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A Top 100 Small Business Influencer Champion? Wow, Thanks!

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cp_2013_smb_influencer_champion[4]Over the last 20 years, I’ve been blessed to not only run my own small business, but to work with hundreds of other small business owners, managers and startup founders. I’m fanatical about helping entrepreneurs to reach their career goals by starting, running and growing successful small businesses. Sometimes they grow into very large businesses – and that’s fun, too! But the crux of my career has been focused on helping to establish and promote companies in the early stages of their lifecycles, and I really enjoy those challenges.

That’s why I was so happy to be honored last week when I was named a Small Business Influencer Top 100 Champion and Expert in the 2013 Small Business Influencer Awards – produced by Small Business Trends, an award-winning online publication, serving over 6,000,000 small business owners, stakeholders and entrepreneurs annually, and SmallBizTechnology.com, a media company that produces online content and live events educating small and mid-sized companies on how to strategically use technology as a tool to grow their businesses. The awards honor those who are influential to small businesses in North America, through the products, services, knowledge, information or support they provide to the small business market.

I’m flattered to be in this list with some former clients (Brainshark, Constant Contact), companies I admire and use daily (Dropbox, American Express OPENForum, Evernote, Etsy, FedEx, Hootsuite, Hubspot, Plantronics, Vistaprint) and industry folks that I admire such as John Jantsch, Laurie McCabe, Dave Kerpen, Larry Kim and Aliza Sherman. Congratulations to all the other winners and honorable mentions, as well as the nominees. I fully support and cheerlead anyone who works in, and strives to help, small business. You can read about all the champions, here.

I simply wanted to say thank you to those who voted for me, the judges and most certainly my team at PerkettPR. They are not only a huge part of making our national clients successful through smart digital marketing and PR, but they are also an inspiration to me every day to keep my own small business innovative, fun and alive.

You can read additional details here, visit the award site or follow along on Twittter by searching #SMBInfluencer.

 

 

 

Persuasive Picks for the week of 05/31/10

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Will people stop buying Coca Cola? Maybe not, but Eric Bovim writes in PRWeek that Food and Beverage Companies Face a PR Challenge – facing a plethora of new programs focused on healthier food options. From First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move Campaign,” to a powerful new coalition of big brands and the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, big food companies need to convince the press to focus on the positive aspects of what they provide… a job easier said than done.

John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing wrote a provocative article for Ragan on “Why Social Media Doesn’t Matter Anymore.” He says too many people are focused on adopting or keeping up with the latest and greatest social media tools, when they should rather be focused on customer engagement. A smart piece that takes you through the hype to the heart of the matter when it comes to social media for business and marketing.

Speaking of John, he’s a great marketer who recently wrote a book called The Referral Engine – and it’s featured on Inc. Magazine’s new Business Book Bestseller List. If you’re looking for some great summer reading, check it out.

I’m a fan of Foursquare and am happy to see its growth, as more and  more marketers help brands use it in their campaigns. One of the latest collaborations is a partnership with Cynthia Rowley to launch Cynthia Rowley Bridesmaids at a wedding-centric event. One of PerkettPR’s partner firms, Fashionably Digital, was commissioned to develop and implement the campaign. Women’s Wear Daily Writes in this week’s Social Studies, this is “the first time a manufacturer, a designer and a retailer collaborated on this kind of initiative.”

I’m also in love with my iPad but I’m not quite as creative as other users – which I learned when glamour tech gal Shira Lazar recently pointed me to a CBS piece she wrote on “5 Totally Insane Ways to Use Your iPad.” I don’t plan to perform surgery with mine anytime soon, although I did enjoy learning that the iPad is so cool, it can indeed “Shred.”

 

 

Love Your Accountant? PR Firm? Vet? Last Day for Make A Referral Week to Help SMBs!

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As a small business, and one that often promotes relevant technologies, product and services, we are passionate about supporting the SMB community. Small businesses are the crux of our economy – stimulating new ideas, new jobs and new creations every day. So we wanted to remind you that today marks the last day to make a referral on “Make a Referral Week” –  an entrepreneurial approach to stimulating the small business economy one referred business at a time.

“The goal for the week is to generate 1000 referred leads to 1000 deserving small businesses in an effort to highlight the impact of a simple action that could blossom into millions of dollars in new business,” writes John Jantsch, creator of the effort and author of Duct Tape Marketing. We couldn’t agree more, so please, join the cause – show the power of referrals and make one here, today.

 

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Persuasive Picks for the week of 06/21/09

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Facebook Marketing for Dummies5 Tips for Optimizing your Facebook Marketing
Facebook’s 200+ million users make it an increasingly attractive place to try some social marketing efforts. Paul Dunay of the Buzz Marketing for Technology blog shares five ways you can optimize those efforts.

The Forgotten Social Media Tool
With so many social networks and platforms to utilize these days, it’s easy to forget the countless bulletin board systems out there that still have incredibly active communities covering limitless niche topics. Robert Quigley brings bulletin boards back into perspective with this post on MediaBullsEye.

How to Use Social Media: An Interview with Lee Aase of Mayo Clinic
Guy Kawasaki shares this interesting interview (via Amex’s Open Forum blog) with Lee Aase of the Mayo Clinic on how they have been utilizing social media.

My Top 10 Sources of Content Inspiration
Being able to generate a continuous stream of content for blog posts comes naturally for some. For others, it can be a torturous process. Duct Tape Marketing’s John Jantsch shares 10 places where he finds inspiration for writing a plethora of great content.

Report: Companies Should Organize For Social Media in a “Hub and Spoke” model
Many companies diving into the social media space are still trying to figure out what department actually “owns” social media. Should it be part of an existing internal group or is a re-organization in order? Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang shares three different models of company organization that can be found in his latest report.