Link Love: The Most Valuable Small Biz Articles Posted This Week
First, an update on my post yesterday. It’s been less than 24 hours, and so far 49 people have downloaded/Tweeted about Smaller Box. A few people commented that they didn’t like the ‘forced’ tweets. The tool I used allows you to change what the Tweet says, but yes the deal was you send a Tweet about Smaller Box and, in exchange, you get a free download. If this idea is too unappealing, and you want the download, I’ve added the option to buy the download for $9.99. My guess is tweets are going to be a more popular payment method, but we’ll see what happens. I’ll do another update on this project in a couple of weeks.
Now, on to the links I’m loving this week…
- Spending money on marketing: a waste of money for new businesses?
- When you want to quit because it’s just not worth it – A Smarter Bear talks about the emotionally drain of starting a business
- How to SEO if You’re Not a Guru
- ArtBiz Coach’s Thoughts on What to do After You Get a Business Card
- What to do if you can’t afford SEO
- Exciting! Facebook has rolled out expanded insights for your domain name! – I love this feature. This is the first time anyone’s been able to see how widely their site is being used across Facebook!
- Meylah’s Tips on Setting Up for Product Photography
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I downloaded the resource guide yesterday, and it’s amazing! I’ve already improved the speed of my website, and now I’m off to do some in-depth research on my competition & their advertising stats.
This resource guide is exactly the kind of thing that I *want* to share with my twitter peeps – thanks so much for having that as a ‘payment’ option.
Comment by Angie Green — March 11, 2011 @ 9:34 am
I was one of those who was a little torn as to this method of ‘payment’.
For me, I think the issue is that tweets *are* social currency… and I felt uncomfortable sharing something before I knew whether the content was worthwhile (I was pretty sure in this case – by reputation – that it would be, and it was, but it won’t always be that way when people get a hold of this).
Our recommendations are a big part of our social currency, and I guess my fear would be that by recommending something that was less-than-useful, people might start paying less attention to what I have to say, which is social media suicide.
Comment by Jess — March 11, 2011 @ 3:36 pm
I guess I can understand not wanting to recommend something unknown, which is why I added an option to pay with money. That said the idea of not paying for something until you’ve decided you like it isn’t really a workable idea. I can’t pay the theater after I watch a movie and decide it’s good. I can’t pay for shoes months after I get them and see for myself that the soles didn’t split and the seams didn’t tear. I have to make my purchase decisions on what I know of a shoe brand reputation or what I’ve seen of movie previews or the filmmaker’s past work.
I’ve tried to engender enough good will with a ton of good freely available content, so my readers would be ok with “buying” a download with a tweet, even if they hadn’t read it yet. So I guess I was a little surprised by the negative feedback. Hopefully the added option to pay with money addresses the issue of not wanting to pay with social media.
Comment by Meredith — March 12, 2011 @ 9:07 am