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Is Facebook the $100,000 diamond watch of marketing?

Written on April 12, 2011 – 4:19 am | by Ashley Johnson

Over the past two years, Facebook has fast become a major area of interest for brand marketers.

Lured in by the social network’s 500m+ users, some marketers are evoking memories of the AOL days, going as far as to promote Facebook Pages over their own websites.

From storefronts to movie rentals, brands are increasingly focusing on trying to use the site as a platform for commerce. Some believe Facebook commerce, or f-commerce, could be the next big phase in the evolution of ecommerce.

But according to a report by Forrester Research’s Sucharita Mulpuru, despite all of the talk about f-commerce, Facebook isn’t likely to become a retail force.

The Wall Street Journal has the details:

A social-network presence, [Mulpuru] found, was less effective at customer acquisition and retention than e-mail and paid search.

The study found that the average Facebook metrics are a 1% click-through rate and a 2% conversion rate.

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Tags: Facebook, Facebook 100000

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How Should You Build Your Small Business HR Team?

Written on April 10, 2011 – 5:43 pm | by Ashley Johnson

As a business owner, you have certainly imagined a “dream team” of your top executives. In addition to having the best people managing your production, operations, administration, finance, and sales, you need someone to manage all of your employees. Your human resources department could be one of the most important of all, since it is responsible for hiring, firing, and maintaining overall employee morale.

How do you plan for a dream HR staff that will have the greatest impact on your employee management and satisfaction? You first need to determine whether you want generalists or specialists in your HR department

HR Generalists vs. Specialists

HR Generalists are those with a broader range of HR experience, and they can typically operate all aspects of your HR department. The problem is, however, that a team of generalists may not be best equipped to deal with certain specific issues when it comes to tough HR problems.

In contrast, specialists are those HR professionals who have a background in certain areas, such as benefits or recruiting. The

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Tags: Hr Team, Team

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Miners offer compromise on Zim equity rules

Written on April 9, 2011 – 12:17 am | by Ashley Johnson

Zimbabwe’s mining industry proposed on Friday that “social investments” count towards meeting new regulations that require foreign miners to sell majority stakes to locals within six months. Under new rules imposed last week, foreign mining firms must sell 51% stakes to black Zimbabweans by September 25. The Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines said it believes that investments in social projects such as roads, schools and clinics should count toward the equity requirement. “The chamber’s own proposals to government had been for a minimum indigenisation quota of 26% equity, with the balance of 25% made up of credits arising from corporate social investments,” it said in a statement. Such investments could include support to small miners, buying supplies locally, training workers and launching new businesses, it added. “The concept of indigenisation and economic empowerment is accepted and supported by the industry,” the chamber said. Read more…

Tags: Zim, Zim Equity

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A decade later, Google adds AdWords phone support

Written on April 5, 2011 – 8:15 pm | by Ashley Johnson

Google AdWords is arguably one of the most important advertising platforms in history. It has given advertisers of all shapes and sizes the ability to reach a global audience in a highly-targeted fashion on almost any budget, and in an accountable fashion.

So it’s no surprise that advertisers, ranging from the world’s largest brands down to local mom-and-pop businesses, spend billions upon billions of dollars every year buying AdWords ads. They do so despite the fact that Google has never offered free, general phone support to its advertisers.

Yesterday, Google announced that this is changing. Have a question about AdWords, or your AdWords account? Just call 1-866-2Google, Monday through Friday from 9am to 8pm Eastern Time, and Google will actually take your call.

In what may be the understatement of the year, Google says it has added phone support “for a simple reason” — customers asked for it. This, of course, is true.

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Tags: Adwords, Adwords Phone

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Calling Entrepreneurs in the East Midlands

Written on April 4, 2011 – 1:36 pm | by Michael Harris

As they officially launch their Regional Office in the East Midlands, Angels Den, one of the UK and Europe’s largest Angel Networks, is urging East Midland’s entrepreneurs to come out of hiding to prevent East Midlands Angel Investors heading for London to invest.

Bill Morrow, Founder of Angels Den said, “we have a growing number of Angel investors looking to invest in budding entrepreneurs and each month at our London SpeedFunding™ events we see investors travelling from the East Midlands keen to invest”.

Russell Copley, East Midlands Regional Manager for Angels Den said, “we have a variety of Angel investors in our region who regularly tell me they are looking to keep their investment local rather than travel to London to look for investment opportunities which is why we have opened up Angels Den here in the East Midlands.

According to recent figures, London does have the largest number of High Net Worth’s in the UK with over 280,000 millionaires in the London and South East area. However, the

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Tags: East Midlands, Midlands

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