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How two moms teamed up to pay for their children’s cannabis treatments.
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Archives for June 2018
You Can Now Buy Ads in Facebook Marketplace
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When Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) introduced Marketplace in 2016 the goal was to provide a platform for buying and selling locally. Today the company is announcing businesses will be able to place ads in Marketplace so they can reach users while they are shopping.
Facebook has been testing this feature over the past couple of months by allowing businesses to list used vehicles, home rentals, home services and jobs.
Facebook Marketplace Ads Extend Your Reach
For small businesses looking to advertise when users are online shopping, it is one more way to interact directly with customers to sell, get feedback, increase subscription rates and more. The goal is to extend your ads to Marketplace with other placement options across Facebook’s different platform.
In the announcement, Facebook said, “Advertising across our platforms enables you to reach your target audience wherever they’re spending time, giving you more opportunities to connect with people likely to be interested in your offerings.”
In addition to Marketplace, your ads can now appear in News Feed, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network with Automatic Placements. This will let you reach your target audience and connect with users who are more likely to be interested in the products and services you offer wherever they are spending time.
The service is now available in the United States and Canada, and advertisers can target users in both countries and run ads in Marketplace along with traffic, conversions and product catalog objectives.
The next available region is going to be for Australia and New Zealand, which Facebook says will take place in the next few weeks. Businesses and advertisers in these countries will also have access to the same features, along with being able to use video views and objectives.
TechCrunch reporter Josh Constine said, “More types of objective-based campaigns will open to the classifieds section soon.” Constine adds Facebook told him the ads will be auto-optimized for clicks.
This means when users click on your ads, Facebook will also show them to people of similar demographics. And if you mark your item as sold, the ad campaign will pause right away.
Constine quotes, Facebook product manager Harshit Agarwal, who told TechCrunch, “Many Marketplace sellers have told us that they want the ability to show a listing to more people in their local area, especially if they’re trying to sell it quickly. We’re starting to test a simple way for sellers to boost their listings and help them find a buyer.”
More Access to Local Markets
For small businesses, the new Facebook Marketplace ads will provide more access to local markets. Local users can see your ads and choose to come to your store, visit your online store or just engage with your social media channel.
Image: Facebook
This article, “You Can Now Buy Ads in Facebook Marketplace” was first published on Small Business Trends
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Elon Musk to Bore Chicago, Iron Man Suits and the World Cup: 3 Things to Know Today
The Best and Worst International Airlines for Small Business Travelers in 2018
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Consumers choose a brand for a host of different reasons, and the new survey carried out by GraphicSprings.com asked international passengers which airline they would like to fly based just on the logo.
And not surprisingly, depending on how you look at it, one of the best airlines in the world, Etihad was first. Remember this was just based on the logo of the company. This result highlights why it is significant for companies to put their best effort into all of their customer-facing products, whether it is a logo or something else.
For international small business travelers, the logo may be a nice feature, but value is more important. And as more small businesses continue to expand globally, finding the best value for their travel budget is a challenge.
The study was extensive, analyzing the survey from 24,000 people between the age of 17 and 78 in 68 countries who flew in the past 24 months. The survey was part of a larger study on corporate logos and branding penetration. The goal was to understand how marketing and other pieces of data affect travelers on the desirability of a particular airline and whether they would like to fly on it.
The Result
Brands associated with luxury, such as Etihad and Qatar airlines were in the top three, with Germany’s Lufthansa taking the third place. For these airlines, 98, 96, and 95 percent of the respondents respectively said they would like to fly them.
When it comes to the most recognized airlines, Lufthansa and British Airways took top spots, which in part affected how respondents felt about the airlines overall. Being recognized brings with it biases both good and bad.
For overall desirability, the airlines from the Gulf States, such as Emirates, Qatar, Etihad and even Turkish Airlines are all seeing their brand growing.
2018 Best and Worst International Airlines
The Top Tier Airlines
The Bottom Tier Airlines
Brand recognition plays a very important role for any company. And in this survey, companies with highly recognized brands did much better than those with little recognition.
Air Astana from Kazakhstan was last. But the bottom tier was also populated by airlines from the UK, and South Korea, which shows the airline doesn’t have to be from a country most people can’t point to on a map.
Value for the International Small Business Traveler
When a small business owner makes arrangements to travel internationally, in most cases cost will greatly determine which airline they will be hopping aboard on.
