Today’s business owners usually carry a computer with them everywhere they go — but it isn’t a laptop, netbook, or tablet, but rather a smartphone that is their main source of communication when they’re away from the office. With the thousands of apps that are available for smartphones today, they have the unique ability to keep track of what is happening at the office while the business owner takes care of business elsewhere.

Multitasking is the “SOP” (standard operating procedure) with most business owners today. They may need to record a receipt for their expense account and then use the GPS function to find the location for the business lunch with a client or make changes on a spreadsheet for that meeting –- all with their smartphone. Their smartphone has become a miniature computer where practically all of their business is conducted without having to go to the office.

Here are a few smartphone apps we have found helpful in our own business operations that aid in productivity and offer business tools that ensure you will have everything at hand when it is needed:

• Evernote – This versatile app allows you to create notes, text, take a photo, or record audio notes from meetings or memos to self that can be synchronized to your computer so you don’t lose any important information. It is a free app and is compatible for use on Blackberry, iPhone, Android, WebOS, and Windows Mobile. Available through Evernote.com.

• Deskaway – This is a project management tool that can track milestones, has collaborative pages that can be shared with a team, and is generally easy to use. Files can be easily uploaded and there is a message board – plus to-do checklists and reports that can be run to see any issues or tasks that still need to be completed. It is free but also has versions that offer upgraded packages priced up to $99 per month that offer more projects and space to track them. It is available for Blackberry or iPhone. Available through Deskaway.com.

• LogMeIn – This remote computer access software allows your smartphone to access your computer at home or at the office no matter where you are — whether at the bank or halfway around the globe. It provides file sharing capabilities and remote printing. Best of all it is easy to use so everyone from beginners to advanced users alike can use it. It is priced well at just over $12 per month with discounts for annual subscriptions or multiple user discounts. It can be used on Blackberry, iPhone, or Android. Available through LogMeIn.com.

• Expensify – Keep track of your business related expenses on the go. This app allows you to report expense account data immediately as they occur while the information is fresh from a business meeting or dinner with a client. For those who travel frequently, this saves time as you don’t have to remember what the expense was for or try to find receipts, as it is all created as you travel. It is free and can be used on Blackberry, iPhone, Android, or WebOS. Available through Expensify.com.

• Ascendo Money – This app features online bank access, account reconciliation, budget analysis, and transaction scheduling so you can do your banking wherever you are at the moment. It allows you to keep track of your personal finances and keep your bills paid on time. You can create accounts for credit cards, savings, and investments as well as checking. It is priced at $29.95 and can be used on Blackberry and is ideal for those small business owners who travel frequently and also handle all of the billing and receivables for their company. Available through Ascendo-Inc.com.

These are a few of the latest applications that we have found to be helpful in operating a business while being on the go. We hope you’ll find one or two of these attractive and helpful for your own business. Are you currently using other apps effectively for your company now? Please share what you’re using with all of us — we would appreciate hearing from you.

Lots of people are talking about Groupon and how great the deals are right now. After all, whenever you can get 50% or better off a product or service, it has to be a good deal — right? Well, it depends on which side of the sale you are on as to how beneficial it really is. It should be good for the customer, but is it good for the seller as well? And, don’t forget that Groupon gets something out of the sale too — so is there enough left for the seller to make a profit? That is the real question.

Benefits of Groupon to a Business

• It is a great method of advertising and attracting customers especially to a new or small business by providing exposure to its products.
• If you have unsold or excess inventory, it is a terrific way to liquidate it — especially if it is no longer being produced.
• It should generate repeat sales, on the same product or service, or related ones that are featured by your business.

Pitfalls of Groupon to a Business

• It can bring a huge influx of customers that you cannot handle if you are ill prepared. In other words, you might not be able to meet the demand if you do not have enough products on hand or enough manpower to handle the increase in customers.
• You generally make approximately 25% of your normal earnings (50% discount and Groupon gets 25% as their fee too) so you need to calculate whether it is worth the risk and whether you can afford it.
• Ensure that the gift certificate laws in your state do not have any laws that might come back to haunt you — such as a five year term so that someone could come up with a voucher five years from now and want to cash it in.

