That’s according to Brian Solis, renowned public relations expert and digital thought leader. In a recent blog post, Solis explains why most viral marketing attempts fail, through analysis social scientist Dan Zarrella’s work on why ideas spread and the seven types of “sharing motives.”

A few key takeaways:

• Identify and pre-seed your message with appropriate key influencers
• Some of the top emotions that motivate sharing are: Personal, Relevant, Timely, and Humor
• Define the action you are trying to provoke
• The ability to share with one-click essential to spreading your content/message
• Videos are much easier to spread on Facebook compared to Twitter

It’s not a short read, but definitely great food for thought as you market your small business. Read it once, chew on it awhile, then read it again!

Guest Post – Jonathan Kay is the Ambassador of Buzz at Grasshopper, a provider of virtual phone systems. He is extremely passionate about helping / meeting new entrepreneurs and always excited to learn about their unique journey. Find Jonathan on Twitter @GrasshopperBuzz or via email at jkay(at)grasshopper.com.

Having now lived through over a year of my first recession, I have learned a lot. Mistakes and tough times always seem to lead to opportunities and takeaways. The last year or two really taught me the importance of the customer, and the emphasis that needs to be placed on them. With entrepreneurs and small businesses looking for any way possible to save money, “Customer Acquisition Cost” has become an increasingly important metric. It’s simple… the less money it costs you to acquire a customer, the larger the profit margin.

This leads me to a real passion of mine: Brand Loyalists.

A brand loyalist isn’t just a happy user of your product/service: they yell from the roof tops about you, helping to market and sell your product! With all the social media channels available now, there are more and more people telling you what they need, and asking for advice. Having an Army of Brand Champions out there provides a powerful and unbiased sale that is impossible to reproduce. More so, real brand loyalists will spend the time to give you constructive, uncensored feedback. This will only help make your product/service stronger, and increase customer satisfaction in the long run.

Ok. So now you know how important brand loyalists are; the harsh reality is they are difficult to achieve. And, a simple discount or promotion code just won’t cut it. I have been fortunate early in my career to work with a handful of really successful and genuine entrepreneurs. This firsthand experience has helped me develop a certain level of expertise in this area, and below are some helpful tips I have learned along the way:

1. Add Value First
When a customer engages your brand and purchases your product/service they don’t expect you to add value above and beyond what they paid for. This creates an opportunity to WOW your customer and really exceed their expectations. Small efforts make a difference: engage new customers on Twitter and thank them, start discussions about your product, and if you or a colleague is traveling why not reach out to a few local customers and take them out to dinner or drinks. By engaging your customer right away you will make a connection they will never forget.

2. Listen. Then Listen Some More
Have you ever tried flat out asking your customers what they want? What they need? Simple…yes, but trust me it works. Why not just pick up the phone and ask them? It is important to remember that your customers drive the direction of your business. At Grasshopper, all managers call 5 new customers ever week. We ask how the setup process went, what we could be doing better, what we are missing, and how we could help? Listening is a powerful tool. By making people feel actively involved (not through boring surveys) in shaping important features/practices, you will build incredible brand loyalty.

3. Make a Human Connection
It’s important to let your customers know that you are more than just a brand - you are actually real people too. Make an effort from to have less formal conversations. A great example of this is our co-founder David Hauser (@dh). You will find him doing anything from thanking customers to talking about his Iron Man training.

4. Promote Your Customers
People never forget when you make a connection, or open a door for them. Make an effort to be constantly reaching out to your customer base, learn about them and their businesses. The more you know about your customers, the more likely you will be able to set them up with other customers who might be able to help each other out. That is a memorable connection. Here at Grasshopper we have gone as far as to set up a formal program: Tell Us Your Story. This gives our entrepreneurs an opportunity to tell us what makes them unique, and how they are changing the world. Not only do we promote them to the media, but now we also have real stories and examples of entrepreneurs living their passion. Actively trying to help your customers businesses grow is a definite way to create a brand loyalist.

