Here are some quick recaps:

Brian Solis, Author of PR2.0, CEO Futureworks: Small businesses now have direct access to the people who can help them make their businesses grow, on a mass scale. Now, small businesses can be influential and become authorities, and build communities around them, based on their expertise.

Rohit Barghava, author, “Personality Not Included“: Small business owners understand the power of word of mouth marketing and customer referrals. It’s cheap, viral, and works.

Tim Ferriss, author, The 4-Hour Workweek: To get online, first get offline — go to conferences, meet people, have credible people online vouching for you — then connect with them online.

Steve Hall, Publisher, Editor, Adrants: Reach out to everyone in your industry, get to know them, and broaden your circle of social friends. Eventually, you’ll be able to use the network to help spread whatever you’re trying to spread.

Toby Bloomberg, CEO Bloomberg Marketing: Small businesses especially build businesses through relationships, which they can do through through blogs, podcasts, video. Social media was built for small businesses, and lets them scale further.

Ryan Anderson, Community Relations, Overlay.TV: It’s an incredible opportunity for small business to bypass filters to get to core customers. The tools let you create conversation that you just can’t do through traditional media.

Darren Rowse, Author, ProBlogger: If starting out again, he’d spend a lot of time defining his niche, establishing self as expert, offering to guest blog in other expert blogs (for free), to get own his content and expertise out.

David Alston, VP of Marketing, Radian6: Small business can use social media to build a brand, in a highly targeted way. Talk to the people in your space and reach out to them.

Mari Smith, Relationship Marketing Specialist: Radical Strategic Visibility — your goal is to be ubiquitous, in a way that excites people.

Liz Strauss, Social Web Strategist, Successful Blog: Use the internet to become irresistible — know which type of people on the Internet they’re going after — readers, people who do, offer and sell things, and people who pass on info to their friends.

Paul Chaney, President, Int’l Blogging and New Media Association: Small business is best suited to use a lot of these tools — an example is a custom signmaker with a blog, who shows the process and tells the story of making the sign, to help customers get to know him.

Find anything particularly meaningful (or offbase) here among our experts’ opinions? Leave a comment and let us know what you think about the social opportunities for small business.

The stars are in our midst … and small businesses can only benefit.

Late October, Network Solutions hosted the Solutions Stars video conference featuring exclusive conversations from BlogWorld Expo. Those in the Solutions Stars series talked shop on everything from building strong web presence to understanding social media strategy.

Say what?! listen, listen, listen
This week, I revisit another clip in the series about listening to your communities through social media. Watch the full clip below as these marketing leaders, top bloggers, and entrepreneurs discuss who to listen to online — and where to find them.

But first, the players … :

David Alston, VP of Marketing, Radian6
relates a key tenet of social media to sales & party-goin’ strategy

Ryan Anderson, Community Relations, Overlay.tv
tells more on businesses “answering the social phone”.

David Berkowitz, Director, Emerging Media & Client Strategy, 360i
reveals a source of inspiration for what your next step should be in a social media initiative.

Toby Bloomberg, CEO, Bloomberg Marketing
gives a Web 2.0 lay-of-the-land for learning what’s being said about your business.

Matt Dickman, VP of Digital Marketing, Fleishman-Hillard
recommends an easy approach to finding relevant influencers and customers in your space.

Robyn Tippins, Community Manager, Yahoo Development Network
shares how small business can “stand out” when it comes to listening to communities and customers online.

Chris Brogan, VP of Strategy, CrossTech Media
names (3) sources where small businesses can start finding online conversations about them.

Jason Falls, Director, Social Media at Doe-Anderson; blogger for Social Media Explorer
Outlines tips for keeping your business’ ear to the ground toward your customers.

Brian Solis, CEO, FutureWorks, and author of PR 2.0
gives the scoop on how to see what comes up online that’s related to your business.

Watch the whole series(!)
Just click below for the full clip on listening with social media or check out all (9) of Solutions Stars video conference interviews.

Questions for you
What ideas from the Solutions Stars video appeal the most for your interests, needs? Where have you unearthed conversations about your business online? And which tools or social networks helped you find them?

Photo, Stars at Your Feet, by Janusz I under Creative Commons A-ND-NC 2.0

In this episode our stars were able to provide some great insight on managing the demands on your time when you add social media into your bag of marketing tools.

Some highlights include:

- You don’t have to write everyday. It is all about quality over quantity
- Figure out what you want to say
- If you are using social media to interface with customers you need to “be in the trenches”
- Evaluate paid advertising to drive traffic and awareness to your blog
- Carefully manage your resources
- Solicit content from your users and customers. Including guest posting, case studies and testimonials
- Ask yourself “what would you do for the next 10 years if you couldn’t make money”. That is the passion you have and that will show to your customers, even on a blog.