Points to Ponder Prior to Using Groupon

• How much is it actually costing your company to offer the discounted product or service with Groupon? Is another intense marketing campaign of a different type more valuable than the one time shot with Groupon?
• Do your homework. Invest some time reading through GrouponWorks.com (Groupon’s site for businesses).
• Read up on actual experiences from other businesses. Here are 3 great articles discussing the use of Groupon in actual situations. In addition to reading the articles, please pay attention to the dialogue that takes place in the comments too.

1. Game On With Groupon

2. The Dark Side of Groupon Sites

3. The Dark Side of Groupon

Tips to Avoid the Pitfalls of Groupon

• Ensure you have adequate staff on hand in customer service and sales so you don’t get lots of complaints from unhappy customers who could not get help when they needed it. You can even hire temporary staff to cover the short-term need.
• Another way to avoid inadequate staffing is to limit the number of Groupon deals or products that can be sold. This should be clearly stated on the offer.
• Review the “details” thoroughly with the Groupon representative to ensure you understand the implications of all the fine print so you are clear on what your earnings will be and all the terms of sale.
• Set the limits for redemption or dates when they expire clearly so there are no misunderstandings.
• Customer service that excels will always win over critics — so the key is to ensure that you have a trained staff on hand to handle calls and know what the correct answers are so that everyone is following the same set of answers.
• Collect the data about the Groupon deal and understand the impact on your business and whether it was worthwhile. If so, you might consider doing another one.

The growth and popularity of Groupon has been phenomenal. However, instead of just jumping on to the “latest and greatest” form of business promotion and advertising, we encourage you to exercise due diligence and really examine whether or not Groupon is a good fit for your company’s products and services. If you have used Groupon, we would really enjoy hearing from you about the experience.

[We also invite you to visit our Groupon Deals page for links to the latest Groupon consumer offers.]

Many self-employed people and small businesses have a Facebook account that they use to keep in touch with family, friends, business associates, and other valuable contacts. Many people also have a Facebook page that features their business. Facebook pages offer a great way for you to share relevant business information, present coupons and sales, keep up with your fans, and otherwise promote your business for free.

Did you know that you can now link your Facebook page to your personal Facebook profile? This linkage is a free way to give your business more exposure by listing it as your employer on your Facebook profile. Not only does this put a link at the top of your Facebook profile, but it connects your Facebook profile readers directly to your Facebook page. The result is a chance to grow your Facebook page “likes” and Facebook fans.

Below is a 6 minute video presented by Amy Porterfield that explains how add your Facebook page to the top of your profile. It is well-worth watching and following along.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When it’s time to pay Uncle Sam, there’s no need to break open your wallet and break your bank account. There are many, easy ways to save money on taxes for small business, many of which are easy to learn and implement.

Tax laws change constantly, so it’s smart to always have a qualified tax accountant to turn to when you have questions. Uncle Sam does provide some nice loopholes, but using them wrong can potentially cause a great deal of grief for you and your business.

1. Write-off Your “Going Into Business” Expenses

As you know, starting a business can be very costly. Registering your business with local, state, and federal agencies, finding space to lease or purchase, buying all those office supplies, advertising for employees, hiring an advertising company, and so on. Quite a few of these pre-opening expenses are considered “capital expenses” and are deductible (up to $5000) during your first year of business. If your expenses exceed the $5000 amount (say, $10,000), then you have to deduct the balance evenly over the next 15 years. Although $5000 may not seem like much up front, when added into the tax balance at the end of the year it can be a very welcomed deduction.

2. Entertaining for Business Purposes – Talk Business, Take Notes, and Archive Those Notes.

Taking clients, vendors, and associates out to eat or play a round of golf is a fairly normal and accepted business practice. Not knowing how to write off these expenses for tax purposes is one of the greatest issues encountered by the IRS. The guidelines are simple, but it’s up to you to treat your entertainment like business.

The standard deduction for business entertainment is 50% of the total cost – under these circumstances:

• The expense has a direct relation to (your) business (feed your employees in office during a meeting); or
• The entertainment involves people who directly affect your business and the entertainment happens right before or after the intended business.

Don’t rely on your memory to track this record. Take notes on receipts, shoot yourself an email or somehow have the event recorded as an official record that you can access when filing your tax returns and have on hand in the event of an in-house audit.

