Mark Faggiano

Website consultant who loves helping others build online companies. Sold @beelya & @filelater. Working on my next cash machine: @taxjar. Crazy about golf & sports. Connect with me on Google+

Online Business Tips: The Importance of Building a Great Product

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Today’s post is the latest installment of our Q&A Series – short interviews with talented, experienced, and successful entrepreneurs who are on the front lines of running online businesses.

school cmsMy guest is Michael W. Kearns, CEO of TurnkeySchool.com – a school CMS website that Mike and his business partner  Jake Johnson developed.

I think you’ll like this discussion. Michael shares some great insights.

Here’s our discussion:

B5: Tell me about what TurnkeySchool.com is all about.
Michael: TurnkeySchool.com is a web platform that empowers K-12 schools with easy website management and design using our flexible content editor. Multiple content authors can add photos, documents, video and podcasts all in one place using our file browser. TurnkeySchool.com integrates with hundreds of online services for social media, blogs, calendars, slide-shows and more.

Read moreOnline Business Tips: The Importance of Building a Great Product

5 Takeaways from PubCon

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pubcon 2010Back to reality after a great week in Vegas attending PubCon.

Really quickly I wanted to share, in no particular order, my top 5 takeaways from the week.

1. “Likes are the new links” – this was a quote from Bruce Clay during the week’s best session. Bruce was part of a panel that discussed Google Caffeine and May Day. Bruce thinks that when you add up what Google did with Caffeine (increasing the size of the index) with the fact that they have to account for social in search results plus the fact that a greater percentage of links are spam – the currency for validating sites will change from links to personal recommendations.

Whether or not you buy it, it’s definitely thought-provoking. I’m going to be testing this one while following it closely.

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Startup Lessons: Find the Right Financing Partner & Test Before You Invest in Marketing

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Today’s post is the latest installment of our Q&A Series – short interviews with talented, experienced, and successful entrepreneurs who are on the front lines of running online businesses.

new river innovation

My guest is Reed Humphrey. Reed’s an experienced entrepreneur having cofounded or led marketing at four start-ups, including a tax services firm that grew revenue by 100-fold under his direction. Currently he leads the marketing and public relations functions for New River Innovation/easyIRS.com, including advertising, social media, partnerships, news and media.

I think you’ll like this discussion because Reed is a smart, experienced guy who is right smack dab in the middle of the startup experience. He’s got a lot of good input on financing and marketing. And his company is working on a pretty cool idea that I think could be huge.

Here’s our discussion:

B5: The name of your company, easyIRS.com, probably says everything. But just in case, tell me about what the company is all about.

Read moreStartup Lessons: Find the Right Financing Partner & Test Before You Invest in Marketing

Why Social Media Doesn’t Make Sense for Your Business

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social media strategies
Does 500 million users = automatic success for your biz?

Here’s the point I’m going to try to make in this post: don’t allocate your precious resources to scoring new business on social media until you’ve perfected the art of converting relevant traffic on your own website.

Bear with me while I step into the time machine to get things started…

Remember 1o-15 years ago when companies starting including their domain on TV commercials and magazine ads? The “Information Superhighway” was so new that addresses included “http://www” at the beginning and some instruction like, “type this into your browser. Blah. Blah.”

In the last 18 months or so we’re starting to see a similar trend happening. Brands are including a Facebook and/or a Twitter logo in their ads to tell consumers they can be found on the world’s most popular social media sites.  I’ve even seen some Foursquare references as well.

I’m here to say the following: Resist the urge! Don’t blindly follow the trend!

Read moreWhy Social Media Doesn’t Make Sense for Your Business