We believe Midland American Capital is a great factoring solution for businesses is because they are focused on being a longterm partner with their clients and have knowledgeable development officers who can help businesses understand factoring clearly. Midland provides invoice factoring services for a broad range of industries from Distributors to Technology Providers.

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Most of the users only can access 2G speeds. Certainly, China Mobile has been a target for Apple for quite some time. It is known that talks have been ongoing in specifically related to bringing China Mobile into the iPhone fold–and giving Apple more than 600 million customers. It would be a huge opportunity for Apple, in Apple’s most important market.

The NYC Business Network shares a mission and purpose with the Kentucky Business Network. Their goal of “Promoting NYC companies and connecting businesses with customers and buyers” shares a clear relationship with our mission and goals.

The NYCBusinessNetwork.org website has three major components:

• Membership Directory
• Press Release Distribution
• Business Events and Calendar

Although our two websites do not share the same regional demographic or constituency, we feel confident that the two website directories will find numerous opportunities for cross promotion of our membership base and featured businesses. In total, the two websites will be mutually strengthened through our relationships and opportunities for growth.

We invite you to visit their website: http://www.nycbusinessnetwork.org/

The new cgp.org website includes a new capability of sorting and searching the current grants database for the foundation. Additionally, individuals and institutions interested in applying for a grant with the CGP can also browse the archives of past grants with CGP in order to better understand who and which institutions received funding in the past.

The starting price points for tablets with 10.1 inch screens from ViewSonic, Asustek and Acer range from $279 to $449. Each of these tablets run a different version of the Google OS. Typically they run dual-core ARM processors. One selling point for the Android devices are that they are Flash-capable.

Banner advertising may not be the most cost effective form of advertising for small businesses however. Pay Per Click advertising (especially that of Google’s Adwords program) has completely turned the advertising industry upside down. PPC ads can be hyper-targeted and easy to manage. They have a low commitment for small business owners and marketing companies, which gives advertisers flexibility to create, study and learn from their campaigns–ultimately making the format more appealing. It should be noted, that banner advertising has been adopted into the Google Adwords program.

Statistically, banner advertising is the most expensive of all common forms of customer acquisition. From a cost standpoint, it can exceed even traditional media.

Niche Banner Advertising Deals
A gem in the rough
On the other hand, there can be some great deals for banner ads from small websites and newsletters, which may contradict the general stats. For example, smaller website owners or webmasters running their own banner advertising programs may provide interesting deals or access to a unique and useful market, which could be helpful to a small business advertiser. Such gems can be challenging to find and can take quite a bit of time researching. One idea would be to find websites or blogs that have the right quality and kind of traffic but currently do not carry advertising. Make an offer to the website owner.

Finding a banner ad network
For established banner ad websites, consider using a banner ad network. Examples of such networks include: AdCritic, Adotas, DoubleClick, Google AdWords, or even the WebbyAwards.

Formats
Paid online advertising can come in a variety of forms, including:

• Static banner ads — in a variety of sizes
• Animated GIF or Flash ads
• Rich media, which could include sound or video
• Pop-ups and pop-unders ( boooo, these can be very annoying to users)
• Interstitial — appear as user links between pages
• Expandable or take-over ads – ads that grow or cover content on a page

Selling online can be a neccessity for some businesses for all the reasons mentioned above. Below is a list of the essential components for a robust, online store.

Essential eCommerce components

• Product catalog. You must have an organized store unless you have only a few products. Navigation within your product catalog should be clear and browsable
• Product attributes. Customers need to learn and study the product prior to purchase. These attributes are generally accepted as a must: product name, category, description, price, and photo / image.
• Check out. The eCommerce checkout needs to provide a way to take payment, append relevant taxes (if necessary), compute shipping and handling costs, provide a sub-total of the amount due, collect billing and shipping information
• Reporting & order tracking. For small stores, you can rely on Paypal or Google Checkout for the order tracking and customer info collection. Larger more robust stores will be better off with a way to store all customer information and be aware when orders come in. Some stores have a way to track the status of the order through the fulfillment and shipping stages.
• For non-remote payments (like Paypal and Google Checkout), security is vital. You must consider the use of encryption HTTPS, at a minimum.

