The Republic of Facebook - Why Your Business, No Matter How Small, Needs a Facebook Page

If Facebook were a country, it would be the 3rd largest economy in the world. That is a statistic you just can't ignore, especially if you have a small business. Maybe you don't want anything to do with Facebook personally. I understand if you don't want your wife's third cousin's sister's dog knowing what you did this weekend.

But if you're looking for a free way to market to people, particularly in your local area, Facebook is the place to be. You don't need to buy a domain name or learn HTML. To create a Facebook page for your business, you just need to know how to type on a computer.

At the most basic level, you should have a page with your contact information and a picture of your business or logo. If you want to get more advanced, you can plan events, create surveys using SurveyMonkey, or use YouTube to upload videos, among other things, to increase your reach online.

Here are some articles to get you started and a link to Facebook Marketing for Dummies, which is available on Amazon.

• How to Market Your Business on Facebook
• NYTimes Guide on Facebook Marketing
• Facebook Advanced Marketing Tactics

ThredUp and Save Money on Children's Clothing

Let's face it - kids grow, their clothes don't. You want them to look their best, but you don't have the time or budget to spend your days endlessly shopping. You can always browse yard sales, Goodwill, or other second hand stores. Those however, tend to be hit or miss and you spend a lot of time looking, just to find a few acceptable pieces.

There is a new site that lets you bypass all that searching and brings it to the comfort of your laptop, ThredUp.com. The site allows you to exchange boxes of gently used clothing with other families. Boxes of clothing are listed by size and whether they are tops, bottoms, or mixed. Similar to ebay, members rate previous exchanges, so you know what you are getting. You don't pay for the clothes, but you do pay a $13.00 per box shipping fee.

Right now there are 13,000 members and growing. Joining is free, so why not at least sign up to browse boxes and see if you find something you like? And if you do, let me know what you think.

Mint.com - worth the time to organize your personal finances

Trying to get a grasp on your finances? Have accounts and loans spread across various banks, credit card companies, credit unions? Then Mint.com is the solution for you! Available on the web or your mobile device (yes, there is the even a iPhone app).

Set-up is pretty quick and painless, as they have data links with most financial institutions in the US. If you already have online access, you just find the company and enter your login information (provided you can remember the answers to those pesky security questions).

Mint.com is like your nagging mother - but without the other personal baggage. It's automated systems will alert you when your spending in one category gets out of hand. Or when your bills or due. Or if you are paying fees that don't seem to make sense.

Rural Towns, Web Pages, and Google Sites through Swanville.org

I was so annoyed. When would my town ever get a website? Even just a basic one page, here-we-are and this-is-how-you-can-contact-us page. It was not going to happen in my lifetime. Through a generous volunteer policy from my company, and permission from a graduate school professor, I set out to make one myself.

To kick off the project, I did what anyone in a small Maine town wanting to introduce 20th century technology would do (yes, I really mean 20th, not 21st century). I attended the town meeting. I got my father to talk about my project. I got buy-in and even a bit of excitement from the selectmen and town employees. I did not just set up a website and then show it to the town - that would have been disastrous!

To keep it simple and the idea was, to pass it off to the employees, I implemented Google Sites. If you can edit a word doc, you can use Google Sites. Not only was the idea to make it usable for our town employees, but to provide a template for all Maine towns.

The result can be seen at www.swanville.org, a result of constant updating by yours truly. Still working on training the town employees, but the feedback I get via our Facebook page tells me someone out there is paying attention.

Does your town have a website. If so, is it worth your time? Does it provide useful information or just enough so that you know your town exists in the digital world?

If you like the idea of Google Sites, you may be interested in these books:

Google Sites for Local Governments & Small Businesses

Google apps are an excellent way to get access to some great online, hosted services, that for most small organizations (non-profit, local government, or small businesses) are free. One of these applications is Google Sites, Google's web page creator.

To use Google Sites, or any of their other apps, you will need to create a Google account. But follow the instructions and you will be up and running in no time.

Here is a list of sites I have created using Google Sites:

• C Everett Larrabee & Associates, LLC
• Mainely.org
• Swanville.org

Stuff, Stuff, and More Stuff

A couple of really great videos about stuff. Makes you think about where all that stuff you buy, use, store, and throw away comes from.

The Story of Stuff

The Latest QuickBooks for Mac Users Joke...You Need a PC to start using the Online Version

The text below is from an email exchange that a close acquaintance of mine had with a QuickBooks rep. He desperately wants to use QuickBooks online, especially for the iphone capabilities, because he is very mobile. But it would seem that in order to do that, he needs:
1. A PC
2. A PC copy of Quickbooks


Ha ha ha! They told him later on the phone the workaround was to download a copy of the trial version of QB for PC (luckily he already has his Mac partitioned with windows installed). However, when he did that, the trial version would not let him import an existing company. Oh, goodness gracious, the laughs they provide for those of us who dare to use Macs for our business ventures.


