1. It helps if you are famous or well-known outside of Facebook or Twitter. The reason celebrities, athletes, successful entrepreneurs/business owners and venture capitalists have so many Facebook and Twitter followers? It’s not because they’re Facebook posts or tweets are so brilliant or informative. It’s because the people whose names are on the Facebook and/or Twitter account are famous, and people (both famous and not famous) love to attach themselves to famous people. So unless you are a star in your industry, don’t expect people to follow you as if you were one, even if your Facebook posts and/or tweets are stellar.

2. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Not famous or well-known outside your family and circle of friends? If you have a famous or well-connected friend or family member — people Malcom Gladwell referred to as Connectors (well-connected people) and Salesmen (people who are good at influencing buying decisions and opinions) in his book The Tipping Point — that’s almost as good. Just make sure these Connectors and/or Salesmen (or Saleswomen) believe in your brand and are comfortable posting about your products or service on Facebook and Twitter. You don’t want them sounding like paid endorsers.

3. It’s not quantity but quality, though quantity doesn’t hurt. Let’s face it, we’re all impressed (at least most of us) when we see someone with lots of Facebook and/or Twitter followers. But as many small business owners (larger ones too) will tell you, it’s not the number of people following you, it’s the quality. That is, it’s better to have 500 Twitter followers who believe in your brand, have lots of connections, and retweet posts they like than 10,000 followers who each average 100 connections, never retweet, and are unlikely to buy from you. So instead of focusing on the number of Facebook and Twitter followers you have or would like to have, focus on getting the kind of Facebook and Twitter followers you’d like to have, by following them and thoughtfully commenting on their posts.

4. Delegating only goes so far. While it’s perfectly okay to hire someone to regularly update your Facebook page and post on Twitter, especially if they love your business or products or service, you should be monitoring what is being said about your business on social media — and making sure whomever is managing your social media presence is doing a good job and accurately portraying your business. Also, try to post yourself, as much as possible. People like hearing from the boss.

5. It’s not what’s in it for you; it’s what’s in it for them (i.e., your customers). Instead of telling customers how great your business or your products are, provide information that will peak their interest — make them think or laugh or reply (to a question). For example, if you own a bakery, maybe ask “Which pie should we feature this Friday: Key lime, Boston cream, or cherry? The pie with the most votes wins!” And be sure to let people know which pie was chosen. Similarly, if you are on Foursquare, think about offering people who voted for the winning pie a free or discounted slice. Another good social media tactic: offer Facebook or Twitter-only discount codes or promotions.

6. Be prepared for a lot of criticism and vitriol. When you use Facebook and Twitter for business, be prepared to hear a lot of negative things — and have a strategy for dealing with complaints. Facebook and Twitter can be wonderful customer relationship management (CRM) tools, but you have to know how to use them — and not ignore or rebuke those customers with negative things to say. Instead, turn negative comments or complaints into opportunities, using Facebook and Twitter to find out what’s wrong and make it right.

Have additional tips for how small business owners can successfully use social media? Please leave a comment.

[To learn more about each marketing tool, read my latest article, "Small Business Holiday Wish List: 11 Marketing Tools and Services" on SmallBusinessComputing.com.]

• An SEO strategy
• A video camera — with a good light sensor and microphone
• A YouTube channel — dedicated to your business
• A mobile website
• A business Facebook page
• A Google Places page
• A LinkedIn profile and company page (especially for B2Bs)
• A wiki for online collaboration
• A business blog
• A free app
• Online scheduling software (such as Schedulicity or Appointment Plus)

Have another must-have marketing tool for small business owners that you’d like to recommend? Please leave a comment.

Wishing everyone a prosperous New Year!

For many aspiring entrepreneurs, who thought running their own business would be fun, having to manage a budget often comes as a rude awakening. But balancing books and making ends meet are two very real concerns that every small business owner needs to contend with — and many simply fold under the pressure. Many see a budget as a fixed target that needs to be met no matter what. From this misconception stems many problems that small business owners face: from a lack of funding, to getting too hung up on unnecessary spending, or simply going overboard with the expenses. But with some careful planning and help, managing a budget can be quite… manageable.

Following are 10 tips on how to rein in your cash and stay within budget.