3. Deduct the Cost of Software Up to 100%

What business does not include some type of software expense these days? From email to creating spreadsheets, software supports our business and makes us more efficient and profitable.

Therefore, until 2011, you can deduct up to 100% of your software expense under Section 179 of the IRS Code which states software bought and placed into service between January 1st, 2003 to December 31st, 2010 can be fully deducted in the year it was placed in service.

Starting in 2011 you can no longer use Section 179 to deduct off-the-shelf software.

If your software comes bundled with your computer and not treated as a different expense, it is considered part of the hardware and you have to depreciate the cost over 5 years. However under Section 179 you can write off the entire expense of the computer in the first year it was placed in service. ($133,000 maximum in 2010).

IRS Publication 946, How to Depreciate Property, will give you more complete details.

4. Education for Better Business

If you take community classes, go back to college, go to a seminar, or read a book that improves your skills in your current business, then the expense of that education is tax deductible. This is a good rationale for employees to improve their skills and make your business more productive and profitable.

If you are currently going to school for the sake of landing a new job or to find your calling in life, then that is not deductible as a business expense.

5. Phone Expenses for Your Home Business are 100% Deductible

If you operate out of your home and you, like most homes, have just one phone line, you may deduct 100% of the expense of your business related calls from your bill.

At the end of the month when your bill comes in, grab it, locate the business related calls you’ve made that month, circle them, total them, and keep a record of that total on the bill.

At the end of the year pull out your phone bills for the year, total up your business call expenses, and deduct the entire expense – 100% of the costs.

If your phone is a shared home/business phone then the standard phone fees and charges cannot be deducted. If you have a second line installed and that line is used solely for business purposes then the entire amount of the bill is deductible.

6. Hire Your Kids and Keep It in the Family

If you run a sole proprietorship or partnership where your partner is your spouse, you can hire your kids and write off their wages as a business expense. Your child must be 17 or younger and a benefit for them is there is no Social Security taken from their pay.

If you have a large family this can save you a lot of money in the operation of your business. If you operate as an LLC or a corporation this tax deduction is not available to you.

7. Drive a Lot, Save a Lot

There’s almost no avoiding it. At some point you’re going to drive somewhere for business purposes. Luckily you can deduct all of that mileage from your taxes at a pretty good rate for 2010.

Important Note: Keep A Logbook! This is one of the most abused tax laws and the IRS is cracking down. Keeping good notes will help you avoid an unexpected tax issue and will keep you on the road.

Log all of your actual miles driven. If your place of business is at your home, you may start deducting mileage from the moment you leave your driveway until the time you return. If you drive from an office, your deductions start at your first business destination and end at your last.

Also, log expenses such as tolls, and parking costs, multiply your mileage by .50 per mile at the end of the year, add in your other expenses, and deduct the total from your tax bill.

You may also deduct the cost of a lease, or the interest of a car loan.

8. Deduct Your Home Office – Regardless of Its Size

Deducting the home office can be a slippery slope because the burden of proof is on you as to whether or not your office and related equipment is used for business purposes only. However if you keep your computer(s) separated from the family and use only a portion of a room, you’re in luck.

You can deduct the percentage of the home you use for business activity including space, rent, and utilities. How? Say your “office” is in your bedroom, at a desk in the corner. Measure off the amount of space you use in that room for business purposes, divide it by the square footage of the home, and use that percentage as the fraction of your home-related business expenses — rent, mortgage, insurance, electricity, etc. — that you can claim.

9. Miscellaneous Equipment

Items such as computers, copiers, fax machines, and scanners also are tax deductible. As with furniture, you can take 100% up front or depreciate it over five years.

10. Retirement Accounts

Are you self-employed and saving for your own retirement with a SEP-IRA or Keogh? Don’t forget to deduct your contribution on your personal income tax return. Employer contributions are not part of your personal tax deduction.

These are ten commonly overlooked deductions by business owners. There are many more and hopefully we will be able to share more of those business deductions with you over time. We hope that you will be able to use these tips effectively for your business. As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, it’s a wise choice to consult the expertise of a CPA or tax professional who can validate that these deductions are appropriate for your type of business.

