small business owners posts

Canadian Small business owners aren't overly worried about lingering effects of the recession.
According to a new TD Canada Trust poll, 50 per cent of small business owners think 2012 will be a good business year and a further 13 per cent believe it might be the best yet.

"It's very encouraging to see the majority of small business owners are so optimistic about their business prospects in 2012," said Alec Morley, TD Canada Trust's senior vice-president of small business banking in a news release. "Sixty-five percent of Canadian small business owners gave their company's recent performance a B or above, so it's evident that many entrepreneurs are experiencing success despite the barriers in their way and this is due, in part, to good business planning, hiring talented teams and innovating."

The concerns include cash-flow worries and labour shortages. The 2011 TD CanadaTrust Small Business Survey examined the attitudes and behaviours of small business owners in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouverand Calgary. The results found two in 10 small business owners gave their company an A-plus (5%) or A (16%) for 2010 while 44% graded their business a B, 22% gave their businesses a C, and 11% gave their company a D.

For many small businesses, relying on traditional advertising and marketing channels just doesn't make good business sense. Instead, they're turning to social media campaigns, for two very good reasons. First, small businesses get more than half of their customers through word of mouth. And word of mouth travels a whole lot faster on Twitter than it does in real life.

Second, small businesses can't compete with the big dogs in terms of advertising and marketing budgets. So free social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Tumblr can really help level the playing field.

Original Skateboards is one example of a social media success story. For years the company barely broke even, and then the owners had the idea of posting an ad on YouTube. That first video increased sales by 40%, which led to a focused campaign of advertising on YouTube. Original Skateboards is now a multimillion dollar company thanks, in large part, to its 73,000 YouTube subscribers.