• Don’t think of a budget as set in stone. In its essence, a budget is simply a way for you to keep track of how you’re spending money. It’s unthinkable to let a huge order pass you by just because you have limited capacity and expansion is not permitted by this year’s budget. You can’t plan for events like these and an inflexible budget can cripple your decision-making process. There is a fine line that separates a spending restraint from a business constraint. A budget is supposed to be the former and never the latter.
• Don’t let last year’s figures be your sole guide. A better guide for drafting a budget would be your business plan. Your short- and long-term goals should dictate the funds that you will need. Your budget should yield to your goals and not the other way around. The opportunities that open up to you now are never the same as last year. So why allot for the same potential expenses?
• Be transparent, especially with budget cuts. Nothing saps employee morale more than finding out that your funding is going to be less next year. If times are tough and you can’t avoid making cuts, at least keep everybody informed. Make it clear to everyone involved why the cut was necessary and where the money will be diverted. If the reason is acceptable, and if it’s for the greater good of the company, most employees will accept it.
• Get input from others. It’s not a good idea for a single person to set a company’s budget alone. Gather representatives from every division and let them plead their cases. This way, you draft the budget utilizing different perspectives. Even if you only have a handful of employees, a budget meeting is always in order. Also, don’t be afraid to consult with other small business owners in your industry who have been in business longer than you have.
• Get everybody on the same page. How can your cost-cutting methods work when nobody’s doing them? Plans to cut utilities spending, for example, have to be made clear to everybody. You have explain why turning the air conditioning off a lot earlier or keeping the thermostat at a certain level is necessary. Small sacrifices to get through tough times are made clearer when employees are made to see the greater scheme of things.
• Be familiar with your lifelines and know when to use them. A businessman can never fully get away from debt. But in the world of business, debt is not always a bad thing. Take your credit card, for example. Though always keep an eye on interest rates — and find a card with a low one. Even the most careful planning can sometimes go awry and some financial obligations can creep up on you. By having a few contingencies on hand, you can preserve the working relationships you built with suppliers and avert potential crises.
• Know when to outsource. Many support services are better off outsourced. Even big companies have foregone maintaining a dedicated courier and messenger division in favor of just getting logistics services from UPS or FedEx. The reasoning behind such decisions is that you will never match the efficiency and level of expertise of companies dedicated to specific services. Also, you waste limited resources when you insist on doing something that doesn’t contribute to the bottom line in-house. You save – and make – more money when you get support services out of the way and concentrate on your core business.
• Keep in mind that a budget is also flexible with regards to time. You can stretch out limited funds by getting into a credit agreement with your suppliers. This allows you to take in goods and materials and start profiting from them even without cash on hand. A budget will serve as your guide so that you can time cash coming in with debts that are getting close to their due dates. The ability to juggle funds is a requirement for all successful businessmen. Budgeting allows you to perfect this skill and use it to your advantage.
• Make your spending leaner and more streamlined with the help of last year’s budget. Through hindsight, you can prune unnecessary expenses or those that turned out to be duds.
• Keep business expenses and household expenses separate. You may want to pump money into your business for expansion, but the mortgage is calling for your attention. Nobody said that you have to spend your own money. The U.S. Small Business Administration acknowledges the economic contribution of the more than five million firms that employ less than 20 people. The government offers many loans with different terms suited to every need. Learn what applies to you and get some help in expanding your budget.

Budgeting is a necessary business exercise. Trying to get around it will only net you hardships and more confusion. Instead of avoiding the issue, gain some experience and have your budget work for you. Learn from your mistakes and adjust accordingly. Before you know it, you already have complete control over your expenses. All it takes is a little practice.

Ashyia Hill helps small business owners find the best business credit cards at CreditDonkey, a comparison website.

1. Invest in Google AdWords
2. Try Facebook Ads
3. Look into StumbleUpon Paid Discovery
4. Publish articles online
5. Donate products or volunteer services to a worthy cause
6. Cultivate bloggers
7. Claim local listings on Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing Local
8. Use community sites and local directories
9. Link up with LinkedIn Ads
10. Distribute flyers

For additional, detailed information about each SMB advertising tip, read my article for Small Business Computing titled “10 Inexpensive Ways to Advertise Your Small Business.”

Have an additional advertising tip you’d like to share with small business owners? Please leave a comment.

So how does a small retail or service business decide which web-to-local service can best serve their business needs and deliver the right kind of customers, the kind who actually buy stuff and tells their friends about you? First you need to formulate a web-to-local strategy.

