Which Comes First: Plan or Pitch? — You might think you can pitch your business idea without having a plan. Tim Berry explains why that’s not a good idea.

How a Business is Learning What Small Businesses Want to Learn — Asking your customers what they’re looking for can help you develop or improve your product or build new business.

Startups: Unique and Revolutionary, or Forget It? — Does a new venture have to be groundbreaking to be worthwhile?

Get an Evergreen for Your Blog This Holiday Season — If you have a blog, you want to read this post about how to create an “evergreen” post — one that readers will keep coming back to again and again.

It seems that there is no human endeavor that will not be subverted by those with evil intent. The social-mediasphere is no exception. This recent Yahoo! News article, Injunction by Twitter: A Blogger Makes History Trying to Unmask His Impostor reports how the English High Court is using Twitter to serve an injunction against a Twitter user/identity impostor.

The case has many facets, including political campaigning, impersonation, possible slander, character assassination via misrepresentation, mainstream media reporting, and the impact on everyone’s use of Twitter through increased legal action and greater government regulation in social media.

The high-profile court action, says Time, “also highlights the increasing dangers of identity misappropriation” on social media sites. A cited example involved Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, when a Twitter impostor posted, “an elegiac tweet on Michael Jackson’s death [which] was widely quoted by credulous media.”

The plaintiff in this lawsuit is also considering a suit against Twitter, because he experienced Twitter’s own procedures slow to respond. Further legal action could force Twitter to reveal account holders’ identities, which would set a precedent for the wider social media environment.

Another legal response to questionable blog and Twitter activities was posted by Tim Berry on his Planning Startups Stories blog in FTC vs. Social Media Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing. This governmental action concerns people who accept payment to post advertisements in the guise of “personal” reviews, recommendations, and conversations.

Social media, which started out as an unfettered, community-gathering-place-of-sorts is becoming as hazardous and risky as any other commercial or political arena. And as regulated and litigation-bound. Be aware, be paranoid, be skeptical of what you read. Be prepared to defend your good name.

Steve Lange
Palo Alto Software

Are You a Marketing Weasel? Am I? — Tim Berry ponders how consumers aren’t always logical, but marketing with this in mind can appear ‘weasel-ish’.

Playing the Numbers — Sometimes it’s helpful to create different scenarios for your business plan, and see how they impact your financials.

3,2,1 Contact… How Do You Keep Track? — Tracking all your customer communication in one accessible archive can be incredibly useful.

Start-Ups and Health Care Debates — What does the current health care debate mean for small business?

Business Focus vs. Peripheral Vision vs. Growth — Tim Berry talks about what happens when businesses branch out beyond their focus and the importance of knowing who isn’t your customer

10 Ways to Market When Cash is Tight — Duct Tape Marketing Coaches Ken Burgin and Elizabeth Walker provide their top tips for low-cost marketing.

Business Plans Are Not Just for Startups — The Up and Running blog quotes author Ramon Ray on the forgotten audience for business plans.

It’s Not Just What You Say, It’s How You Say It — When a New Zealand woman was fired for her email stylings, it brought up a good point about polite electronic communication.

Are You a Good Manager? How Can You Tell? — Tim Berry poses some questions to think about in trying to determine what makes a good leader.

Tell the World How Fast You Respond to Email — When you handle email efficiently, you’ll be proud to display a Response Time Badge on your website.

How to Write With A Knife — The Copyblogger’s excellent post on effective editing.

7 Reasons Why Your Marketing Plan Doesn’t Work — Marketing guru John Jantsch looks at the most common mistakes people make with their marketing plans.

Why Cash Flow is Like a River — Tim Berry uses a river analogy, and video to go with it, to explain cash flow.

Behind the Scenes, a Lot of Activity — Email Center Pro developers have made some improvements which speed up the service and allow them to sleep through the night.

Troubadour takes bad customer service to task. Song #2. — United Airlines broke the wrong guy’s guitar, and the customer service lesson they’re learning is one we should all take heed of.

3 MBA Tricks to Shorten Boring Meetings — Tim Berry shares some secrets he learned in business school to help you deal with long meetings.

Maker or Manager: Do You Hate Meetings? — Tim Berry on why frequent office meetings work for some types of workers  and not for others.

