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Google Buzz: 5 Opportunities for Small Businesses

Posted by Christian Ramsey at 9:06 am

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Just when you thought you had social media figured out,Google has shaken things up with a new entrant into the market: Google Buzz. It’s integrated into Gmail, which means right out of the gate it potentially has an audience of tens of millions of people. As such, it could eventually prove as important to your business as the other services we’ve seen prosper in the past few years.

If you’ve spent much time on social media sites, many of the features will look familiar, as Buzz combines elements of Twitter, Facebook, and the quickly rising Foursquare. But there are some subtleties that make Buzz unique, and in turn create opportunities that you should familiarize yourself with –- if not start to take advantage of –- as soon as possible.

1. Gathering Customer Feedback

Like Twitter, Buzz lets you post a message to a group of “followers” that subscribe to your updates. However, there are a few differences, namely that messages can be longer than 140 characters (and include supporting images and links) and that replies are all grouped under the original message. This makes conversations easier to track and follow up on. There are also built-in features to reply in a one-on-one way, via either e-mail or Google Talk.

2. Engaging With Others

If you use Gmail, there’s a good chance you already have a built-in network on Google Buzz. The service helps you get started by letting you connect with those you e-mail or chat with frequently. Once you’re following some people, clicking the “Buzz” link from Gmail’s main navigation will let you see their most recent updates. You can comment on them, “like” them, or follow up personally with an e-mail or chat message.

3. Collaboration

Buzz can be used both for broadcasting a message to all of your followers and to select groups of them. If you’ve already set up Groups in Gmail, they’re already available in Buzz. If not, you can create new ones on-the-fly. Posting a private message on Buzz works exactly the same as posting a public one – you just select the Group you want to be able to see it, and then only those people will be able to view and comment on it. It’s instant, private collaboration.

4. Marketing

It’s too soon to tell whether Buzz will have the type of impact for brick-and-mortar businesses that services like Yelp and increasingly Foursquare have had, but it has a very similar feature set. Users can “check in” at business locations, in turn notifying their followers of their whereabouts. Thus, encouraging your customers to check in on Buzz (and other location-based services) can be a way to drive free word-of-mouth marketing for your business.

5. Sharing Content

collaboration image Just like Twitter and Facebook, Buzz has the potential to be a powerful medium for sharing content. You can use it to share blog posts, special deals, or interesting links related to your niche. Just like other social media services, you shouldn’t overdo it though – you want to mix promotional messages with a balance of other useful information and conversation for your followers.

So is it time to jump head first into Buzz? At this point, the right answer is probably “not so fast.” While Buzz clearly has some promising use cases, it’s also not yet ideally designed for businesses. There are no business accounts, no multi-user support, and a host of privacy issues that nearly derailed the service in its first couple weeks (though Google has been quick to address them).

Buzz will likely become more viable for businesses when a Google Apps version is offered, as well as a standalone service that can be accessed by anyone outside of Gmail – both of which are reportedly in the works. Nonetheless, familiarizing yourself with Buzz’s features and opportunities now could be immensely valuable in the future, while at the present, it can provide some useful additional functionality for Gmail users and their contacts.

Categories: SM Blog

Tags: business, buzz, Fresno Social Media, google, google buzz, how to, small, social media

17 FEB 0

We are thinking about iPads for Presentations at MTC.

Posted by Christian Ramsey at 3:57 pm

Does Your Small Business Need an iPad?

Buzz this!25

ipad keyboard image

Now that the dust has settled and we know what the Apple iPad is, many people have begun trying to answer the question, “How can I justify spending the money to get one of these things?” There is certainly no denying that the iPad is a very cool looking device, but as a small business owner, do you really need one? And what about netbooks? Apple CEO Steve Jobs claims that the new iPad fills a niche for which netbooks were failing to deliver, but is that really true for business users?

Here, then, are reasons why you should go out and buy an iPad as soon as they’re available, and reasons why you shouldn’t.

Why You Need One

There are many reasons why small business owners could justify purchasing an Apple iPad. Though clearly aimed at casual users and touted primarily for couch web surfing and multimedia consumption, the iPad also has plenty of potential business uses. By creating a special iPad optimized edition of iWork, Apple’s productivity suite, Apple also clearly sees the iPad’s business potential. Their ultra-competitive announced price of just $9.99 for the app indicates that Apple plans to aggressively court business users, even if that is not necessarily their core customer.

Essentially, the iPad is a big iPod touch that in theory provides a better typing experience (by virtue of its larger onscreen keyboard). Because the iPad will run any of the 140,000 iPhone/iPod apps right out of the box, any business use you already have for your iPod touch or iPhone (except making phone calls) will be available to you on the iPad — but bigger. With that in mind, the iPad could certainly become an asset to sales people who make presentations on the road (what’s more impressive — clicking through PowerPoint slides or manipulating product demos and data visualizations with your fingers?) or anyone who needs to easily monitor core business functions (server health, web site traffic stats, sales indicators, financial numbers, etc.) from the road using a relatively cheap and compact device.

Why You Don’t

What the iPad isn’t, however, is a replacement for your desktop or laptop computer. There are many features missing from the iPad, but two in particular could be deal breakers for serious small business users.

First, the iPad lacks a standard USB port. There will almost certainly be aftermarket accessories available to add USB support to the tablet, but the bottom line is that using the USB devices you already own, such as memory sticks and external hard drives, will not be easy or even possible with the iPad out of the box.

Second, and more egregious, the iPad, like the iPhone and iPod touch, currently lacks the ability to multitask. For Apple’s apparent target consumer — users who will use the iPad for casual web surfing, to watch movies, and to play games — not being able to run more than one program at the same time isn’t likely a big deal. But for business users, that’s a major setback. If you’re putting together a presentation or writing up a sales report, you need the ability to be able to refer to a web page or data locked in some other application while you work. For that reason alone, the iPad in its current form is not an ideal business machine.

What About Netbooks?

netbooks image For about half the price of an iPad you could buy a very capable netbook (some come even cheaper when subsidized by a 3G data plan subscription). According to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, “netbooks aren’t better at anything.” But in many ways, a $299 netbook outshines the $499 iPad, especially for business users. If what you’re after is a machine that offers extreme portability and business critical features for a low price, a netbook might be a better option.

Netbooks have a number of advantages over the iPad. They multitask, they often have cameras (for video conferencing), they can generally run Windows (meaning they run Microsoft Office and Outlook), they support an open software ecosystem (meaning more choice and the ability to easily custom develop and deploy software for your organization), and they have standard ports and inputs. While they can’t match the iPad for cool factor, as far as business functionality, netbooks pack a lot of bang for the buck.

So which should you buy? That will come down to what type of device you need and its intended use. The iPad, however, is not a must-have purchase for all small business owners — at least, not in its first generation.