Written by Kelly Watson

For years, coffee shops and libraries were the only affordable options for small business owners, freelancers and solo entrepreneurs who needed a public workspace. Now the co-working movement is changing that.

Co-working involves shared office space and resources by small business owners, freelancers, students and others who want the benefits of a traditional office space without the high rent or the isolation of working from home. I recently heard about the idea when two friends of mine opened their own co-working space in downtown Lancaster.

Co-working in Amish Country

Tired of running their graphic design business from local coffee shops, Anne Kirby and Max Phillips recently decided to open a space where collaboration with other creative types would be easy. That led to the creation of The Candy Factory, a co-working group based in an old candy factory in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

“I heard about co-working in the news,” Kirby says, “and I thought, This is a great business model. People who can’t have a space of their own can join a community.”

Kirby and Phillips got the inspiration from other co-working establishments in the area. Since the first co-working space was created in San Francisco in 2005, thousands more have popped up in countries such as Latvia, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

“Co-working is a successful model throughout the world. We didn’t make it up,” Kirby says. “Everyone’s into connecting, networking and collaborating. Everyone shares information. They even have a visa program, where if you’re a member of the Candy Factory but you’re in Philly for work, you can come to their space for free because you’re part of this visa program throughout the country.

“It’s a great way for people to get out of the house, see a different environment, and receive access to resources you don’t have access to on your own.”

Co-working Costs and Perks

The Candy Factory has a high-definition TV, a Mac Mini with a web cam, a lounge, a laser printer, a resource library and office supplies. Other co-working groups have perks such as video games, espresso machines and even pets.

The only thing co-working doesn’t offer is cubicles. That would detract from the collaborative atmosphere of the group. Instead, people rent desk space by the month or the day, depending on their level of membership.

“Premium” Candy Factory members pay $300 for round-the-clock access, while “lite” members pay $100 a month for three days a week. The Candy Factory also offers a $10 day pass for those who want to drop in. Other co-working spaces have similar arrangements.

So far, the Candy Factory has sold 25 memberships, about half of its capacity and much more than Kirby and Phillips had anticipated. Other co-working organizations, including Independents Hall in Philadelphia and Project Sandbox in York, have experienced similar success.

With the recession showing no signs of ending and the number of one-person businesses growing from 16.5 million in 200 to 20.4 million in 2005, co-working may indeed become the wave of the future.

Kelly Watson is a freelance website copywriter and journalist whose work has appeared on Forbes.com and MSN. She blogs about small business marketing at www.onewomanmarketing.com.

As most of you have probably figured out by now, I am no accountant. I believe in the importance of accounting and accountants and accountancy, but it’s not really what I’m good at (thank goodness for accounting software like WorkingPoint). Revenue, Equity, Interest, Inventory, Profit all excellent accounts but not really where I excel. I’m good at building relationships (also known as community building) and I’m good at shopping.

Understanding how people shop, specifically how they use the internet to shop, is useful when you’re figuring out where to focus your valuable time in your marketing plan for your business. So with this in mind today I decided to share with you how I shop.

I am a reasonably tech savvy millenial who lives in an urban area with lots of great stores (both chain and local). Most of my indulgent spending is on meals out, cosmetics and fashion. I’m an avid fitness buff, book reader (good old fashioned paper kind) and basically a rampant consumer of media (tv, blogs, magazines, you name it). I prefer to support local businesses (2 of my favorites right now for women’s apparel are Ambiance and the newly opened Seed Store) but I work crazy hours so if I’m looking for something specific (black boots, ipod charger, locksmith etc.) I usually go online to search before I buy. I love a good deal and I’m a member of just about every group buying discount site you could possibly imagine (Groupon, Bloomspot, etc..).

The following are real scenarios from my recent online shopping. I’m hoping they will inspire you to think about how people shop and search!