5. Build a Culture of Responsibility
You need to empower your employees to help your customers (and not just your support team). There is no reason everyone should not be concerned with how your customers feel about your product/service. Make an effort to always follow up after resolving a customer issue, this will make people feel heard, appreciated, and create a loyalist for life.

Great website design doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, simplicity can make a small business website much more effective as a sales tool than a site filled with crazy fonts, music, and flashing images. A clean and straightforward website makes you look professional and trustworthy.

Here are a few “best practices” for design to keep in mind as you review or make your own website:

Be Consistent
Pages that vary a lot in design can be confusing for customers, even sometimes making them think they’ve jumped to a new website. Examples of things to keep consistent: fonts, colors, image sizes, buttons.

Make it Easy to Scan
Attention span is short online and if your customer can’t find what they’re looking for quickly they’re likely to leave your site. Use “easy-to-read” fonts and make important information more obvious with images, bigger text, or colors. Align text to the left and use bold headlines to describe what paragraphs are about.

Use Whitespace
Whitespace, or empty space, makes your website easier on the eyes and helps your visitor sift through your content more easily. Break up large blocks of text into smaller paragraphs with whitespace in between. Also leave a bit of space around your images.

Consider Your Customer’s Setup
Remember that your visitor may view your site with a monitor that’s much smaller or bigger than yours, which can affect how your pages are displayed to them. By setting the page width to a common size, like 760 pixels, you make sure that your content doesn’t get stretched and hard to read.

The BIG GOAL is to Educate
Your customers come to your site to learn about you and your products, so remember that when you’re tempted to get carried away with your designs. Reserve your creative flare for less information-centric parts of your website, like the header or sides.

Following these web standards doesn’t mean that your website will be boring or just like all others out there. There is a lot of room for creativity, it just needs to be in the right places. Remember that your message is what’s important and if your visitor is distracted by glitz and glitter, they might not ever really connect with what you’re trying to say.

Whether you work out of your home or in a high-rise, most people who work at a computer have the same problem – keeping an organized workspace.

A clean desk contributes to your productivity, and as a small business owner you probably want to maximize your time. Creating a system for keeping your desk clean can help you eliminate distractions and power through tasks more efficiently.

The folks over at Productivity501 have a series of questions to help you “streamline” your workspace. Check out 5 Questions To Help Organize Your Desk to see if you can clear the clutter!

In celebration of the 25th birthday of the first domain name ever purchased (symbolics.com), we decided to go back and look at all the funny (and horrible) web domains we’ve seen over the years.

Just a gentle reminder to make sure your domain name conveys what you want it to!

Here’s the 43 most notorious we found (we actually had 50 - but our mothers read this blog):

• penisland.net - Pen Island
• sydneytherapist.com - Sydney Therapist
• mammotherection.com - Construction Company
• kidsexchange.net - Kids Exchange
• bigalsonline.com - Big Als Online
• webone.com.au - Web One
• choosespain.com - Choose Spain
• bendover.com - Ben Dover
• bitefartcafe.rs - Bitef Art Cafe
• partnerstalking.com.au - Partners Talking
• whorepresents.com - Who Represents
• expertsexchange.com - Experts Exchange
• nobraces.com.au - No Braces
• wintersexpress.com - Winters Express
• gotahoe.com - Go Tahoe
• therapistfinder.com - Therapist Finder
• powergenitalia.com - Power Gen Italia
• molestationnursery.com - Mole Station Nursery
• ipanywhere.com - Internet Protocol Anywhere
• speedofart.com - Speed of Art
• dicksonweb.com - Dickson Web
• viagrafix.com - Via Grafix (renamed to Learn2)
• nycanal.com - New York Canal Region
• mofo.com - Morrison & Foerster, LLC
• michaeljacksonsthisisitmoviemerchandise.com - really?
• dicksonweb.com - Dickson’s Temperature Instruments
• teacherstalk.com - Teachers Talk
• auctionshit.com - Auctions Hit
• butthatsnotall.co.nz - But That’s Not All
• childrenswear.co.uk - Childrens Wear
• ihavegas.com - IHA Vegas Holiday Rentals
• machome.com - Mac Home
• oddsextractor.com - Odds Extractor
• alterscrap.com - Alter Scrap
• ladrape.co.uk - La Drape
• llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyll-llantysiliogogogoch.com - an actual Welsh town
• gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle.com - a spinoff of the famous search engine
• 1hourscrap.com - Rapid scrapbook making
• swissbit.ch - Germany-based Swissbit
• 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592.com - Pi
• pedo.org - An actual dentist organization

Have you seen a URL that should be on this list? Let us know on Twitter!