The stars in this episode include Chris Baggot, Rohit Bhargava, Toby Bloomberg, Chris Brogan, Paul Chaney, Tim Ferriss, Tony Hsieh, Jennifer Openshaw and Wendy Piersall.

Here is the full episode:

Here are some recaps of what they said:

Guy Kawasaki, founder, AllTop: Twitter is a great way to find and spread information — it’s a way to reach thousands of people, immediately and free (which is great). It takes a little getting used to; give it a month or so — you might hate it for the first few days, but it’ll work out [which mirrors my own experience with Twitter, except I took longer because I am slow]

Ryan Anderson, Community Relations, Overlay.TV: They’re active on Twitter (including the executives), not just for promoting their stuff, but engaging with community. Their CEO will also use Summize weekly (now Twitter’s search) to get feedback directly from users, which is great for businesses, especially young companies.

Wendy Piersall, CEO Sparkplugging.com: You should also use other tools (depending on your business) like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. She doesn’t think you can conduct business online without participating in these types of communities.

Scott Monty, Global Digital and Multimedia Community Manager, Ford Motor Company: People have been networking since the Stone Age, but modern tools let us create networks of subject matter experts. “You don’t have to be the best accountant; you have to hire the best accountant” — online social networks let you tap into people who can help you — you’re not in it alone.

Liz Strauss, Social Web Strategist, Successful Blog: All this has changed the way she would start a business today. Use social networks to find out who’s out there; start on Twitter to listen to people and watch what’s going on. Open the door by promoting other people.

Tim Ferriss, author, The 4-Hour Workweek: Blogging isn’t for everyone, but there’s no excuse not to be on Twitter. You can use it as a blog, and you can be effective using it as a personality and brand on Twitter (like newspapers, activists, others are using it).

Chris Brogan, VP of Strategy, CrossTech Media: Small businesses should use social media tools to create  outposts where people can get to know you — put your face and presence out there, just like shopkeepers hanging out and meeting people in a town. “It’s all the same, it’s just different… but it’s all the same.”

Jason Billingsley, Co-founder, Elastic Path Software — Retailers need to build relationships and community; once you do that, your message is accepted. There are many avenues, like YouTube — many people are educating consumers by doing how-to and instructional videos. They’re informing, not selling, and by creating trust, then they look to you when they need to do transactions.

Mari Smith, Relationship Marketing Specialist: “Radical Strategic Visibility” — using Facebook, social bookmarks, blogging, Friendfeed, etc, — all the tools, in an integrated strategy.

Jennifer Openshaw, President, WeSeed.com: Bringing credibility online is important, and positioning yourself as an expert. A way to do this is to create content on your site, which you can also distribute through partners and social networking sites, so you can add value to people, even when you’re not trying to sell them stuff.

Agree or disagree with something from one of our ten social media experts? Please leave a comment below.

…the tips? the insight? all the interviews? and the fun online chats with the experts?

It was all there Oct. 29th with the benefit of small business at the forefront. Network Solutions hosted the Solutions Stars video conference where social media and marketing gurus plus industry leaders shared their know-how. So please join the Solutions Are Power blogger team as we revisit the Solutions Stars video conference throughout this month.

Featured highlights for Solutions Stars video conference: strategy drives outreach
Who are your stakeholders? And how can you – the small business owner – reach them? What value can you bring to stakeholders involved with your business?

Strategy is the foundation; and in this video segment – the below suite of gifted-and-talented engage on the topic.

Some highlights:

Chris Baggot, CEO, Compendium Software
Talks tips for measuring online business success.

Rich Becker, President of Copywrite, Inc.
Looks at engagement with the right type of publics when online.

Jay Berkowitz, author of Ten Golden Rules and podcaster
Makes it clear on what should happen within (4) seconds on your website.

Rohit Bhargava, author of Personality Not Included
Gives ideas on finding what works (or doesn’t) for your business’ website or online presence overall.

Jason Billingsley, co-founder of ElasticPath with blogger Linda Bustos
takes the conversation beyond online advertising and includes ways to listen to your customers.

Matt Dickman, VP of Digital Marketing, Fleishman-Hillard
Shares an ‘a-ha’ idea on what small businesses can do to get ahead (& inspire regret in their larger competitors!).

Lee Odden, CEO, TopRankMarketing.com
Goes beyond SEO or the optimized press release for the needed big picture for small biz success.

Darren Rowse, Author, ProBlogger
Suggests a mentoring approach for small business’ success in online retailing.

Robyn Tippins, Community Manager, Yahoo Development Network
Relates the Holy Grail and user experience to online presence of small businesses.

Want more?
Just click below for the full clip on strategy or check out anytime all (9) of Solutions Stars video conference interviews.