What’s Your Free Soup To Go Strategy? — Exceeding expectations is a powerful way to create repeat customers, say Duct Tape Marketing Guru John Jantsch

Why are women becoming a rising force in American entrepreneurship? — Sabrina Parsons weighs in on some of the reasons women are ideally suited to run businesses.

The Single Most Important Thing Your Headline Must Do — An interesting Copyblogger post on how to drive more readers to your blog.

I will be the first to admit I read too many blogs. My RSS Reader is consistently over the 1000+ mark and I probably know too much about too many things I really have no business trying to understand. But then, there are a lot of smart people out there with good information to share.

I wanted to share some of my favorites with you, should you be looking for more blogs to fill your coffee breaks.

Small Business Matters on the Business.gov website

Damsels In Success: Professional Women Blogs

Small Business Trends: Anita Campbell and guest authors

Duct Tape Marketing: John Jantsch, guru, author of Duct Tape Marketing and Palo Alto’s Marketing Plan Pro software

Diva Marketing Blog: Toby Bloomberg’s savvy and sassy advice

The Marketing Minute: Drew McLellan, marketer and author

Customer’s Rock: Becky Carroll rocks out on the best of customer experience

Church of the Customer: Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba – They’ve also started a great Ning site Society for Word of Mouth

Social Media business strategy and more: Chris Brogan

TED: Ideas worth spreading

PR-Squared: Social Media and Public Relations

There are obviously more, as I said, I have a very long list …  but these are my first stop blogs every morning.

What are yours?

‘Chelle Parmele
Palo Alto Software

If you’re looking at a new web startup these days, you have to make a choice. You can aim for money or aim for traffic. Ironically, it’s hard to do both.

Whose business is Web 2.0? You update on Facebook and Twitter, post to your blog, comment on everybody else’s blog, and put your pictures on Flickr. What do you own? How do you make money? It’s your life on Facebook, but who gets the money for the ads?

How much is your content worth? How much is it worth to you? How much is it worth to the rest of the world? And who makes money with it? Given that it’s your life, your opinion and your picture, will other people pay for it? Can you make them pay for it?

In her post Is Facebook Turning us Into Digital Sharecroppers, Anita Campbell makes a very serious, concrete suggestion:

I think there’s a way you can participate in social sites such as Facebook and not be relegated to a digital sharecropper. That is: You should have your own websites or blogs that you own. Or write books, develop DVDs or author academic papers. Whatever methods you use for developing content and intellectual property that you own, you should do it. In other words, create the majority of your work on a venue or in a form where you own it and can benefit from it.

I know I’m just one example, but I think she’s absolutely right; and that this strategy, or my variation on it, has been working for me for years.

Every time I think about blogging, I question what I should write about, whether or not I have the time, if people will read my posts, etc. But when I actually think about what blogging can do for our business, it’s really a no-brainer. Blogging is pretty much free marketing (and can actually be kind of fun!). So how can you go wrong with that?

I recently read an article stating that in times of economic crises (like many feel we are experiencing today), you should continue or expand your marketing budget. The logic was that if others are cutting their budgets, you have a “greater window of opportunity to get your message across to your market.” While I do understand this logic, it is always prudent, recession or no recession, to be smart about how, where and why you are spending your marketing and advertising dollars.

Traditional advertising often doesn’t provide the results businesses are looking for, so even if they have a robust marketing budget, organizations often look for creative (and low-cost) ways to market and advertise. Blogging is one such way, and it can be an extremely effective marketing tool. Not only are you putting content out there for others to read, but when people comment and link back to their blogs, it can start a cycle of exposure.

Aside from creating and writing your own blog, there are other ways to get noticed in the world of blogging. Just like others can comment on your blog, you should explore and find a blog you like, post comments and link back to your company’s blog. There are an abundance of bloggers out there, so you are sure to find at least one that provides interesting and useful content for you to read and comment on.  And since there are so many bloggers out there, another way to draw attention to your company is to act as a guest blogger for someone else in your sphere.

Both WordPress.com and Blogger.com provide free accounts, so take advantage of a free account and add blogging to your marketing mix.

Kristen Langham
Manager of Business Development
Palo Alto Software