Online Business Adviser

The Forum For Online Business Success

I think it’s true for everyone that no matter where you have worked, you will come across people within an organisation who are just really, really good at what they do. Certainly for me, having worked across a number of different media companies, I have found people in all sorts of departments (not just mine) who know their stuff inside out and astonish me with their knowledge.

I consider these people as my Fantasy Business Team – the people that if I had was to go into business for myself and had the scale, I would want to recruit and have work with me, because they each bring something special to the table. It’s the kind of team that you think you could accomplish anything with.  Read more...

In the great wide social tapestry, a lot has been written about the appropriation of the word “expert” by people looking to leverage the web for a return.

I’ve mentioned my opinion on these in passing previously, but I got a DM on Twitter that I thought needed its own post to discuss the pitfalls of the word. It was along the lines of “So I Can Be Your Social Media God, check this out” (I’m paraphrasing because I deleted the message and stopped following them), along with the ubiquitous link to their e book. Now, calling themselves a ‘God’ is a pretty extreme (and risky) example but it highlights the point.  Read more...

I’ve had some great feedback regarding my last post of 27 people who I derive value from on Twitter. Some of you left comments on the blog and I received a number of emails as well, and I want to thank all of you for your contribution to the conversation.

One of the themes that came up several times was around innovation, and why I didn’t single out anyone in my list as specifically innovative. I think the important thing to remember here is that the intention of the post was to list people that I derive the most value from. Certainly the list wasn’t exhaustive – there are a great many people that I get a lot from, but these people demonstrate consistent value.  Read more...

While there are some on Twitter who place value on the number of people they have following them, or that they follow, for me Twitter is about extracting the maximum value from a carefully selected group of selected people. Let’s face it, who has the time to trawl through tens of thousands of tweets to find something of interest?

I’m a big believer in getting the most out of your feed and rather than post multiple tweets about who you should follow on “Follow Friday”, I wanted to take the time to list them all and give a snapshot of who they are. When I was looking at this post, I thought of making it “50 people you should follow”. However, in the interests of reading time, and to make it just a little different, I have decided to make it 27 people you should follow. Obviously each niche in the online world will have their own rockstar tweeters, but as far as online business and marketing goes, these are the people whose tweets I derive the most value from (in no particular order).  Read more...

Getting people to any site is a challenge, even more so to a new one. Until your SEO kicks in (and even when it has) and delivers organic search traffic, you need to rely on other methods to get people’s attention.

There are 3 (almost) free tips I can recommend to drive traffic to your site and begin to build awareness (and hopefully quality links).

Blog, and Make Your Content Topical and Current

I am a big believer in blogging, regardless of your niche. Somewhere on your site, you should make room for a blog and write on it regularly. You may think that your insights into your field may not mean much, but to an audience that is coming to your site to know about your product, they may find it useful. And it is a way of actively generating content to a site that may not be otherwise be visited by a potential customer.  Read more...