Now, everyone (and I mean everyone) wants to know how they can get their stuff in the first view on the first page of search engines. Better search results positioning means more eyeballs, more eyeballs means more clicks, and more clicks hopefully leads to more customers and revenue.

There’s a lot of good SEO information that you, as the small business owner, can take away, but there’s also a lot of voodoo, handwaving, and hucksterism, too. When I take a look at SEO advice, I focus on things that help you present your information, in a way that’s clearer and better-organized… for both search engine spiders and humans. That way, you (hopefully) get better search results positioning, but you also get better engagement with customers and visitors.

Here’s what the four interviewees have to say about increasing your small business’s visibility through search:

Chris Baggott, CEO, Compendium Software: Branding really isn’t the goal of SEO — it’s how to get found. Blogging is a great tool for leveling the playing field for small businesses when it comes to SEO, especially in local search. Because most small businesses are local, that can be an advantage in search over a corporate behemoth that has locations all over the place — if they’re blogging.

David Berkowitz, Dir. of Emerging Media & Client Strategy, 360i: SEO is an opportunity for small businesses to get more of their content out there, and to build relationships that lead to inbound links. By engaging with the community, the community helps good sites bubble up to the top.

Jay Berkowitz, author, “Ten Golden Rules” Podcaster: SEO is really important, and you can help your SEO by doing some basic things; at the very simplest, add keywords to every page — pick 2 or 3 main keyword phrases to focus on for the site, add them to the title, and use them 3 times on each page (in the first paragraph, in the body, and in the bottom paragraph.)

Lee Odden, CEO of TopRankMarketing.com (looks like there’s a “d” missing in his name in the video caption, sorry about that, Lee): Find out what bloggers write a lot about and let them know if you’ve got something they’d be interested in by leaving comments.  Another tactic is using optimized press releases, which will drive inbound links. Search engine rankings will increase if they find the keywords on your site, and you get inbound links from sites that are also relevant to those keywords.

SEO is an entire industry, so there’s plenty of stuff to say about it. Leave a comment below if you have a thought to share about the ideas presented in the video, my characterization of them, or thoughts about SEO for small business in general.

- Everyone should have a web presence
- If you are doing business beyond five miles from your office you need a least a web site
- Word of mouth is critical and the web helps in that
- At the very basic on your site should be directions and information on your business

The complete video is below. It is definitely worth watching a few times to get all these important goodies that these experts in the field can provide.

All for small business: connecting you to the experts
I really liked the Network Solutions Solutions Stars video conference when it first released October 29th. It featured an online video interview series with top social media and marketing minds from BlogWorld Expo. They discussed challenges facing small businesses – and tips available – regarding their online presence and social media outreach. There were (9) segments to the video series. And throughout this month, I look forward to recalling some of the highlights with you here at Solutions Are Power.

Revisiting the cool stuff: a recap of Rising Above the Noise
Straight from the experts, here are some quick, smart bits from those interviewed. They talk on weeding through online ‘chatter clutter’ to a better online presence for your business. By all means(!), check out the full (3) minute clip below and the full series of conference clips mentioned above anytime.

Darren Rowse, Author, ProBlogger:
talks on finding the right voice for your online presence, the tools, and knowing the challenges that small businesses face;

Scott Monty, Global Digital and Multimedia Communications Manager, Ford Motor Co:
addresses interruption marketing and other hurdles for small businesses to conquer in building their online name with customers;

Jay Berkowitz, author of Ten Golden Rules and podcaster:
knows how to help your business compete through the online ‘noise’;

Robyn Tippins, Community Manager, Yahoo Development Network
believes enthusiastically that anyone these days can make it big; and she shares more on how your business can avoid being ‘the needle in a haystack’ in Web 2.0;

Jason Billingsley, co-founder, ElasticPath with Linda Bustos, blogger
learn how to transcend the ‘me-too’ mentality in online retailing and to get ahead when so many businesses are learning to reach out through social media;

Liz Strauss, Social Web Strategist, producer of Successful Blog
reveals her #1 suggestion when finding your online customer community;

Warren Whitlock, Book Marketing Strategist
gives away a few ‘you gotta be … ‘ tips;

Don’t stop! …just hit play to get even more.

We were as impatient as you about the Solutions Stars Video Conference and could not help but pre-release at least one video of the Solutions Stars Video Conference . The video is session 2, the Social Opportunity. Featured in this session are

Hope to see you at http://www.solutionsstarsvideo.com/ at 1 p.m on 29th October.

We are excited with the help we received from experts to talk about how Small Business can use new media and tools. the commitment as Network Solutions Social Media Swami is to earn Karma points for Network Solutions by enabling a conversation between the experts and small business. Help us spread the word by embedding this preview video on your web site or blog. Thanks!