Start by asking yourself the following questions:

• Is my main goal to acquire new customers or to retain existing customers? (Ideally, you want to do both, but which is more important right now?)
• Who is my target customer — and which sites or services do they use?
• What’s the cost (both from a time and money perspective)? Do I have to spend a lot of time on this? Is it a laborious process?
• What are the benefits of using a particular service? Will using it put me in front of 100, 1,000, or tens of thousands of nearby, potential customers? And are these customers going to be one-time bargain hunters or the kind of people who will become loyal brand advocates?

Next, ask fellow small business owners which web-to-local services and/or tools they have had the most success with.

Then do some research — including reading my latest article, “3 Online Tools to Drive Traffic to Your Local Business.”

Finally, try a few no- or low-cost web-to-local services, such as foursquare, Milo, and Yelp, out for yourself.

“Probably the best way to look at it is as a simple cost-benefit analysis,” said Jack Abraham, the founder of Milo and director of Local for eBay.

And remember, the best way to attract customers is to have a multi-pronged online marketing strategy, which means having an attractive, user-friendly, search-engine-optimized (SEO) website with great content; being active on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter; and using tools such as foursquare, Milo, and Yelp.

Note: For a full explanation of each tip, read my article, “A Dozen Simple Ways to Improve Customer Relations.”

1. Take responsibility for problems.
2. Embrace the complaints.
3. Respond quickly to customer queries.
4. Use social media.
5. Add live chat and collaboration tools to your website.
6. Reward good customers.
7. Follow up with customers.
8. Don’t over-automate.
9. Be flexible.
10. Have consistent CRM processes – and monitor what’s working and what’s not.
11. Personalize the online customer experience.
12. Say “thank you.”

Here are the details:

San Diego, July 13, 2011– The UPS Store® network announced today that it will launch a Facebook contest called “The Promotion Promotion” on July 18. The contest, designed to arm small business owners with tools and resources to promote their business, runs through Aug. 31. The grand prize winner will receive an integrated marketing campaign valued up to $50,000.

Small business owners can enter the contest by visiting The UPS Store corporate Facebook page. Grand prize submissions will be evaluated by a panel of experts and the winner will be chosen based on the contestant’s passion for small business. Official rules, including criteria for the grand prize and contest eligibility, will be available on The UPS Store corporate Facebook page starting July 18.

“Every The UPS Store franchisee is a small business owner, so we know how challenging it can be to promote and grow a company,” said Michelle Van Slyke, who oversees marketing for The UPS Store network. ”The Promotion Promotion contest is all about providing small business owners with resources they can use to help grow their business.”

The Promotion Promotion sweepstakes also will award up to $3,000 in weekly prizes, including an Apple iPad 2 with Square and gift cards from American Express, The UPS Store and Costco. Contestants can enter for a chance to win the weekly prize drawing by dropping their name into a virtual fishbowl.

Doner, The UPS Store network’s advertising agency of record, will work with the grand prize winner to examine the business’ needs, develop a marketing plan, produce creative and run it in appropriate media.

In addition, The UPS Store network will offer Facebook-only coupons for discounts on business-related services at participating The UPS Store franchise locations. Starting the second week, fans choose the next week’s offer by crowdsourcing via Facebook Questions. The Promotion Promotion tab also will stream relevant articles from the business section of msnbc.com.

The UPS Store centers help with the logistics of running a small business, including mailboxes with a real street address, packing and shipping services and professional printing services such as: color and black-and white prints; binding; lamination; finishing, and folding. Customers can select from a variety of print products, including presentations, flyers and brochures, business cards, menus and more. Participating locations also offer online printing and wide-format printing.

For more information on The UPS Store products or services, or to find a location near you, please visit theupsstore.com/logistics.

“Choosing an invoicing solution purely depends on the user’s business requirements,” explained Raju Vegesna, the evangelist for Zoho and an online invoice expert. “If you send out invoices in multiple currencies, it is important to pick a system that supports multiple currencies.”

Similarly, if you regularly send invoices to the same client or clients, it’s important to choose a solution that supports recurring invoices. And if your customers prefer to make payments online (for example via PayPal or Google Checkout), or they prefer to receive printed invoices (via the mail), choose an online invoicing application that supports those things, he said.