The Email Sale

I open my gmail on the bus on my iphone and see the subject line: “5 pilates classes for $50 in XXXX neighborhood, 65% discount!”. I immediately click on the link (pilates classes are so expensive and this place is near my house!). I go to the site and buy the classes immediately. There have been other, cheaper deals before but in inconvenient locations. For the rest of the week I follow this deal site more than the other ones because I am so happy with the deal they provided me. I ignore the other 15 emails I get (I like deal sites!). I usually scan the headlines and delete ones that have nothing to do with me (child photography sessions? gourmet cooking classes during the workday?). I also very rarely open ones that say things like 15% off your order (order of what?).

The lesson:  With email marketing, it’s all about the subject line! Also, people like good deals, what can you offer to hook people into visiting your site over your competitors site? And lastly, can you geographically target your audience with your marketing? No matter how good the deal I’m not going to go too far out of my way for it!

The Influencer

I am reading one of my favorite beauty blogs and they recommend a product that I want to try. I click on the link they provide, and think “hmm, this seems kind of pricey plus they charge for shipping”. I decide to search for a cheaper option (and/or free shipping). I enter the product name in the search window. Google gives me a list of about 25,000 responses. I click on the top 3 that include the words “free shipping”. I whip out my credit card.

The lesson: internet shoppers tend to be savvy and will search for competitive pricing… but not too hard. Search ranking is important!

The Targeted Search

It’s fall, which means a new season, new trends and back to school sales. I want a new pair of boots. I check all my favorite bookmarked sites for trends (and possible purchases), send links to my friends for approval (both price and style) and create a list of possible purchases. This process can take weeks while I compare, watch blogs to confirm trends, and try to find something my friends will approve of…

The lesson: online shoppers research, research and more research plus they tap into their social networks. What could you do to convert a “researcher” into a sale?

The Influencer Part 2, Crowdsourcing

I am making plans to meet a large group of friends for dinner. We’ve decided we want pho. I go online to Yelp enter the search term “pho” and the neighborhood. I email the link to my friends. We comment back and forth and pick the place with the best reviews.

or

I need a plumber. Repeat above.

The lesson: in the social media era, popular opinion is important. I believe the masses and what they are saying online and I shop accordingly. What are people saying about you on the review sites?

The Link Share

I admit it, people send me links of cute things all the time. We read fashion blogs, pretend shop, whatever. Then we email them to our friends for approval (see mass opinion matters above). I can’t predict exactly how my friends come across these things they want to buy (no doubt it’s some combination of influencers and their own social networks) but the link share usually turns into a sale (maybe not that item but something else).

The lesson: work your social networks. Sharing is how things, stores, websites, and content goes viral. How can you encourage your network to share links to your website?

How do you shop online? How can you use your own habits to help you reach your customers?

When I was freelance web developer, many small business owners asked me to help them build a website for their small business. But their fleeting attempt at conquering the internet always fail and here is why:

1. Build it and they will come – There are over a trillion webpages on the internet. If you don’t have a marketing strategy for your website, your corner of the internet will be very quiet.
2. It’s a website, not a flyer – Websites are not static pieces of printed media, they are an interactive point of communication between you and your customers. You must keep it updated and relevant.
3. You don’t work for free, so why would I? – Sorry, your 15 years old cousin’s ability to customize his myspace page does not qualify him to build you a professional business website.

Now that has been said, here is how YOU can avoid making those mistakes:

1. Leverage social media – As it has always been since the dawn of time, customers find vendors and suppliers through referrals and word of mouth. The only difference is that in today’s world, referrals and word of mouth are mostly done online. Sites like http://www.yelp.com and http://www.facebook.com are modern manifestations of market squares and town halls. So… If you want people to know about your business, and your website, you must first go to these places. For example, if you are a landscaper looking for new customers, the best place for you to reach potential customers is by having a profile on Yelp or ServiceMagic. These sites are not only useful because they have a HUGE user base, they are also optimized for search engines. When potential customers use google or yahoo to look for businesses to patronage, Yelp businesses will usually be the first results returned by the search engines. Oh, and before I forget, WorkingPoint’s Company Profile is another great resource for building links to your company’s website. Our customer’s businesses are constantly being returned as the number one search result on Google!
2. Blog Needlessly – Even if you have nothing to write about, blogging about the daily happenings of your business is a good way to keep customers engaged. What may seem mundane to you, will be a positive first encounter to a potential customer. If you are a photographer, for example, updating a blog with your latest captures, or even keeping an up to date flickr account is an easy way to show customers that you are actively practicing your craft. Being current and speaking your mind humanizes your business and will make a huge difference when customers are browsing for services. Of course remember to keep it professional and consistent with your company’s identity. If you don’t know how to blog, many services offer free blogging software such as: WordPress, Blogger, and Posterous. Even keeping a steady stream of tweets on Twitter and status updates on Facebook are effective ways to keep your business “alive”. I call it the “line out of the door” effect.
3. Hire a professional – Good web developers who understands your business needs are expensive, so pick a good one and vet their qualifications. Serious website developers will have an up to date portfolio with their latest work. If you like their style, contract them at a fair price and defer to their expertise. When you visit a doctor, or call a plumber, you don’t stand around and tell them how to do their job. Same goes for web developers. Tell them what goals you have for your website, and let them show you how to achieve it. Do not be a backseat driver. Remember, you may know everything about your business, but you probably know very little about the web, so don’t sabotage your own web presence.

At WorkingPoint we always practice what we preach

1. We spent a considerable amount of effort building a community on facebook and twitter. We also have a budget for Google AdWords to reach potential customers.
2. Our blog is updated on a daily basis and we have a very responsive support staff. Our product is constantly being refined and we listen to our customers religiously. Speaking of which, have you seen our uservoice page?
3. Yes, we love our staff and we invest in the latest and greatest technologies. Our software is important for your business, so we do not cut corners when it comes to making sure that your business information is always available, secure, and easy to use.

WorkingPoint has always believed that accounting should be easy, even if you are not an accountant. The intricacies of accounting, revenue, equity, interest, inventory and profit (without the help of some knowledge of accountancy) can be  daunting and inaccessible.

The same can be said of pulling off a seamless event. I have seen some of the smartest, most efficient and calm people I have ever known literally fall apart in the process of producing an event. There is something disarming about manipulating lots of dynamic moving parts, not to mention the complete lack of control you have about whether people will show up and of course the inevitable and usually unpredictable monkey wrenches that seem to fall from the sky. Fortunately, much like accounting there are certain steps you can take while planning an event of any size (dinner party for 4, happy hour for 40) that will help you face an event calm, collected, and ready to tackle any challenges that come your way.

These nuggets of advice are hard earned from the hundreds of successful events and programs I have run in the last 5 years and I hope they will help you to produce successful, fun events that benefit your business.

Develop a Goal for the event.

How will you know if the event is successful if you don’t have a goal? Having a clear goal is essential for planning a successful event because it allows you to plan around achieving that goal. Countless times when I’ve hit a price/time/availability road block  I’ve stopped and asked “How does this help us to achieve our goal?” or even “Does this help us to achieve our goal ?”. The answer provides  clear guidance for whether to move forward or abandon the idea.

Visualize the Outcome You Want

The very first thing I make is a time line for the event. This includes when everyone will be arriving (starting with me as the first one and building up from there), what they will need to do to be ready for the event to start and anything that needs to happen during the event. Having a big picture view of the event will help you to do everything from figure out what you need to bring/buy to how many people you will need to help (only an hour to set up 25 tables? you may want to recruit 10 people for setup).

This usually looks something like this:

Typically I start with the “skeleton”, the essential details that are already finalized like what time I will get the space, how long the event is supposed to last, and how long I will have after the event ends to clean up and get out.

I then fill in details about when I need people to arrive. I believe in giving  your people as much notice as possible for when you expect them to be there (and then remind them over and over again, especially one email the day before the event).

