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 emarketer

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.

6th set the payment on basis of clearly defined conditions
You should set the financial conditions and communicate them, just as you would define the scope of the project. Set up so-called checkpoints, which are dates on which you control the progress of the work. This will help you maintain deadlines and make sure that your expectations are fulfilled – before it’s too late.

7th do not forget to calculate the support
Especially in IT projects, it is a good idea to establish a guarantee. This ensures you continuous support by the freelancer after the project is completed. For example, customer feedback could make modifications necessary, or adjustments in the course of time. From the beginning you should arrange the support or negotiate prices in advance for any modifications or support. This will save you time, money and headaches later on.

8th written form counts
While working on a project, the conditions such as schedule, cost, or the final product may change. If this happens, be sure to communicate the changes clearly and insist on a written confirmation by the freelancer that he accepts the amended terms.

9th doubts? start small
If this is your first time working with a particular freelancer, it is worth considering to start with a project that is small and relatively simple. This will give you a good impression of the work of the freelancer, before you hand over important projects. For example, you hire an unknown freelancer rather for designing a logo than for designing the entire site right away.

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.

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

not surprisingly, the u.s. is still far ahead of germany and the rest of the world in terms of entrepreneurship. this interesting chart, produced by grasshopper, compares the u.s. portion of gdp (gross domestic product) that comes from entrepreneurship against that of major european countries.

entrepreneural activity in the u.s. (as a percentage of gdp) lies at 11.3%, compared to 6.3% in germany for example. also worth mentioning is how “would-be” entrepreneurs perceive starting a new business in the current economy: according to the data provided, entrepreneurs in the u.s. feel far more optimistic about starting a new business in the near future and foster much less fear of failure.

in addition, the graphic depicts the percentage of enterprises by size, native vs. foreign-born self-employed and the overall difficulty entrepreneurs face when starting a new business.

image by theeducatedentrepreneur.com

check out the full size infographic here.

How effective do you as a freelancer accomplish your work? It can be surprising, how much you can do to work more focused on your daily business. Exploiting your full potential is most important to run a successful business and to help you with this we have summarized a few hints.

Setting your goals for a certain period of time, both short term and long term to save time is equally important as watching your health and diet. Being under permanent stress and not doing a lot for your body in terms of exercising and eating properly can influence your state of health permanently during working hours as well as in your private life.

You should as well ask yourself if multitasking is always a good thing or if it can rush you into decisions you actually need to think of a bit longer. Some people are specialists in doing a lot of things at a time some need the focus on one thing to work effective. It is crucial to find out which is best for you to find your perfect work

Some useful hints to give you an idea what can help you to work conducive to success are elaborated here.

Source: elance.com

Batching all the similar tasks you have to handle in a certain period can be a very useful support to get work done more easily.

In other words you can work smarter if you do tasks that aim in the same direction at a specific time of the day respectively of the week. This means for example that you do your customer support at a certain block of time and then go on to the next. This keeps you into the subject and you don’t have to switch between them during the day again. Some more points are elaborated here.

The number of open projects for freelancers in U.K. is rising constantly. Almost a quarter of the five million freelancers in the country are in this business no longer than two years. Half of those 1.2 million have been their own boss for even less than a year. The number seems to be rising since beginning of the recession 2008.

Also in America more people start employing their selves which gets obvious when looking at numbers from the U.S. market.

source: moneyexpert, odesk