Business Speak

WeWork has agreed to buy Meetup for an undisclosed amount, the coworking company announced. It’s a natural fit between WeWork, valued at $20 billion, and Meetup, a community platform with 35 million members that has hosted more than 300,000 “IRL” events (in real life), Mashable notes. WeWork has continued to rapidly expand its empire — including purchasing Lord & Taylor’s flagship New York store, opening a private kindergarten, and leading a $32 million investment in a women’s coworking space. Meetup will stay a standalone company for now, but will go on a hiring spree, per Wired.

While there are as many mistakes to make with your blog as there are bloggers out there, company blogs face a unique set of challenges. If you’re too technical, you lose your audience, while if you are too personal makes you compete with every other generic blogger. Here are three mistakes people make with their company blog.

“Press Releases Go Here, Too”
Posting press releases on the company blog is a mistake for several reasons. First, it gets hit with a duplicate content penalty. Second, no one wants to read a blog that consists of generic press releases. Third, you should have marketing channels to distribute press releases better suited to that type of content than posting it on your blog.

The graphic also contains a breakdown of the most popular business type by state.

By: Emily Conklin

Ever use Google to search for your latest business idea? You're not the only one.

Think of it as Harry and Jenny’s Day Off – ala Ferris Bueller – we painted the town red on Small Business Saturday (November 25, 2017). First for proper context, read about Small Business Saturday here and here (we’ll wait for your return).

Welcome back! This adventure is presented chronologically so you can follow our footprints. All on November 25th – Small Business Saturday. And I was joined by Jennifer Hallmark, president of SMB Nation. 

By: Nellie Akalp

As an entrepreneur, you understand the importance of protecting your business name. Think of the sales you might lose if another company opened up using your same name. If you’re building a brand, investing in advertising and hoping customers can find you, you’ll want to make sure you’ve properly protected your business name so no one else can use it.

But what exactly is the best way to do that?

Every entrepreneur faces challenges which need to be dealt with persistently and regularly, though few would disagree such difficulties are more prevalent than when you are starting your business.

Sage collaborated with business owners and entrepreneurial support groups to understand the common trials new leaders face, offering guidance to give you the best opportunity when starting your enterprise.

by: Carolyn Sun

This article originally published March 4, 2016.

Being talented with numbers can really pay off if you’re looking to start a profitable business.

Accounting and tax services takes the top spot on the list of the most profitable type of small business with a generous 18.4 percent net profit margin followed by real-estate services (15.2 percent), law firms (14.5 percent) and doctor’s offices (13 percent) reports Sageworks, a financial data service that analyzed the net profit margin of more than 16,000 small businesses (that earned less than $10 million) between September 2014 and August 2015.

Long-time SMB Nation readers know that I follow GoDaddy as one to watch in the SMB space. I’ve recently visited its Sunnyvale office (that’s the Silicon Valley folks!) and had a follow-up chat with Greg Goldfarb, VP of Commerce and Email Marketing. He shared a couple cool tools just brought to market by GoDaddy. 

Scheduling
GoDaddy has hit one of my problems head-on.

It’s the bestest holiday most folks in our SMB MSP space have never heard of. You’d be amazed how, over the years, we’ve carried the Small Business Saturday flag – an event held right after “Black Friday” (the over-the-top retail shopping day), but the MSP mindshare is lacking. You can review our past coverage here and here. 

History
Over ten years ago, American Express created Small Business Saturday to promote “Buy Local” and “Shop Small” as well as increase the use of

© AP Screen shot of the home page of HealthCare,gov.

Open enrollment is always tempting to ignore. When those weighty health insurance booklets arrive demanding that you make important elections right before the holidays, millions of Americans set them aside and either decide to look later -- or never. Whether that's because they're happy with their employer-sponsored health plan and don't intend to change it or simply because they neglect the choices until it's too late, experts say ignoring open enrollment is becoming increasingly costly.

Reflecting back on the recent Continuum Navigate conference (October 2017, Las Vegas), what has stuck with me is how community is still alive. As Mark Twain famously said “…reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” I offer two use cases to demonstrate how partners are speaking to partners: one was a speaker and another was an interview.

By: Annabelle Short

Whether it is the newest smartphone release or the latest gaming system, as consumers, we are always on the lookout for the latest technology.

As an avid Apple user, I can remember several years in a row where I have stayed up all night on that one fateful night in September when Apple made their big announcement and release.

Of course, I wanted to be one of the first to get my hands on whatever new phone they were coming out with this year.