Key to finding the best deals is getting online and making the arrangements ahead of time, months if possible. This will get you the best price for the flight, hotel stay and even car rental if you need it.
Photo via Shutterstock
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Women Entrepreneur’s New Mentor Platform Will Help You Find Success in Business and Life
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Women Entrepreneur has an innovative service that allows you to speak directly to experts on how to succeed in business, life and your career.
3 min read
The internet provides a vast sea of knowledge about finding success. There are how-to articles on starting and growing a business, YouTube videos that walk you through setting up a website, Facebook Lives that provide an opportunity to email in a question. But sometimes you need more. Sometimes you need the dedicated, one-on-one attention that you can only get when talking to someone directly.
This is where Women Entrepreneur can help. Our new mentor sessions allow women to chat directly with experts who can help propel them forward. Need help with fundraising? We have a mentor for that. Branding? We have you covered. Getting media coverage? We can help.
Related: ‘Keep Moving Forward’ Urges ClassPass Founder Payal Kadakia, Who Means It Both Figuratively and Literally
Our platform is easy to use. Simply choose an expert, book a time and start your session. Once you’re done, you can keep the recording for future use.
Here’s who’s in our current lineup:
Kathleen Griffith: As the founder of Grayce & Co, a marketing and media consultancy firm, Kathleen has helped Fortune 100 brands and media companies reach and engage with the female consumer. She is also the founder of Build Like a Woman, a platform to help female entrepreneurs launch and scale their business.
Expertise: Growth strategy, brand strategy, marketing, go-to-market, starting a business, work/life balance and personal/professional growth
Andrea Huspeni: Andrea is the special projects director at Entrepreneur.com, for which she oversees weekly series, edits reporters’ pieces and launches innovative projects to build the Entrepreneur brand. Besides that, she is a side hustler, having founded ThisDogsLife.co, a website that delivers content and curated products to dog lovers.
Expertise: Pitching the media, getting on journalists’ radar, crafting a compelling story, strategies for launching a company with little time or resources, scaling, content development and ecommerce
Related: To Rise up the Ranks at Work, Women Can Take These 4 Steps
Elizabeth Gore: Elizabeth is the president of Alice, an artificial intelligence platform that connects entrepreneurs with curated resources, tools, communities and opportunities to help their business grow. Prior to this endeavor, she served as entrepreneur-in-residence at Dell Technologies, where she focused on aligning Dell’s goals with helping small and medium business succeed.
Expertise: Scaling companies, fundraising, being a values-driven CEO, “mompreneur” and personal branding
Jason Feifer: Jason has worked across many media brands and mediums. He is currently editor in chief at Entrepreneur magazine and hosts the podcasts Problem Solvers and Pessimists Archive.
Expertise: Storytelling, motivation and pitching your business to media
David Meltzer: David is the current CEO of Sports 1 Marketing, a marketing agency he co-founded with football player Warren Moon. As executive producer and main judge of Entrepreneur’s Elevator Pitch, David provides constructive insight for thousands of businesses each year to help them focus on their company growth.
Expertise: Building brand awareness, developing public speaking skills, fundraising and success strategies
Check back as we add more top-notch mentors to our roster.
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Facebook Level Up Program Expands to Help Small Game Development Businesses
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Six months after Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) launched its gaming creator program, the company announced it is being expanded to give emerging gaming creators a place where they can be discovered. The Level Up Program will help gamers with getting started, getting discovered and eventually start making money. So the platform is actually a tool to launch your own small game development business into the market.
Getting discovered so you can grow your subscriber numbers is not easy. And for emerging gaming creators, Facebooks’ new addition can make this possible by letting you get started with its community and live stream.
If you haven’t heard about the amount of money high-end gaming streamers can make, you are in for a shock. According to CNBC, Twitch streamer Tyler “Ninja” Belvins says he makes more than $500,000 a month playing a game called Fortnite.
Belvins makes the money from Amazon Prime subscribers who are able to donate money to his Twitch account, a company Amazon purchased for $970 million in 2014. Getting to his level is not easy and it takes time, talent and the right game to come along, such as Fortnite or Minecraft.
The Growth of Gaming
Gaming is growing at double-digit rates, amassing billions of dollars every year. While the movie industry generated $40 billion in 2017, according to the Hollywood Reporter, the gaming industry almost tripled the amount. In 2017 the industry saw revenues of $108.4 billion, and it is expected to grow at double-digit rates well beyond 2020.