Monster.com is part of Monster Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: MWW) and is the leading online employment solution for both job hunters and employers.  Since establishing their “digital recruiting” beginning in 1994, Monster Worldwide now services an expansive international job market with presences in nearly 50 countries worldwide.

$55 Monster.com Employer Job Ad Coupon

What began simply as a “job board” at Monster.com is now a full array of innovative job seeking, career management, employee recruitment, and talent management products and services for both prospective employees and employers. Today millions of workers and tens of thousands of employers depend on Monster to provide them with expert services related to their job needs.

As an employer, there are several ways you can make your Monster.com Job Ad stand out from the rest and encourage quality prospective employees to respond favorably to your job ad. These steps can help you fill your job opening quicker and at a lower recruitment cost.

1. Carefully select your company’s listing template or get Monster.com to design a custom Enhanced Job Branding template just for you with personalized colors, photos and your company’s branding.
2. Enhance your company’s image with a Monster Video Profile that shows job seekers some of the exciting things about working for your company.
3. Use Monster’s Job Profile or Profile Plus features so you can include a company profile with your job ad. Profile Plus provides space for your company logo and a link to your website within your job listing.
4. Set up Advanced Screening Questionnaires so you can quickly focus on the best candidates interested in your job ad — you will not only be able to pre-screen and rank job candidates before viewing their resumes but you can automatically send passed and rejected letters to those applicants.

When you are ready to post a job ad on Monster.com we suggest you visit our Monster Coupons page. There we publish an assortment of the latest links for job advertising coupons and other employer discount promotions applicable to Monster.com.

The term networking has become a popular buzzword throughout the business world today. Popular as the term is, however, there is a lot of misunderstanding about it, how to network effectively, and where your time as a business owner is well spent in the networking arena.

The term networking actually refers to the building of a loose community of individuals bound by mutual trust and common interest. This doesn’t mean that everyone in a particular networking group necessarily operates in the same industry. In most cases, a business network usually goes beyond simple industry affiliations, with the common goal being to give participants an enjoyable method and place to let other business owners know what they do and seek out good, quality sources for goods and services. Most groups also function as a place to receive good insight into business practices and to learn from each other. By actively engaging in networking, you can expand your company’s exposure and exponentially increase the ability to secure work via referrals.

Successful Business Networking Requires Trust

There are a variety of networking groups available in most towns and cities across the nation. Some of them are free to join, while others may require a membership fee. Probably the best way to find out what’s available in your area is to simply start asking other business owners that you know and see if they are participating in a particular group. Ask them if it’s an active group and if they see any potential benefit from you joining. Many groups also maintain websites, facebook pages, or twitter accounts too. If you don’t know anyone who is participating in a group, this may be the best method for you to locate groups close to you.

Once you’ve found a networking group in your area, we encourage you to employ the following tactics into your participation:

1. Be Authentic and Genuine

Trust is simply indispensable in effective networking and business networking is no different. If you want to succeed at it, you’ll have to gain people’s trust and, in order to do this, you have to prove to them that your intentions are genuine. This isn’t going to happen overnight and you’ll need to be intentional in your relationship building efforts. But, consistency and honesty will ultimately reward your efforts with good solid business relationships that will yield referrals for your business over time.

2. Set Goals

Beyond establishing trust, other goals need to be set. Once you’ve found a networking group that you want to invest your time and effort into, make it a point to establish some goals or benchmarks that you want to achieve as a result of your investment there. What are your overall goals? Why are you there?

3. Get Involved

This may be one of the harder steps for some folks. Simply attending a group isn’t going to result in achieving the goals you put together. Volunteering for duties in organizations and the business groups you belong to helps solidify your reputation and that trust factor we discussed in point number one. Working side by side with other business owners in the group allows you to get to know them a little bit better and it gives them insight into who you are. This goes a long way in developing referrals and a solid reputation among other business owners in your group.

4. Advance Yourself as an Authority in Your Field

Make sure that you can provide answers for people whenever they need it. Knowing the names of the various people in the organizations to which you belong is a very great way of establishing yourself in their minds. It is also very important that you develop a pool of knowledge on the areas of common interest so that you can be a positive resource during conversations, presentations, and round table meetings. As people start to recognize that you truly are skilled in your business, they will not hesitate to recommend you and your company to those that they come into contact with outside your networking group.