Lastly, whenever I plan to say something or make a speech, I always apply the “fashionably late” rule, assuming that people are always going to show up at least 30 minutes after the start of a two hour event. Nobody wants to be the first one there! Plan for up to an hour if the event is going to be 4+ hours long.

Make sure when you are building the time line that each step helps you achieve the goal for the event. Beware of overprogramming (unless this is an event for young children who need to be constantly entertained). Adults like to be masters of their own time, and they really like to mingle/network. If you don’t plan for this time for them, they will find a way to make it and ruin your time line!

Plan for everything & Pack Accordingly

Seriously, the most common things people forget to bring to events are things like pens and sign in sheets, cups, serving utensils and their own business cards. Events are exciting and dynamic, which means it’s easy to  get lost in the food/music/fun parts and forget about less exciting details like sign in sheets to capture contact information for event attendants. Visualizing how you imagine the event going and building the time line is very helpful for then creating a packing list that closely mirrors the events realistic supply needs. Like with accounting, it pays to be really detail oriented, to have everything you might possibly need at hand, and to be patient and organized!

I look at each step in the list and determine what to pack for the event (or put out if the event is at your business) like the image below.

Collect Contact Information Before the Event

And make sure everyone has yours. I usually create a single page document that has the time line, the packing list, and the cellphone number of every person who is anyway involved with the event. Then I distribute this list before the event. This should include the name and contact of at least two people if you’re using an outside venue, ditto for food delivery or catering, also the contact info for the DJ, the contact info for any staff and volunteers and include at least 2 ways people can reach you (cellphone, email, landline, carrier pigeon). I also like to let people know where I will be and the best way to reach me at each location. One of the monkey wrenches that always comes up involves people who for whatever reason say they will come and then don’t. It’s better to know that they can reach you and tell you so you can adjust your plan, then spend valuable event time trying to track people down.

In this one sheet, don’t forget to include the Address for the event and information about where to park, how hard parking is, bus routes nearby, cost of parking, cost of cabs. The more details you give your staff the better chance they’ll be on time (and not lost, looking for parking or other common reasons for tardiness). Also let them know if you want them to contact you when they’re running late. Sometimes you need to know, other times the 15 phone calls will keep you from accomplishing important tasks so let them know in advance. My personal preference is to say “Send me a text message if you are going to be more than 15 minutes late”.

Also, I learned the hard way to put all this info on a piece of paper. This prevents some of the catastrophic but scarily common event challenges such as “my cellphone battery died” (you tend to be on the run and using your mobile a lot on the day of the event). I also try to remember to pack my charger on event days.

Sit down and think about everything that could possibly go wrong

And then imagine how you would solve it. This is a terrifying exercise but knowing the potential pitfalls, and then figuring out ways to fix/avoid them, will let you go into that crazy window of event setup/execution knowing that you’ve prepared for every possible situation. There will always  be things you don’t think of, but this kind of creative problem solving is habit forming and I believe the pre event exercise in “disaster planning” keeps your mind sharp and ready to respond when those monkey wrenches come flying at your carefully laid plans.

Don’t forget to have fun…

Events are supposed to be fun. For the attendants and for you. In fact, I strongly believe that event attendants can tell when you’re not having fun and it ruins the event for them. A tired/stressed out/anxious host will ruin an event. Make sure that you breathe and relax and have fun and your guests will too. Put it on your time line if you need to.

This morning I received this link from 6 different people. This content has definitely gone viral. At WorkingPoint, we appreciate humor that brings a little bit of spice to the workday. We also appreciate people who are brave enough to leave a bad situation where they are undervalued and abused to strike out on their own. The Girl who Quits her Job on a Dry Erase Board is getting her 15 minutes of fame right now for her creative and endearing exit strategy. We think the Girl who Quits her Job using a Whiteboard should start her own company using WorkingPoint!