Guest blogger: Matt Friesen is the founder and CEO of Thirdi, a Vancouver Software Development and Internet Marketing company.

What do you do if you are selling something new and original: like a hoodie designed to look like a monster. Even if you captured 100% of the people looking for “Hoodies that make you look like a monster”, you likely aren’t going to have a substantial business. Search advertising can’t capture that intent. Display advertising is too easily ignored, and lacks the necessary credibility, to sell someone on a radically new idea. To make someone take the leap into buying something silly the best way is to have a personal, human recommendation.

Unique products require a human touch and a personal connection. Unique products must fit into communities or they will not be appreciated. Here are 3 questions we ask ourselves, at Thirdi, before starting to market a unique product:

1. What specific groups would enjoy this product?

Don’t cop out and say that your audience is ‘everyone’. Some groups will always be better suited to your product than others. Are you looking for kooky soccer moms or under-18 scenesters. Maybe your audience has an obscure profession, like cartographers or jugglers. You have to have a clear idea of the answer to this question before you can proceed.

2. Where do these groups congregate online?

Start doing Google searches for key terms related to your audience. Make lots of bookmarks using tools like Delicious or Faviki and keep them organized. You’ll also want to qualify these groups by their scale and influence somehow as well, to make sure you aren’t wasting time on communities of 20 people. Two easy ways to do this are to use the Google Toolbar to measure the a site’s pagerank or a service like Alexa.com to measure (rough) size. The details aren’t important, you just need to establish a set of priorities.

3. Who are the most important members of the group?

Every group has a leader. Spend a bit of time digging through each of these crowds and a clear leader will start to emerge. Usually, you can just look through 20 or 30 random posts and start to notice that one name keeps popping up over and over. These leaders will write 10X the post of average users, and command 50X the influence. If you can win them over, the rest of the group will take notice.

Finding these individuals may seem like a lot of work, especially since these efforts may only lead to a handful of immediate sales. What they do offer you is a great place to test your marketing messages. Start a conversation with these individuals and see if your message is resonating. If they like it, they’ll tell their friends and your product will start to catch on. If they don’t, you will have received free marketing feedback from your exact target consumer. Either way, you will have gained some valuable data and possibly a few helpful allies.

March 8 is International Women’s Day: a day to celebrate and recognize women all around the world. The number of women in professional occupations in business has risen by 50% over the past decade (more than double the rate seen among men). To celebrate, we’re profiling a handful of the incredible women on the CityMax.com team. Thank you - we couldn’t do it without your help!

Name: Ani
Dream Business: An R&D house creating user interfaces based on new technological concepts, such as the Semantic Web and Augmented Reality. ‘Web 3.0’
How long I’ve been with CityMax.com: Since November 2004
Role at CityMax.com: Product Manager – I am responsible for the technology: network infrastructure, product development & quality.
My female role model: Helen Greiner – Co-founder of iRobot Corp. and inventor of the Roomba. She is not only an entrepreneur, but also a strong leader and innovator in a predominantly male industry. Her unique approach to robotics aims to make them a more versatile and integral part of our daily lives.

Name: Yasmin
Dream Business: SEO consultant (realistic) or a Disney Imagineer (well, it is the happiest place on earth)
How long I’ve been with CityMax.com: Since March 2005
Role at CityMax.com: Business Manager – I am responsible running the day-to-day business, as well as everything to do with people (human resources). You might call me the Chief People Officer!
My female role model: Besides my mom, I would have to say Jane Austen. I admire her strength as a woman, considering the era she was born in. Not only is she a strong role model for women, but all of her characters are strong women by any era’s standards.