5. Be Proactive

Whenever you receive those sought after referrals, it’s an indication that your efforts have paid off and are being rewarded. It is imperative that you honor their acknowledgment by following up with the source of the referral. Again this goes a long way in establishing your overall reputation as a professional among those in your networking group.

Most importantly, be sure that you enjoy the time spent with your networking group. Finding a like-minded group of business owners to meet with on a regular basis and use as a source of accountability and encouragement is a great tool for you as a business owner. We hope that you’ll enjoy the process and find many of the tips we’ve shared with you useful as you begin your networking adventure.

The most recent wave of social media services to emerge involve the use of location based “check-ins” from users either through a dedicated mobile application (via smartphones) or through a mobile website. Currently, the two major players in this rapidly developing niche are Foursquare and Gowalla.

Each of these systems offer similar services but also provide the users with slightly different formats, goals, and options. For introductory purposes, we’ll simply offer a quick overview of each service and then discuss them.

Basically, the idea is to check-in at various locations during the course of your day to announce your presence, offer up a tip (i.e. “try the Mexi-Mocha at Calypso’s Coffee…it’s delicious”), or see who else may be at that location while you’re there. Perhaps it’s best to sum it up with a quote from Micro Explosion Media’s article about Foursquare,

By checking in, the person is broadcasting to his or her friends their connection to that particular business, resulting in marketing exposure for the business. The person checking in may get special offers from that business for checking in, visit frequency, or becoming the “mayor” of the business (person who’s been there the most). At that point it’s up to the business to decide how to reward people.

This is the basic “jest” of both services. The game elements vary slightly as well as a couple other minor particulars (for example, on Gowalla, you can create “Trips” for others to follow and rate). For more information on the particulars of each of these services, you should spend some time perusing each of their websites: Foursquare.com and Gowalla.com.

So, as a business owner…what do these services offer to you that’s of value? Out of every other social media service we have reviewed in this series, these two have the smallest amount of participants, so what’s the appeal? There are a couple critical things to consider:

1. While both of the services offer worldwide “check-in” capabilities, most users are hyper-local on a day-to-day basis. As many SEO gurus know, local search ranking and the ability for people to find you locally via the Internet is critical. So, by using Foursquare and Gowalla for your business (particularly retail and service oriented companies), you can generate some local buzz for your company and get involved with the people who frequent (or may frequent) your business. TechCrunch has a good article highlighting how many businesses have successfully engaged with customers via Foursquare and we encourage you to read through their insights.  (We aren’t biased toward one of these services at all, though it might appear that way from our reference articles. It is still difficult to find a good deal of material written about the successes and pitfalls of using Gowalla at this time.)

2. By taking a direct approach in listing your business on these services, you display to users your willingness to engage with them in something they enjoy…and it directly relates to your business. There is a great article entitled “6 Innovative Ways Businesses are Capitalizing on Foursquare” that offers up some creative suggestions on how to engage in this niche. While the article is written specifically about Foursquare, there are many elements that can be used via Gowalla as well.

To explore both of these services more, we encourage you to read the following articles:

• Foursquare for Businesses (Foursquare’s pitch to business owners on why it is good to participate in their social media game.)
• Wikipedia: Foursquare (service)
• Small Business Labs: What is Foursquare & Why is it Getting So Much Hype?
• Business Insider: What is Foursquare and How do I Use It?
• The Next Web: 6 Innovative Ways Businesses are Capitalizing on Foursquare
• Fast Company: Foursquare vs. Gowalla: Inside the Check-In Wars
• CrunchBase: Gowalla Profile
• Wikipedia: Gowalla

Here is a simple how-to video about using Gowalla entitled “Check In at Uncle Billys”

Click here to view the embedded video.

While this is certainly a small niche at the moment, it’s not going to be for long. Companies like Facebook, Google, and others are all exploring ways to jump into the location based arena. By getting a grip on how these systems work now, engaging in it while it’s still a relatively new, emerging platform you will certainly benefit as this niche becomes more mainstream.

Next up in the line up for our series on social media platforms that are being embraced by businesses large and small is Twitter. This ‘micro-blogging’ service has grown exponentially over the past couple of years and is now widely used throughout the world by companies in virtually every industry.