Of this huge amount, $82 billion was generated from free-to-play games, which provides great opportunities for small business game developers looking to make a name for themselves.
Using Facebook to Get Discovered
When it becomes available, which Facebook says is in the coming months, Level up members may be able to get early access to new features for live streaming. The company will provide tips and best practices so gamers can grow their community by making content for their audience. This includes eligibility to qualify as partnered creators and Facebook’s gaming creator program.
When it comes to earning money, creators that are accepted into the Level up program will have the opportunity to generate revenue through native monetization tools on Facebook. This feature, called Facebook Stars, allows fans to support creators by purchasing and sending virtual goods when a game is being streamed live.
Qualifying for the Facebook Level Up Program
If you’re already stream games on Facebook, you may qualify to be part of the Gaming Creator Level Up Program. Once you are part of the program, you can access customized support on Facebook, high-quality premium transcoding such as access to 1080p, 60 fps, unlock Facebook Stars to get fan support and more.
However, in order to be eligible, you have to create a “Gaming Video Creator” page, broadcast 4 hours in the last 14 days, broadcast on 2 days in the last 14 days, and have at least 100 followers on your page.
If you meet the criteria, Facebook will verify the information and invite you to join the program.
If you are a creator interested in joining the gaming creator program, you can sign up here.
Image: Facebook
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Elon Musk's Flamethrowers End up on eBay and Brands Throw Shade at IHOb! Here Are 3 Things to Know Today.
Just Order a Pizza If America’s Crumbling Infrastructure Worries You — Domino’s Is on It
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Where the government is lacking, a pizza company is delivering.
2 min read
If you’re worried America’s notoriously pothole-ridden streets will crumble unchecked after the recent $1.5 trillion tax cut, just order a pizza and hope for the best. Domino’s, it what is apparently much more of a publicity stunt than an infrastructure initiative (yet is still more innovative than the typical state highway department) has revealed a “paving for pizza” partnership to repair potholes in towns where it sells pizzas.
“Potholes, cracks and bumps in the road can cause irreversible damage to your pizza during the drive home from Domino’s,’’ the eatery warns. “We can’t stand by and let your cheese slide to one side, your toppings get un-topped, or your boxes flippled. So we’re helping to pave in towns across the country save your good pizza from these bad roads.”
Image credit: Domino’s
Related: Domino’s and Ford Partner Up to Test Self-Driving Delivery Cars
This could be a very long running ad campaign. According to the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission of the U.S. Congress, it will require spending $185 billion every year for the next 50 years just to keep America’s roads and bridges from getting worse than they are now. The country is collectively spending $68 billion annually on road and bridge repairs, or a bit more than a third of what’s needed.
The Domino’s initiative isn’t promising to fill the gap (so to speak). A quick tally of the stats on the company’s site reveals it’s filled 203 potholes, so far, in four cities of varying sizes. Athens, Ga., received by far the most asphalt with 150 filled potholes. In car-crazed Southern California, the Paving for Pizza initiative has filled five potholes, all in Burbank.
Related: The One City in America Where You Can Get Domino’s ‘Breakfast Pizza’
The program is accepting nominations for towns to assist. The nomination forms makes no guarantees about road work ever getting done (which makes Domino’s no worse than the government on this topic) but does allow for the purchase of a large carry-out pizzas for $7.99.
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New LG Q Stylus Smartphone Provides Small Businesses with a Budget Alternative to Samsung
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When it comes to smartphones with a stylus, there is one standard bearer, and it is the Samsung Galaxy Note. The new LG Q Stylus is a midrange smartphone equipped with premium features doesn’t try to compete directly with the Note but still delivers the features at a more affordable price point.
The Q Stylus is going to be available in three different configurations. The regular Q Stylus, the Q Stylus+ and the Q Stylus a will also see different price points, making the lower end model even more affordable.
A small segment of small business users rely greatly on the stylus but don’t want to dish out the nearly $1,000 price for a Samsung. For this group, the LG might just be the right midrange alternative.
As Ha Jeung-uk, senior vice president and head of LG Electronics’ Mobile Business Division, explains in a press release, “The LG Q Stylus adds another dimension to our series of exceptionally-priced midrange phones that deliver amazing value to consumers. This phone is another example of LG’s promise to deliver a wider selection of devices this year with premium features designed to meet the diverse needs of today’s evolving smartphone users.”
