April, 2009

Small business optimism up, salaries down in March

An optimistic outlook towards the economy prevailed among small business owners in March, according to a study by online payroll service SurePayroll. In the same time, salaries dropped 0.89 percent in one month. The survey was completed on March 30th and consisted of 234 respondents randomly selected from the 25,000 small businesses.

Join Idea Cafe on the major social web sites

Here at IdeaCafe we were thinking of possibilities to create new networking opportunities for the thousands of Idea Cafe Regulars. And then it hit us: we can use the existing social platforms! So, you are hereby cordially invited to join Idea Cafe on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Click on the links to join the Idea Cafe community on the respective online service.

Small businesses moving to the cloud: a Q&A

Cloud computing is coming to small business, and it brings benefits in terms of price and stability. A number of different services, necessary for running a small business, can run as a hosted (cloud) service. We explore the issue in an exclusive Q&A with Scott Kinka, Senior Vice President at EvolveIP.

Idea Cafe: What is the cloud and how can it help small businesses? What types of services run in the cloud?

On the strengths and weaknesses of small business: Idea Cafe talks to Susan Wade of Network Solutions

Network Solutions recently conducted a survey with the University of Maryland to create the Small Business Success Index (www.growsmartbusiness.com). The Small Business Success Index measured the strengths and weaknesses of small companies, and found that small businesses are succeeding despite the economic downturn, and also that they are still investing in their companies, in spite of the 48% of small business owners expecting the economy to be in decline in 2009. According to Network Solutions, small businesses can optimize their performance for maximum success using the index.

Choosing the Best Marketing Tools For Your Small or Local Business

Online marketing...Email marketing...Blogs...Search engine optimization (or SEO)...Google Adwords...Yellowpages...LinkedIn...Facebook...MySpace...

Do any of these words cause you heartburn? Today, we are fortunate to have so many marketing options, but more options can mean more confusion. But how is a business owner supposed to evaluate which ones are right for their business or the most cost-effective?