Name: Corinne
Dream Business: A Geeky Gadget Design company. I can’t wait till the day I see someone walking down the street with my designs!
How long I’ve been with CityMax.com: Since January 2009
Role at CityMax.com: Support Manager – I am responsible for keeping all our customers happy! I help resolve any issues our customers have, and also teach them technical skills for their websites.
My female role model: Randice-Lisa Altschul - the inventor of disposable cell phones.  She is also a successful toy designer and patent holder.  To be able to invent simple toys/games, then make the leap to create several high-tech, ground-breaking technologies inspires me to do the same.

Name: Mara
Dream Business: A vacation resort in Mexico
How long I’ve been with CityMax.com: Since October 2006
Role at CityMax.com: Editor in Chief – I am responsible for all things “text”,  including internal and external communications, social media, and application design.
My female role model: Ann Handley - an extremely talented and successful writer/marketer. She co-founded ClickZ.com, manages personal and corporate blogs, and is also the Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs, an invaluable resource for any marketer.

Name: Bea
Dream Business: Exotic Food Restaurant
How long I’ve been with CityMax.com: Since March 2007
Role at CityMax.com: Quality Control – I handle all quality control and testing, making sure that our software products meet the qualified requirements for customers in terms of  performance, usability and functionality.
My female role model: U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. She has endured and triumphed over several life obstacles while in the public eye. It takes tremendous determination and hard work to achieve what she has. Her courage and assertiveness are very inspiring to young women. I admire her wit, edginess, and accomplishments in the political sphere.

For more on International Women’s Day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women%27s_Day

It’s a big weekend in Hollywood. The Academy Awards is a huge event that costs millions of dollars. So what is the value for the players involved? And better yet, how does this translate to your small business?

In just about any industry there are awards and recognition to be won. An Oscar isn’t just a shiny trophy that will sit on a mantle gathering dust. It commands respect for the winner, along with more opportunities and significantly higher pay. It implies a level of quality not found in the “everyday” actor. Not only that, but it provides that extra few minutes to make them a household name – after all, who could forget Adrien Brody’s first win (and unexpected kiss with Halle Berry!)


The same goes for your business. No matter what your specialty, it’s likely that there is an award out there that conveys your talent and reliability to potential customers. Awards are like testimonials, but much stronger since they are backed up by an objective third party.

Not only can awards provide incentive to your customers, but they also have an impact on your ability to hire great staff. As an example, since being included as one of the Best Companies to Work For in BC, we now receive more job applications, giving us a bigger pool for high-quality hiring. People want to be part of something successful.

Not sure where to start looking for award-winning possibilities? Try searching online with keywords including your industry and “awards”. You’ll likely be surprised at the opportunities out there!

Is the location of your small business important to your customers? If so, your online marketing efforts need to include optimization of your website for local search.

Not sure what local search is? A great example is Google Local. When you do a search for a local business on Google (i.e. “dog walker Seattle”), on the search results page you’ll see a list of local businesses beside a little map. They are businesses that have been submitted to Google Local who are relevant to your search.

Here are some great ways to optimize your site for local search:

1.    Submit to Local Search Engines
We already mentioned Google Local, but there are many more and some may be more popular in your area than others. Consider the following:

• Google Local
• Yahoo! Local
• Yelp
• Yellowpages.com
• Local.com

2.    Include Your Contact Information on Every Page
This is easier than it sounds. Just create a site-wide footer for your pages and include your address.
CityMax.com User Tip: Create your page footer by going to ‘Edit Site’ > ‘Page Footer’.

3.    Use Geo-Descriptive Keywords
When researching your keywords, make sure to see what people are searching locally, then use those keywords on your website. Make sure to include them in your title and description tags.

When you make a website that’s optimized for local search, it’s easier to get your business to the top of the search engines – simply based on your location! As a bonus suggestion, consider getting a localized domain name to compliment your existing one.