Features of the LG Q Stylus Smartphone
The Q Stylus is part of LG’s Q series midrange of smartphones. The stylus can recognize and record handwritten notes even with the display off. And beyond taking notes, it can also be used to annotate images and videos to create animated GIFs.
Here are the specs all the models share:
- Processor – 1.5GHz Octa-Core or 1.8GHz Octa-Core
- Screen – 6.2-inch 18:9 FHD+ FullVision Display (2160 x 1080 / 389ppi)
- Battery – 3,300mAh
- OS – Android 8.1.0 Oreo
- Size – 160.15 x 77.75 x 8.4mm / weight 172g
- Network – LTE / 3G / 2G
- Connectivity – Wi-Fi 802.11 b, g, n / Bluetooth 4.2 / NFC / USB Type-C 2.0 (3.0 compatible)
When it comes to the memory, storage and camera, the Q Stylus+ has the higher end specs with 4GB RAM / 64GB ROM / microSD (up to 2TB) / rear 16MP camera with PDAF /front 8MP or 5MP with super wide angle (SWA).
The Q Stylus and Q Stylus? both come with 3GB RAM / 32GB ROM / microSD (up to 2TB) but they have different camera configurations. The Q Stylus has a rear 16MP camera with PDAF and a front 8MP or 5MP with SWA, while the Q Stylus? has a rear 13MP camera with PDAF and a front 5MP with SWA.
Some of the other features the phones share include DTS:X 3D surround sound, IP68 water and dust resistance on the Q Stylus+ and Q Stylus, fingerprint scanner and more.
Price and Availability
The LG Q Stylus is going to launch on a limited basis in North America and Asia starting this month, with other regions around the world to be followed in the third quarter. The company is going to announce the price at the time of availability locally.
Photo: LG
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53% of Small Business Owners Worry Over Cost of Healthcare, Survey Says
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A recent survey of America’s small business owners suggests more than half or 53% count the cost of providing healthcare insurance for their employees as a key concern.
Worried About the Cost of Small Business Health Insurance
Healthcare costs eat up a huge chunk of the small business operation budget. According to the NFIB’s Index of Small Business Optimism, the biggest challenge for small business owners is healthcare. And the eHealth report, Small Business Health Insurance: Costs, Trends and Insights 2017 indicates close to 80% of small business owners worry about the cost.
While in most cases small business owners operate locally, developments outside their region and other macro trends may also have an impact. These issues include everything from higher healthcare costs to taxes and regulations which affect day to day operations.
In the press release announcing the SmallBiz Loans survey, company CEO Evan Singer points out how these trends affect owners. Singer explains, “The survey illustrates that small business owners are aware of macro trends that may impact their business. But their focus is instead on the day-to-day functions of running their company. And the great news is that the new tax plan is helping to drive immediate growth.”
Survey Results
The new tax plan is important to many small business owners too. According to the survey, 52% of respondents gave changes in the new tax law as a key business consideration. The new tax law has been cited by 35% of business owners as a driver for making changes in their operations, with 10% reporting they are making additional investments in new staff and equipment.
But challenges in recruiting talent also rate high. In this time of low unemployment, finding talent is becoming a big problem for businesses of all sizes. In the survey, 49% of business owners reported finding and hiring quality employees is a top concern. And when it comes to hiring new talent, for nine out of 10 of the respondents experience is more of a priority than education.
As it becomes harder to find qualified employees, 31% of respondents to the survey said they are willing to hire candidates with fewer qualifications and train them. At the same time, small businesses are providing more incentives, with 51% of owners offering flexible working arrangements and another 33% higher wages.
Regarding how small business owners feel about the economy, close to 57% of owners said they remain bullish, stating their outlook over the next 12 months was fairly positive or positive. And as some businesses look to grow, they will require funding.
Funding was another key issue touched upon. Securing this funding is getting easier according to 22% of respondents. But getting this capital has become more expensive, with 49% saying they agree or strongly agree the price of credit has gone up.
The survey was carried out from April 9 through April 17, 2018, with the participation of 289 small business owners across the United States. They were questioned on several subjects including financing, growth plans for the year, hiring, talent, and concern for their businesses.
Photo via Shutterstock
This article, “53% of Small Business Owners Worry Over Cost of Healthcare, Survey Says” was first published on Small Business Trends
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