Disclaimer: For those of you who are not aware of the power of photoshop, please note that we ‘manufactured’ the second image. Dry Erase Girl is not affiliated with WorkingPoint in anyway. We are just hoping that as she moves forward in her career, WorkingPoint can be a part of it.

A recent article in Mashable advocated for the use of Social Media sites like LinkedIn, Aardvark and Quora to “demonstrate your business acumen“. All of these sites fall into an exciting new category of media known as “Social Q&A” or “Social Information Seeking (SIS)“. The basic premise is that people ask questions, and then crowdsource the answers. Each of the different sites has a different strength, but in general the Q&A sites are designed for answers to questions that are hard to Google, how to’s, consumer recommendations and other quandaries that benefit from crowdsourcing popular opinion.  I use these sites to see what people are saying about their business accounting and payroll software, especially when it’s small business software. I also use it to answer questions about small business accounting, bookkeeping software, invoicing software and accounts software. The effects of participating in these kinds of conversations are plentiful: you show your community that you care, you demonstrate your knowledge in the sector, your brand becomes associated with providing high quality answers (and solutions) and you get your name out to people who are talking about what you do.

My friend Katrina Lake wrote a great head to head comparison of Quora, Yahoo Answers, Facebook Questions and Aardvark from the consumer perspective for her blog. If you’re new to the technology, understanding how the consumers you are trying to reach use the technology is an important first step.

With all Social Media efforts, we advocate being genuine and generous. It’s ok to answer questions that don’t relate directly to your business, or your product but that demonstrate your knowledge of the broader topic, application and community. If there’s a product or resource you like, share it! Providing high quality answers is the most important aspect of making this tactic effective.

Below is a list of the sites we’ve been using to answer questions and a little bit about our experience using them. For all of them I usually start by using their search tool to look for our keywords, online accounting, invoicing, small business and a few others and then answering any open questions that come up. I also look for questions that relate to our business in a larger sense, tactics for small business promotion, interesting technologies, quality testing, business management and more. Anything related to our community that we can provide expertise and resources to our community will enhance our brand.

Need help figuring out your keywords? Check out this great article by Corbett Barr that walks you through the process in a few easy steps.

LinkedIn

Espree Devora, the Social Media Ninja, put it best when she said “LinkedIn is a place people go to do business”. This makes it an ideal place to demonstrate your expertise in your area and to reach people who are looking for what you have to offer.

Pros: LinkedIn is a large and active site, which means you have the potential to reach a lot of people. With the right search you can  find pages of related questions to answer.

Cons: LinkedIn is a huge site, which means a lot of competition. Harder to get ranked and noticed. Also, it’s been around for awhile and they close questions, so you may not be able to answer a question.

Yahoo Answers

Yahoo Answers can be a powerful tool because they pop up so often in generic search engine searches (ie somebody types a question into Google or Yahoo). They live for a long time and people ask all kinds of questions, so you can be creative about how you get to people who might be searching for you.

Pros: Big Impact.Yahoo Answers is really the pioneer of Social Q&A and so has the advantage that comes from seniority in the field. It also has an incredibly broad user base, it’s not limited to niche or industry insiders.

Cons: Notoriously spammy. You have to be careful that you sound like a real person and not a bot. The point system for answering seems to encourage people to answer regardless of if they are being repetitive which means sometimes the sheer amount of answers will drown out your voice.

Quora

Quora is the new kid on the scene and has generated a lot of buzz in the Silicon Valley. From what I hear, the code is really beautiful something that tends to generate a lot of buzz in Silicon Valley, but not necessarily in the rest of the world. The interface is very clean and spare, which means it’s not intuitive or easy to use if you’re not a little bit tech savvy.

Pros: Clean design. Active Spam filters. New (which means a lot of room to rank high for your responses!). Getting a lot of buzz right now in the tech world (early adopters which often predict which technology will endure). Ranking system which rewards high quality answers. Encourages people to write unique responses eliminating repetition and information overload.

