Using Twitter for your small business allows you to keep up with your customers in real time, whether it's providing immediate customer service, researching the newest trends, gathering leads, or checking out your competitors. Keeping up-to-date on where Twitter is going can help you plan your marketing strategies, delivering value and providing your customers with the freshest ideas.

While the company has been making a profit, Twitter's stock has been steadily falling over the past year. Since Twitter isn't going anywhere, this means we will be seeing some changes soon. One change, for example, will be not including links and photos in the 140-character limit for tweets in an effort to engage more activity on Twitter.

There are times when those work responsibilities seem to take over, and it appears that you have no time for anything else. Depending upon your situation you may welcome added duties—it might mean your owner-operated business is doing great. But if your health suffers, or there are ruffled feathers at home because you've missed yet another family event, it's time to reassess your work-life balance.

Having some sort of creative outlet is the perfect way to insert some of that balance back in your life. Creating something not only reduces stress and lowers blood pressure, but it allows you to access the parts of your brain which increase concentration, imagination, and inspiration.

Your business is your baby. Just like a newborn, you want your business to grow and thrive. Keeping track of a child's progress is easy—we can watch the child learn to walk and talk, we have to buy larger clothes when the child has outgrown the old ones, and so on.

But a business's growth can be deceiving. It can be bringing in lots of money, but just as easily, have little in the way of cash flow. Your store could be full of customers, but sales could be down. So how can you tell how well your business is doing?

“You can buy attention (advertising). You can beg for attention from the media (PR). You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales). Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free.”

 – David Meerman Scott, marketing speaker

As small business owners, we're always looking for cost-effective ways to promote our business. With over 400 million members worldwide, LinkedIn can be a great resource for connecting to current clients and customers, as well as a way to bring in new prospects.

As of April of 2016, there are over 1.65 billion monthly Facebook users, a 15 percent increase over last year.

One in five page views in the United States occurs on Facebook.

At a billion plus, Facebook has more monthly active users than WhatsApp (500 million), Twitter (284 million) and Instagram (200 million)—combined.

Join us at the next Infusionsoft User Group meeting in Westborough, MA! It’s free, it's tomorrow -- Tuesday, June 7, 2016, 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. at Tatnuck Bookseller, 18 Lyman Street, Westborough MA, just 5 minutes west of Rt 495. See you there!

Featured Resource this week - Digital Product Delivery

Digital Publishing for eBooks and Downloads

DPD is an easy to use digital publishing platform for selling and delivering downloadable content. Upload your products to DPD and start selling in minutes. With DPD, all sales are paid directly to you with no per-sale fees, bandwidth charges, or commissions.

Check out others who we recommend - solid vendors and products that could benefit your business today.

What do your members want?

It is important to deliver what your members want, NOT what they need. Hang in there with me and I’ll explain.

Over the course of this series we have discussed why you should have a membership site, how you might structure it, mistakes to avoid and some specific usage scenarios of membership sites. However, if your site is not successful, none of that matters.

Featured Resource this week - TurboDial

This Personal Communicator brings the Power of Infusionsoft to your Inside Sales Campaigns!

With turboDial you never leave Infusionsoft – place a phone call to any contact at any time right from MyDay, from a saved search or from contact and opportunity records!

Plan your calls in advance or make them spontaneously – turboDial is the only solution effective for both

Check out others who we recommend - solid vendors and products that could benefit your business today.

Join us at the next Infusionsoft User Group meeting in Westborough, MA! It’s free, it's tomorrow -- Tuesday, July 5, 2016, 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. at Tatnuck Bookseller, 18 Lyman Street, Westborough MA, just 5 minutes west of Rt 495. See you there!

Featured Resource this week - Time Fusion

Automate Your Appointments

Are you using TimeTrade or Full Slate to give your clients online access for setting appointments with you? If not, you should be!

TimeFusion integrates Infusionsoft with TimeTrade and Full Slate to automate your appointment scheduling!

Check out others who we recommend - solid vendors and products that could benefit your business today.

Featured Resource this week - Infusionsoft User Group

Infusionsoft User Group - Meet with small business owners and Infusionsoft users like you to discuss marketing tips, sales advice and discover new ways you can use Infusionsoft. The User Group we facilitate meets monthly in Westborough, Massachusetts - members drive up to 1 1/2 hours to attend. Won't you join us? Click the Logo above to sign up. (If you live too far away to attend, click the link anyway to find out about a User Group in your area.)

What happens at an Infusionsoft User Group?

• Meet with other Infusionsoft users in your area.
• Discuss using Infusionsoft, strategies and tactics.
• Gather new ideas and share product feedback.
• Share helpful sales and marketing tips.
• Plus so much more!

Check out others who we recommend - solid vendors and products that could benefit your business today.

After a grueling week, you finally have some downtime. How will you spend it? Running errands? Cleaning house? Squeezing in a little extra work? Maybe you’ll do absolutely nothing— recharging the batteries, so to speak. If you have kids, you may notice that neither of those options produces a very enjoyable day off, particularly when they insist on spending some time with you.

Depending on where you live, the summer can be brutal. It’s too hot to really do much of anything and you’re distracted by thoughts of that summer vacation just around the corner. It’s also the perfect time to market your business while your competitors are feeling like one of those melting clocks in a Salvador Dali painting.

So prep ahead and beat the summer slump with some hot summer marketing! 

Here’s how...

Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood?
In your neighborhood?
In your neighborhood?
Say, who are the people in your neighborhood?
The people that you meet each day.
~ Sesame Street

It’s become a bit cliché to say we now live in a global village, but it’s true.