Network Solutions – Small business conversations and working together for small business success

Happy July 4th

Happy Independence Day to all out US readers. To our international friends, since it is a national holiday, we are taking the day off.
Regular programming will resume on Monday.

Meanwhile, here are some stories from this and our other sites.
* Solutions Are Power: Twitter’s Secret Manual – Mashable’s Guide to Twitter. Continue reading.
* Grow Smart Business: [...]

The New Network Solutions – Brand Preview Today 6/29

Network Solutions is listening. Listening to our customers. Listening to YOU.
Change is here and today on Monday June 29, 2009 we would love for you to be a part of our sneak preview.
We are overhauling our brand and this not just a cosmetic change. We have heard loud and clear what you want and we [...]

Network Solutions Brand Preview on Monday 6/29

Network Solutions is listening. Listening to our customers. Listening to YOU.
Change is coming and on Monday June 29, 2009 we would love for you to be a part of our sneak preview.
We are overhauling our brand and this not just a cosmetic change. We have heard loud and clear what you want and we are [...]

5 Ways to Kick Off Your Social Media Outreach Activities

This blog covers many topics regarding running your business online and we talk about social media quite a bit. However, I don’t think we have really provided you with some basics to get started if you are trying to make sense of all the tools out there. Sure, we have covered Twitter and the Twitterverse [...]

Jay Berkowitz clearly defines Web 2010

It is funny. As I get ready to do a write up on a great event this week I find that there is an online “blog fight” about Web 3.0 vs 2010 Web vs whatever. This past Monday was a great event called SocStardom #3 hosted by Maya Ruiz-McPherson that hosted Jay Berkowitz of “Ten Golden Rules of Marketing” fame. He is CEO of TenGoldenRules.com and gave us a preview of his presentation called “Web 2010″.

2009 Social Media Predictions – Six Months So Far…

During this sweep of bookmarks I was cleaning out my blog reader with all kinds of clippings and folders for use later. I came across the article for 2009 Social Media Predictions that Peter Kim did at the beginning of this year. While we made our own attempt at predictions, I thought I would look and see how things were coming along six months into the year.

Just Because You Give It Away…

The campaign was clear, very honorable in its intentions, and was giving something away a gift thanks. And this wasn’t just a cheap give away item. It had value both financially and use. The campaign had all the makings of a successful campaign if the appropriate effort was put into it, but what happened?

Wordcamp Mid-Atlantic 2009 – Anil Dash, Mark Jaquith, Thesis and Aaron Brazell

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to visit where I went for my undergraduate degree at the University of Baltimore to attend Wordcamp Mid-Atlantic. It was put on by Aaron Brazell AKA Technosailor who is well known in the wordpress community and in on his previous lives was Director of Technology for B5 Media which was at the time the largest blog network running on Wordpress. He has some serious street cred in the Wordpress community and currently has a consulting practice working with some great firms implementing Wordpress as part of their strategy.

He kicked the morning off with a thank you to sponsors and an introduction to the event as well as integrating in some great Ignite Baltimore presentations to keep things lively and not just Wordpress lectures. Mario Armstrong gave his personal branding presentation to start and we jumped into the first keynote of the day from Anil Dash of Six Apart. Yes, I wrote that right. Read on…

Breaking News: Anil Dash announces Six Apart WordPress Plugins at WordCamp Mid-Atlantic

The audience at Word Camp Mid-Atlantic drew a deep breath as Anil Dash, one of the co-founders of Six Apart a rival blogging platform delivered the keynote address. During the keynote he made a very sensational announcement. The screen lit up with a URL http://www.sixapart.com/wordpress which is like Microsoft having a place for Apple software [...]

Ruminations on “Best Fits for Social Media in the Sales Cycle”

Many of you out there are looking for ways to maximize your social media efforts to gain customers and I share your experiences of striving to correlate every investment to direct return that is more than what I put in. But when it comes to social media, it is not as straightforward as we wish [...]