As a small business owner myself I was particularly interested when back at SXSW a bunch of companies that included BatchBlue, Shoeboxed, Outright, Mailchimp and Freshbooks announced the “Small Business Web“. (Full Disclosure: There is partnership between Outright and Network Solutions and they have a blog called the Unintentional Entrepreneur.

The concept is simple, get these different web applications that business use talking to each other and streamline the data exchange so small businesses are more efficient and the combined products are more powerful.

Here is what it says on their web site:

“The Small Business Web is a movement to bring together like-minded, customer-obsessed software companies to integrate our respective products and make life easier for small businesses. While there are many products available for small business owners on the Web, the approach we’re taking is to use each others APIs to provide a high-level of integration between these applications and create a more seamless experience for our customers.

We think small businesses are the lifeblood of the economy and that it’s from small business that true innovation will arise. We believe small businesses should have access to the same tools and technology that big companies have without paying a huge amount. We know simplifying access and increasing integration to our products and services will benefit all of our customers. We want small businesses to succeed and we want to help.”

The execution is challenging because companies have to open up their API’s and the connecting companies have to develop the functionality to plug-in that respective application. This can also be limited by what the respective company opens up their particular API. On top of that each company is well, its own company and there is no central control or product team to deal with integration issues.

Despite those challenges, the Small Business Web is starting to get some traction and more companies have joined in. The list is long and covers just about every area of a small business back office operation. There are actually more than one in each area freeing the small business owner to find the best solution for them and not tied to a specific group of apps like a desktop office productivity suite.

Those hours freed up from using spreadsheets to do double and sometime triple data entry allows a small business to focus on more important things to help them grow. We will be covering many more of these applications in future Smart Working articles.

For more information, check out the Small Business Web at http://www.thesmallbusinessweb.com

I’m the Communications Director for

In addition to employing traditional marketing channels such as attending local events, going to trade shows and sending out promotional mailings and press releases, we’ve also fully immersed ourselves in some of the newer communication tools out there, which are broadly captured by the term “social media”. Even though you may not be familiar with the term social media, chances are you’ve heard about it or maybe even are using it to communicate in your personal life. So what is social media and how can you use it to help promote your small business? Social media is loosely defined as websites where users are submitting content such as news, photos, videos and audio clips. In general, this content is uploaded by someone and made public so that other people can learn from it, share it, and/or comment or vote on it. The “social” in social media refers to the participatory nature of these sites. People are encouraged (expected even) to contribute, present their viewpoints in a respectful, constructive way, and engage with these virtual communities in much the same way as if they were happening at a local coffee shop or at a dinner party.

At BatchBlue, we’ve used social media to help folks discover more about who we are as a company. We’ve got a flickr account where we post photos to showcase product features, capture highlights from staff meetings and events, and display where our sports team allegiance lies. We write a blog on a variety of topics related to small business so people can get an in-depth look at how we work and what we’re thinking even before they’ve decided to do business with us. As blogger and interactive marketer Rohit Bhargava points out in his new book Personality Not Included, customers expect much more open and honest communication from companies these days. We feel using social media helps promote the fact that our company is small, friendly, and maybe a little quirky but utterly passionate about what we do.
Because social media is still relatively new, the rules of how and when to use it are still being written. We’ve used our experience to write a Blue Paper called Social Media for Small Business in hopes of helping fellow small business owners learn about social media as it both evolves as a medium and changes the way we do business.

From establishing your brand, connecting with customers, and giving more information about your products and services to building networks and finding like-minded colleagues, new clients and even mentors, social media is fast becoming part of the savvy small business owner’s world. Check out the Blue Paper to learn how you can be a part of it.