Developed in 2006, Twitter originally was created to answer the simple question, “What are you doing” with an answer (a tweet) that was no longer than 140 characters. These tweets may be sent and received via the Internet, SMS, or through the use of external applications (such as Tweetdeck, Echofon, Hootsuite, etc). Since its inception, Twitter has morphed into much more than just a way to tell friends, family, and coworkers what you’re doing. It has become an extremely powerful marketing and communication platform for people all around the globe.

Twitter’s main operational goal is probably best summed up in this quote from Evan Williams, one of the founders of Twitter and CEO of the company:

“What we have to do is deliver to people the best and freshest most relevant information possible. We think of Twitter as it’s not a social network, but it’s an information network. It tells people what they care about as it is happening in the world.”

Here are a few interesting statistics related to Twitter that we think will aid you in determining whether or not you want to “embrace all things Twitter” with your company:

• Twitter has approximately 75 million user accounts, but only about 15 million are active users on a regular basis.
• Currently, the average number of tweets per hour is around 1.3 million. At this rate, Twitter will process almost 10 billion tweets in a single year.
• There are more women on Twitter (53%) than men (47%).
• 64% of Twitter’s users are aged 35 or older.

These are interesting and impressive statistics that should be factored into your choice as to whether or not your business will benefit from using Twitter. Much has been written on successes and failures on Twitter usage. During our research, we have found the following articles to be useful for business owners who are weighing the viability of Twitter for their company:

• 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business. In this article, Chris Brogan shares some great suggestions and asks some good questions of the reader. This is a great tool for developing a strategy for using Twitter to your company’s advantage.
• Guy Kawasaki’s Twitter Tips for Business. This is a short two minute video that offers up 3 insights for businesses using Twitter.

  Click here to view the embedded video.

  There is another good list from him entitled 10 Tips I Got from Guy Kawasaki at CES.
• 5 Ways Your Business isn’t Using Twitter Well. Are you using Twitter now but not seeing any noticeable return? This is a good article to help you examine things that you may be doing wrong and help you change your Twitter usage.
• 5 Ways Twitter Helps My Business. One business owner’s valuable feedback on how Twitter has been helpful.
• Dell Rings Up $6.5 Million in Sales Using Twitter. Yes, you can make money with Twitter!

As we’ve mentioned before, it’s important to remember that social media involvement of any kind isn’t a way to immediately boost sales numbers. It takes time and effort on your part to engage with existing customers, potential customers, and people in general to gain their trust and see you as a reliable, interesting company with great products and valuable services. Twitter is a great platform and many people and companies have created unique ways to use it in advantageous ways. We hope that through this information and the external articles and video we’ve presented that you’ll be able to determine whether or not Twitter will be useful for your company.

Additional Information:

• Follow eBoss123 on Twitter
• Business social media series

We’re excited to offer up some interesting information about LinkedIn, the second article in our series on how to effectively use social media for your business. While LinkedIn is one of the smaller network platforms we’re covering, it still offers up a great deal of benefits for users.

Here is some interesting information that we gathered from LinkedIn’s own website:

LinkedIn is an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries and 200 countries. You can find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you need to work with to accomplish your goals.

General Statistics:

• LinkedIn has over 60 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the world.

• A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and about half of our members are outside the U.S.

• Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.

Benefits of Maintaining a Profile on LinkedIn:

• Manage the information that’s publicly available about you as professional

• Find and be introduced to potential clients, service providers, and subject experts who come recommended

• Create and collaborate on projects, gather data, share files and solve problems

• Be found for business opportunities and find potential partners

• Gain new insights from discussions with likeminded professionals in private group settings

• Discover inside connections that can help you land jobs and close deals

• Post and distribute job listings to find the best talent for your company

While LinkedIn may not be something that you use every day like you do Facebook or Twitter, it’s still an important place to establish a presence and build up a network. LinkedIn primarily focuses on business contact networking. It’s also heavily used by people who are job hunting as well.

Guy Kawasaki, a well-known venture capitalist and former Apple executive, has a very informative article entitled, “Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn” that we think contains some great suggestions. While the article is over three years old, it still contains very relevant, useful ways that LinkedIn can be beneficial for you and your business.

