SBA Goes Social
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Every small business should know about the United States Small Business Association. This is the government agency charged with assisting small business owners as they start their business and later maintain it. In response to the growing trend of younger business owners doing their research online, the SBA now has a series of social networking portals.
Tweet, Tweet
First, the SBA social networking presence starts with their Twitter page. Add @SBAgov to your twitter feed to receive the latest SBA tweets. Some who are unfamiliar with Twitter believe it to be a place where teenagers gather to discuss things that have no commercial value. This is far from the truth.
With increasing frequency, Twitter is being used by businesses to give customers a quick way to find and access important information. For example, as this article is being written, the SBA Twitter feed is a link to an article on their site which will help small business owners implement the cut in payroll taxes set to take place in 2011.
An article like this may have taken a significant amount of time to find online but by reading your twitter feed, you may have found it instantly or didn’t even know that you needed the information until you read it.
YouTube
The SBA now has a YouTube site. Go to http://www.youtube.com/sba to find loads of SBA produced videos explaining what they do and how they can help you. In addition, they have a multitude of links to other videos by small business professionals with topics ranging from “Where will your next Customer come from?” to “Team Building”.
How many times have you seen advertisements for high dollar seminars on topics like these? The SBA has found free resources on a wide range of topics to help your business grow.
The SBA has started a Facebook presence as well and although a lot of the information is shared with its Twitter page. One important part of this page is the networking capabilities that the small business owner has. With thousands of people following the SBA Facebook page, that’s literally thousands of opportunities to make business contacts with others like you. Don’t go to this page just to read. Participate and meet people.
Bottom Line
Every business owner should be looking for an edge and often that edge comes in the form of education. No matter how established you are, there is always room for growth and with the large amount of information being posted on the SBA social networking sites, education is quick and easy to find.