Cons: The design is very clean and simple, which makes it harder to use if you lack a lot of social media savvy. I had an answer which I didn’t think was spammy that was flagged and I found the email response rude. They also removed the post, which meant I couldn’t respond to the rude comment and I was frustrated that I couldn’t find anyone to talk to about my experience.

Aardvark

Aardvark is the easiest to use of all of the Q&A sites. They put a question in front of you with a box underneath it. How they decide which questions to give you is based on an algorithm that uses topics that you self select plus the questions that you answer. You can also have questions sent to you via your chat method of choice (gchat, AIM, Yahoo Messenger etc.) which is either very cool or intrusive.

Pros: So easy to use! And it’s really fun and addictive as well! It also allows you to interact directly with one person, potentially building relationships. If you limit your questions to your expertise, and provide high quality answers you can become the “expert” in that field.

Cons: You don’t get to choose your questions. Sometimes I’ll go to answer questions and there wont be any for me to answer!

Focus

Focus is a lot like LinkedIn. It serves a community of business minded professionals. Their community is composed of business professionals looking to share info. Their community is not as well known as LinkedIn and therefore significantly smaller but people ask high quality questions.

Pros: A community of professionals looking to network and share professional info. Most questions I’ve answered had only a few answers which made me feel like my answers had a greater impact.

Cons: Smaller, lesser known site which means you’re not reaching as many people with your answers.

Matchpoint

Matchpoint describes themself as “he easier way for consumers to find and connect with local businesses. Whether you are looking for a plumber, electrician, or even a local Yoga studio, Matchpoint can help you find what you are looking for.” If this describes your business this is definitely the site for you.

Pros: Really easy to search and find questions to answer. Nice design. Emphasis on local businesses.

Cons: Not as well known as some of the other sites which means less questions to answer. Even though I check our keywords most days I’ve already answered all 3 of the relevant questions I was able to find.

Facebook Questions

I was really excited when news of Facebook questions first broke. However I was not one of the chosen few lucky enough to be part of the first wave so I’m still waiting to check it out.

Will you be trying out any Social Q&A sites for your business? Let us know if we missed any or how it works out for you!

Small Business Accounting is the heart of WorkingPoint and we believe it’s the heart of running your business. No matter what kind of business accounting software you use to do your accounting, bookkeeping, payroll, invoicing, or even just to keep your general ledger, there are some basic concepts you need to master. Don’t have a business accounting degree? That’s ok! A good accounting software will step in and help you set up and manage your accounts, and a good small business software will make it easy enough that one person can do it without a team of accountants.

But just to make it as easy as possible we’ve created a 10 minute, easy to use guide to basic accounting and terms so that you have the understanding you need to set up any kind of accounting or payroll software by teaching you the basic concepts and vocabulary you might come across. And of course, premium members can access accounting support from our highly trained staff with years of accounting experience!

An excerpt from the easy to use guide!

Download the Guide here

At WorkingPoint we use WorkingPoint to do our accounting and bookkeeping, and we struggle like you to streamline our processes so we can make the most of our most precious commodity, our time. We also believe in using the most effective, highest value technology to run our business (that’s why we use WorkingPoint!).

These 3 tools are things I use everyday for Social Media. They are additions to this great list of “10 Web Apps used by the WorkingPoint Team” from last month.  As the community resources and Marketing Manager I manage most of the Social Media. I’ve tried a lot of different tools, apps and processes before I found these great options that are actually fun and easy to use. Ultimately Social Media should be fun! These tools help me to wade my way through what can sometimes be an overwhelming amount of information and find the parts of it that will be the most useful for me, with minimum muss and fuss.

I also like these 3 tools because they are “clean”, both in use and in design. When you stare at a computer screen most of the day, having simple easy to use design just makes my day more pleasant (another reason I like using WorkingPoint).

