.
Instead press releases can be distributed via free press portals. Once published, the press releases reach journalists and consumers alike while generating links to your website or online profile.

Join freelance platforms
Start-ups and freelancers benefit from utilizing online freelance platforms. Not only is it possible to generate projects, it is also easy to connect to businesses or other freelancers and little by little build a network.

Write guest articles
Start-ups and freelancers have a lot of knowledge to share – experiences, tipps, do´s and don´ts, but also expertise. To share this knowledge with others generates attention and links to your own website or profile – which makes it an asset in online marketing.
And: Most blogs are open to guest articles from professionals.

Take part in the discourse
To keep informed about what is happening in your sector is understood – so why not just take part and get active and outspoken yourself?
Writing comments about articles or posting something in discussion forums is easily done and aids your online marketing profoundly.

Use social media
Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter – when it comes to social media sites, you can pick and choose. Try to use as many channels as possible to reach as many potential customers as possible – and to strengthen your network.

As CEO of a company you are always looking for good ways to achieve business targets and to save money. A strategy that helps you to save money, time and nerves, is to delegate as many tasks as possible to external experts – to outsource. elance.com has compiled the best tips, based on customer interviews:

1st define the scope and timing of your project
It may seem obvious, but every successful outsourcing project begins with a detailed planning and formulation of your goals. Freelancers depend on accurate, complete information to be able to make a realistic offer and to give you an accurate price range.

2nd evaluate a freelancer like a potential permanent employee
Do not be afraid to ask questions if you negotiate with a freelancer. Choosing a freelancer for a project requires as much dexterity as the selection of an employee. Also a freelancer should fit into your team and be reliable.

3rd find specific skills and experience in the desired range
Ideally, the freelancer whom you’ve selected has experience in the field where he is supposed to work.  In case of complex technical projects as software development, having experience is very important. Make sure that the freelancer has worked in this area and can refer to satisfied customers.

4th the first selection criterion should not be the price
Although it is tempting, never choose a freelancer on the basis of money. Experienced outsourcers suggest almost always excluding the cheapest and the most expensive offer. In their experience, the most successful projects are those in which the offer was balanced.

5th check the portfolio and work samples
Just look at the previous work of the freelancers to insure they fulfill your expectations. If you are still unsure after you have viewed all the information such as CV, work samples and references, ask the freelancer to sketch an outline. A freelancer who wants to win the project will understand your desire for security.

UpMo is a next-generation career management and advancement platform that accelerates professionals to their career goals…

it facilitates job hunting, networking, and career management, and is designed for professionals trying to maintain career control. Take a look: UpMo

There are a lot of myths around multitasking and how productive people are who try to accomplish work by doing several things simultaneously. It is often mistaken as something that you need to be capable of when for example applying for a project.

A simple answer that shows you how multitasking can slow down your effectiveness while working can be found in a quick test. You will be surprised how little is needed to show that sticking to one task and move on to the next after can save you time. Move on to the Test!

as we all know, many jobs are found through networking. therefore, many businesspeople are on the lookout for tools to improve their networking skills. the number of business apps is increasing day by day and smartphones are becoming a portable toolkit for business professionals everywhere.

5 useful iphone apps:

• meet people with happening
• exchange information using linkedin
• meet in the middle using meetme
• organize business cards with worldcardmobile
• manage relationships with contactsjournal

TED (technology, entertainment, design) is a non-profit foundation that is best known for its annual conferences, in which lectures or ted-talks are devoted to one mission: “spreading ideas”. founded as a one-off event in 1984, ted-talks have grown in popularity and now cover a wide range of topics (science and culture). Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Bill Gates or Richard Dawkins are just some of the prominent figures who have given ted-talks.

curious: when “ted-talking”, the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers are challenged to limit their speeches to 18 minutes. the best talks and performances from TED and partners are available on ted.com official website or the ted youtube channel.

click the link for upcoming and ongoing tedx events.

projektwerk is growing quite rapidly over the last months: it seems like there are news every other day.
Just yesterday our new projektwerk consulting platform was launched!
Shortly before projektwerk creative was going live…

Now, we don’t want you to get lost, so there is this one page which is going to give you an overview:
www.projektwerk.com
Here you will get an overview of all our platforms, you will find out what projektwerk is about and you will stay informed about most recent freelancing topics and projektwerk news.

Welcome to our projektwerk corporate page!

We’ll be happy to hear your feedback.

Coworking is increasingly becoming a major issue. Therefore projektwerk has created a summary of coworking spaces in Germany. Soon there will be a more detailed representation of individual spaces, including specific offers for projektwerk users.

the list can be found here.

a recent survey, conducted by elon university, found that cloud-computing will increasingly gain importance in the future. the majority of social analysts, internet and tech experts questioned in the survey, predict this form of internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information, are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, to prevail. mashable offers a great summary of this study.

image by mashable