TEXT OF ONLINE EXCHANGE WITH QUICKBOOKS REP:


I need a pc....to swtich my mac version to online version!!  grrr

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: QuickBooks Online <serviceconsulting@quickbooks.com>
Date: Fri, May 8, 2009 at 9:52 AM
Subject: QuickBooks Online Case 1560911: Pre-Sales from Chat Interested in QB...
To: chris@xxxxxx


Christopher,

Thanks for your interest in QuickBooks Online Plus!

To convert your Mac QuickBooks file you must first create a backup for PC QuickBooks and restore the file.  Once the file is open in PC QuickBooks, go to file/utilities/copy company file for QuickBooks Online Edition.  This process is going to make a new file format, OE.QBW.

Once this file is created go to the following page to start a free trial:

https://accounting.quickbooks.com/redir/trynow?bc=QBP-TNS&sc=Z0N-806-00B

You will be prompted to import your company file on step 3 of this start up interview.  This is the only opportunity to do so.  You will have the choice to import "All Data" or "Lists Only".  In order to import all data, the prepared file must be less than 80mb.  Otherwise, you will only be able to import your lists (COA, Customers, Employees, Vendors) with zero balances.

I will follow up with you on Monday to go over pricing, discounts, etc and to help you complete the subscription.

Regards,

Jacquelyn Zlater
QuickBooks Online Sales Assistance Team
www.QuickBooksOnline.com

PS.
Did you know that Intuit now offers website hosting?  Creating a website for your business is a great way to add exposure and grow your company.  You can even try out our services for 30 days free!  To start building your company website go to http://www.intuitwebsites.com/~site/Scripts_SignupSetup/SignupSetup.dll?CMD=CMDECSignup&ID=ES_QBOSATJGZ to activate your free trial.

________________________________________
For your reference, this email refers to the following case:
Case ID: 1560911
Question: Pre-Sales from Chat

Interested in QBO, currently has Mac QB.

[06:23:51] Lori: Hi, this is Lori. Thank you for contacting QuickBooks Online. How can I assist you today?
[06:23:53] Visitor: chris
[06:24:14] Visitor: I have qb for mac 09...  can I import my data?
[06:24:19] Lori: Hello Chris, I hope you are having a great day.
[06:24:45] Lori: To confirm, you are inquiring about changing from the Mac version to Quickbooks Online?
[06:24:55] Visitor: yes exactly
[06:25:09] Lori: Ok,

Reply directly to this email to send any correspondence for this case. Please do NOT change the TO and SUBJECT field of the email.

MobileMe Sync Deleted Contacts

For those of you who don't know, MobileMe is a service from Apple that syncs your various devices with the cloud. You can sync your iPhone and computer and then access the information from a browser as well. It is a great idea in theory and for a time, until we sold the company, I was also using it to back up my QuickBooks files automatically.

But we sold the company and I decided to let my MobileMe subscription run out in February. I am a longer user of Gmail and Google's services like Google Docs, so it didn't seem to make sense to pay $99 for a service I can get for free elsewhere. No problem, as I already had all my contacts on my phone and computer. I just lost the ability to sync them with the cloud. Since my phone is with me everywhere I saw no issue with this.

However, last week, the opportunity arose for me to reactivate my MobileMe with a family member who was getting the family plan. So I accepted, nothing is better than free, right? My old account still existed, I just couldn't access it. It was reactivated and all seemed to be fine.

Then come Monday, mid-way through the day, suddenly all contacts disappeared from my iPhone. And since my computer was also set up with the MobileMe account information, it also wiped them out completely. Yay! Oh for joy, now I get to re-enter 500+ contacts.

If anyone has any ideas on an easier recovery than trying to import from spreadsheets and check each one by hand, let me know! I would be happy to try anything at this point.

Google iPhone App

I've always been happy with Google's products and services. I've been a die-hard blogger user since 2006 and always try out new services as they come out. They are always tweaking things, but it has been some time since I found something to actually get excited about.

Enter the Google iPhone App, which I recently downloaded. Why download an app, when you can just go Safari and Google from there? One of the best reasons, the new voice search. What a cool feature!

You open the Google app and hit the little microphone to the right of the search box. Then say your search terms into the phone. The app translates your voice into text. I've tried to stump the program and I will admit it's not 100% accurate, but most of the time it is spot on. What a great feature if you are, dare I say, driving and searching at the same time, or you simply don't like typing long search phrases on the iPhone.

Very nice application. Now if Facebook would only allow us to update status this way, or Twitter allow you to talk your tweets.Hmm... I can think of all sorts of applications for this functionality.

The Personal Financier: Challenging Happiness – Exploring the Irony of Human Nature

A fellow BlogHer member discusses happiness and stimulates some discussion about how money and happiness go together. It's not about what you have or don't have (after a certain basic level of needs are met) but more about how you compare yourself to those around you. So I say, stop comparing. Enjoy the life you have and stop worrying about everyone else - let them all worry about you!

The original post from The Personal Financier can be read here:

The Personal Financier: Challenging Happiness – Exploring the Irony of Human Nature