Other questions to ask or think about when choosing an online invoicing solution include:

• How long has the vendor been in business – and has it received favorable reviews from users? Before choosing an online invoicing service, read what others have to say (by doing a Google search or checking out online forums) and ask fellow small business owners which service they use and if they are happy with it.
• Has the vendor had problems with security and/or data loss or an outage of service? Don’t be afraid to ask the vendor about security and outages – and check with other users if they have experienced any outages or loss of data.
• Does the service support online payments – and which online gateways does it integrate with? While most online invoicing solutions integrate with PayPal, if your clients use or prefer another payment gateway, make sure the online invoicing solution you choose can support it.
• Does the service provide online time tracking? This feature can really save users time – and makes generating an invoice simple.
• Can you customize invoices, beyond just adding your logo? If having a unique-looking invoice is important to your brand, make sure you choose an online invoicing solution that supports easy invoice customization.
• Is the solution flexible and scalable? Put another way, can it grow with your business (or shrink) – that is, allow you to upgrade or downgrade – without a hassle?
• Does the service generate automatic reminders? “Automatic reminders solve the etiquette problem and awkwardness of asking your client to pay an overdue bill,” and can save you time, noted Karen Schoellkopk, Community Manager, Harvest.
• What level of customer support can I expect? If you run into a problem or have a question, is there a number you can call? Or can you only send an email, or submit a question via a form? Are customer service representatives available 24/7 or just during normal business hours (e.g., 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Central Time), or does it depend on the level of service you purchased? These are important questions to ask up front.

Perhaps most important, find out – by doing a free trial – if the online invoicing service you are thinking of using will actually save you time. “Evaluate it like any business decision,” stated John Coates, the Marketing Communications Lead for FreshBooks. “How does the new solution compare to your current solution for invoicing? If it saves you more hours in billable time than the monthly subscription, it’s worth it.”

For additional information about online invoicing, including how to decide if it’s right for your small business, as well as an overview of three of the leading online billing services, FreshBooks, Harvest, and Zoho Invoice, read my article “Small Business Guide to Online Billing Software” on SmallBusinessComputing.com.

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If you are a business owner who is not an expert in web development, finding someone (or an agency) you can trust to build your website is critical. To help with your vetting process, here are eleven questions to ask your would-be developers before making a decision.

Hiring a Web Developer – 11 Questions You Must Ask Ahead of Time:

1. What do you do? Developers should be able to explain what they do in terms you can understand. Don’t let them confuse and/or bore you into working with them!

2. Can you break down the process for me from start to end? If there is too little developer/client interaction, chances are the final deliverable will resemble the developer’s vision of the project, not yours. Choose developers who use an iterative approach rather than a ‘waterfall’ — or one giant deliverable — approach.

3. What are your goals for my website and how do you intend to accomplish them? Asking this forces them to outline their future plans… It’s important to know they have some!

4. What part of your job excites you? You can teach coding but you can’t teach passion. Look for a developer or team that will treat working on your site more like a creative challenge than ajob task.

5. How reliant will I be on you after my site launches? A good developer installs a CMS to give the clients a level of control over the day-to-day operations, while still forming a partnership for any technical needs down the road. You shouldn’t have to wait a week for your developer to change a letter on your site.

6. Do you work predominantly with open source or proprietary software? One of the main benefits of open source software is being able to pick up where others left off. Should you choose a firm working with proprietary software however, you may be locked in with that company for good. They might be the only people in the world who know how to update, troubleshoot, expand, and train you in this particular piece of software.

7. Can I see examples of your work? Look at sites that the developer or agency has built.

8. What is the discovery process and how will you learn about my business and business goals before we start the project? Make sure they understand your business goals before engaging with them.

9. How long will it take you to respond to emails? If you find yourself waiting around awhile for answers, chances are your developer team has not been working on your site or has taken the project in a different direction.

10. Do you outsource? Web companies that outsource their projects tend to subscribe to the ‘one size fits all’ approach, and you are unlikely to get the custom solution you desire.

11. Will my website be scalable? Your developer should be familiar with the combination of hardware/software needed to ensure full scalability so that your site doesn’t crash the instant it gets some traffic. Important systems like database clustering, memcache, query optimizaition, and others shouldn’t be foreign concepts to them.

Uri Foox is the founder of Pixafy, a NYC-based web development and technology firm.