It seems that one of the most prevalent ways that LinkedIn is being used these days is for job recruitment and vetting of potential employees. We came across an interesting slideshow that highlights this point. According to the information in the slideshow, it claims that 80% of businesses use LinkedIn as part of their routine practices for checking out potential hires.

One thing to note is that LinkedIn does give you the ability to recommend someone. These recommendations are extremely important when reviewing people who are potential employees for your company.

Beyond just the recruitment and vetting process, companies also use LinkedIn as a way to determine a company’s value and reputation. By reviewing a company’s profile, their employees, their referrals, and their connections you gain the ability to gauge their viability before you even call them or meet with them in person. This ‘foreknowledge’ can be very valuable when you’re looking to contract with a company or perform work for them. Steven Burda, who is the #1 most connected and most recommended person on LinkedIn (he has over 30,000 connections and almost 3000 recommendations), has this to say, “the best thing about LinkedIn is the ability it gives you to gather intelligence on a person before you reach out to them. It means never again going into a meeting not knowing something about who you’re meeting with — about their experience and background and, of course, with a quick vibe about their charisma level and what’s going to be important to them.”

One other creative way LinkedIn is being used is as a free marketing enhancement tool. By increasing your company’s sales or service opportunities to other people and companies who can benefit from your company, you increase your ability to reach your customers. In turn, these people are also able to recommend you to others who may be interested or in need of your products and services.

These are a few examples of ways that establishing a presence on LinkedIn and using it can be rewarding for you and your business. Are you currently using LinkedIn in a creative way that adds value to your business? If so, please feel free to share it with us. We would enjoy hearing about how LinkedIn works well for your company.

More Information

• Our introductory article: “Five Guidelines for Your Company’s Social Media Presence”
• First article in our Social Media for Business series: Facebook & Business: How to Get Your Business on Facebook

With this being the first in a series of articles on how to effectively use social media for your business, we thought it would be a good idea to start with the biggest and most prominently used platform out there — Facebook.

Facebook’s usage continues to rise virtually every day. As a matter of fact, on March 13th, 2010, it was announced that Facebook “de-throned” Google as the most visited site on the Internet. With this in mind, it’s critical to create visibility for your company within this realm.

Here are a few staggering statistics about Facebook:

• More than 400 million active users
• 50% of Facebook’s active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• More than 35 million users update their status each day
• More than 60 million status updates posted each day
• More than 3 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
• More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
• More than 3.5 million events created each month
• More than 3 million active Pages on Facebook
• More than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook
• More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day
• Fan Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans
• Average user has 130 friends on the site
• Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
• Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
• Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month
• Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month
• Average user becomes a fan of 4 Pages each month
• Average user is invited to 3 events per month
• Average user is a member of 13 groups

Source: Facebook Press Room

If you’re not on Facebook at all just yet, there are a couple of routes you can take to get things started:

1. Create a business account. (Learn how here.)

2. Create a personal account and build a fan page for your business.

If you already have a personal Facebook account, then your only alternative is to create a fan page for your business.

There aren’t really that many differences between the functionality of the two styles (business account versus fan page). If you desire to have some separation between your business and your personal life, then the easiest way to create that would be to have your own personal account and then create a fan page for your business. If you’re ready to create your own fan page, we suggest you start here with Facebook’s guide on creating pages. If you want to really spruce up your page, check out this article. It details what is needed in order to customize your page.

Once you’ve successfully staked your claim in Facebook, be it with a business account or a fan page, what’s next? The reasons and methods for using it are growing exponentially every day. It’s a good idea to gather information together first and then create your plan of attack. We have found a great article, 9 Rules of Facebook Promotion Every Business Should Know, which we think provides excellent guidance for establishing an effective presence for your business on Facebook. There are several other good articles that are worth reading through and gleaning helpful information from as well. A couple more that we suggest are:

• 30+ Apps for Doing Business on Facebook
• How to Market Your Business with Facebook

We hope you will find this information useful as you begin your journey into Facebook with your business. It’s an exciting forum for businesses to embrace and looks to be a great way to gain additional, helpful exposure for your products and services. If you come across other helpful articles during your web surfing, please feel free to let us know about them in the comments section below.

Additional Information: Please review our introductory article entitled “Five Guidelines for Your Company’s Social Media Presence.”