1) Alltop

This blog aggregator enriches my Social Media in so many ways. I find the best and most popular articles to post on our Facebook Page and Twitter pages. I also use it as inspiration for topics for the WorkingPoint Blog, an important part of our Social Media efforts. I could (and sometimes still do) actively monitor all of the different blogs but this saves me so much time, and it gives me a way to scan the hottest headlines at a glance.

2) Tweetie

I’ve tried a lot of different ways to keep track of my twitter feed. This one is just nice to look at and fits neatly on my desk top. It’s a little slow to update my @messages and it takes some time to follow people (you have to click on their profile and then a drop down menu). But these days my desktop is so cluttered with so many different windows at any given time, I’ve become a huge fan of things that clean up my workspace and eliminate windows on my desktop!

3) Twitter Advanced Search

Twitter works best for your business when you actively engage in conversations with people who are talking about what you do. This is the easiest, free, way to find people to meet and talk to. I try to check in on my keywords at least twice a day, and I’ve developed a feeling for when people in my community are using and talking about these keywords.

*** I want to give a special mention to a brand new tool I just started using and experimenting with but that I like a lot already. Twylah is doing really exciting things with managing and monitoring content from Twitter and even though I just started using it a few days ago I’m excited about the potential uses. Stay tuned for more details to come or check it out for yourself and let me know what you think!

There are lots of really great advanced articles out there about how to use Social CRM for your business and how to get retweeted but many of them take it for granted that you’ve already mastered some of the basic understanding and use cases for the technology. Below are 5 things I learned the hard way, from being an active personal and professional user. These are things I wish someone had just told me so I could have saved time learning them myself!

1) Tweets should never be more than 120 characters.

Yes, I said 120 characters, that was not a typo. If you want your content to be passed around you need to leave space for people to @someoneelse, or #something or write a comment. If you’ve actively retweeted then you know what a pain it is once the @name is added in and suddenly it’s too long or there’s no space left for what you want to say. And you should absolutely be able to retweet without going over the character limit!

2) Let people know when you retweet their content, repost their articles or blog about them.

Despite all the many awesome systems that exist to allow you to monitor your Social CRM, we’re all busy people and things slip through the cracks. Whenever I blog about another company I always tweet the article to them so they can see it. They always love it, and are grateful and most often promote that content to their lists. Some of my best online relationships have been built this way.These relationships are really valuable because they expand your network and your sphere of influence so take the time to let people know that you are talking about them!

3) It’s ok to have a work profile and a personal profile.

I think at the beginning of Social Media use having two profiles seemed somehow deceptive. That’s not the case anymore! People who care about small business and marketing and want to follow the high quality content I provide don’t need to know where I check in on fourssquare or the fact that I love fashion blogs. They really don’t need to know that my old highschool soccer team member just found me because they wrote something on my wall. I have two Facebook Profiles, two LinkedIn profiles and  a personal twitter account in addition to @WorkingPoint. This means that should I move on to a different job or role in the company all my efforts wont be lost because someone else can take over the professional accounts I’ve created. I still end up using both accounts for professional reasons so I can access my netoworks but I can keep my professional accounts clean and professional (and I don’t bore my friends to death obsessing about marketing for small businesses!).

4) Being cryptic only works if you’re a celebrity.

If you’re not a celebrity people aren’t really going to spend time trying to figure out what you are talking about. Think about what you know about paper titles from high school, email subject lines, or headlines from newspapers of articles you would want to read and then write accordingly.

5) There is such thing as sharing too much information.

I am all for transparency, honesty and being genuine. I enjoy reading about things people are eating (I love food), restaurants, movies they have seen, technology they like, fashion, and other consumer goods (this information is useful!). People will unfollow or unfriend if you riddle them with too much, whether it be in content or frequency.

At WorkingPoint, we’ve always said that the best ideas are formed by looking at what the people around you need and then giving it to them! Looks like we’re not alone…

Courtesy of Sparky Firepants (also known as David), a real life WorkingPoint user! Check out his other awesome work at www.sparkyfirepants.com.