Other eCommerce options

• Inventory systems
• Point of sale connections. For example, connect and interact with RMS
• Product popularity rating
• Featured products to be dynamically displayed on high-trafficked pages
• Suggested products for cross site marketing
• CRM capabilities – tracking and reporting on customers
• Discounts or coupons
• Live UPS, FedEx or USPS automatic rate calculator – and product dimension and weight attributes
• Limit orders to specific countries

Guidelines for writing a press release

Here are a few points to consider to keep the quality of your press releases high:

• Cover the who, what, where and why of the story–basics of journalism. Try to make the job of journalists easier and they may reward you with a story
• Make sure you use spell check. Yes, this may seem obvious, but many businesses forget the basics when trying to turn out a media or ad piece.
• Test all links that are included in your press release
• Make sure that your lead sentence has a captivating hook–remember many readers scan content before committing to a full read
• Write a concise but interesting headline. Ten words should do fine.
• Make sure to include the date of your press release. News has an expiration date. Don’t let your readers guess or mistake your press release for old news.
• Provide contact information

For small businesses, blogging can be a great way to build visibility. As you write great content, other authors and readers may begin to follow your blog and respond to your posts. This can be an excellent way to find new clients or attract talent. Your blog articles can be a great way to elegantly and indirectly advertise your business through social platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook.  It can also establish your business as an authority within a niche or field related to your core industry.

For large businesses and corporations, blogging can be a fantastic way to talk about new services or products and give a comfortable and less formal, inside view of the innovations of the company. Blogging can be more interesting for users because of it’s freedom from dry formality. Corporate leaders and staff can use blogging to build a relationship with users and quickly respond to and address their needs. It is vital for users/customers to feel like they are being listened to and understood. Blogging can also be a way to give companies a greater visibility to other organizations, partners and in tangential markets. Polls, feedback forms, star ratings and other user inputs can also give larger companies a way to understand user needs and desires–as companies collect feedback based on topics and announcements during the innovation life-cycle.

Goal-setting for business bloggers

• As your team questions the value of blogging, you should first answer the simple question: Is blogging simply a passing interest for your team? Can your team really commit to the platform and process and maintain it longterm?
• Define a main purpose for each blog. By defining a purpose, you prevent writers block and also don’t let readers feel confused. Having a focus keeps content, thoughts and topics focused on the business purpose of the blog–it also helps you define the value of the blog and the time commitments of blogging clear to key stakeholders.
• Create a content plan: Start by writing a list of topics and categories that your blog will cover. Try to draft a schedule of how frequently your business can and should publish content on the blog. Assign resources to this content plan (see next).
• Commit the right resources to the blog. If your business begins to blog, you need to account for the time it takes to construct and edit posts. Remember your blog speaks on behalf of your organization so quality is important. Start by creating a content plan, which outlines the topics your blog will focus on and who in the organization will write the articles and when. Make sure that blogging fits within the writer’s workload–don’t over commit or let the blog fall by the wayside.
• To advertise or not: If you are blogging for business, you need to question whether the amount of money you can make from advertising is worth it. You can always do a test run with advertising and measure it’s impact. Also, go back to your original purpose for blogging, does advertising distract from or cloud that purpose. For example, if your purpose was to inform a user on the advantages of using your product, then advertising the products or other companies would potentially harm the core purpose of the blog.

One of the best ways to represent your business on Facebook is to create a page for your business. Previously, pages were focused on the relationship between fans and celebrities–when a user would subscribe to page, the button and action was referred to as becoming a “fan.” Facebook thoughtfully changed this dynamic to focus on businesses, causes and organizations, using the Like button. The Like button significantly increased the performance of this tool–as users are more apt to Like a page rather than become a fan of a page. We, at Kentucky Business Network, noticed a tremendous increase in traffic for our members when the Like button was introduced. Subscriptions to pages has increased and social media driven traffic to destination websites has grown considerably.

Once you create a Facebook page for your business, it is important to continue to improve and use the tool to get value out of the tool. Here are some helpful tips for improving your business page on Facebook.

• Make it attractive: Just like your destination website for your business, your Facebook page needs personal attention. Make it attractive. Use images and your company logo to help it stand out. Try to introduce color to the page to improve the aesthetics. Create a lasting impression that helps to attract new users and loyal customers. Remember, users most often are on Facebook for fun and to connect with friends. You need to make your business page appealing and intriguing.
• Keep updating and interacting: It is vital that you keep making updates to your business page to make it interesting to users. Make updates on a regular basis. If you need to, create a schedule that integrates with your work schedule–set aside some time for social media marketing.
• Don’t spam — instead keep dialogue conversational: Remember Facebook is a social website, so your business should be social rather than too pitch-y. Try to make content and announcements interesting to users–don’t just throw products and pitches at them. Facebook is a great opportunity to make your business capture new leads and build loyalty.
• Call to action: Even though your tone should not be a hard sell, you still need to have a call to action. Make sure that you have links to your website, your business address/location and other contact info. On your landing page, encourage users to Like you–which is a subscription to your page.