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Monday, 07 May 2012 05:07 |
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 (Chris Syme) The opening night of the 2012 Social Media Success Summit featured a power-packed session by Jeremiah Owyang and his research on how advanced companies use social media. One of the questions after his presentation asked how to handle the escalation process in social media that can turn frustrated customers into an angry mob.
Owyang assured listeners that there are four levels of customer intervention, and if handled properly, they can create solutions without dedicating social media resources to customer service.
1. Level One: Well-designed FAQ sections on websites and other media. If Frequently Asked Question sections are up front, visible, and easily navigated, customers can often get answers to many problems without having to pick up the phone, send an angry email, or head to Twitter to complain.
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Last Updated on Monday, 07 May 2012 05:11 |
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Thursday, 03 May 2012 05:22 |
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 Mike Gold, an international advertising executive and marketing instructor at Montana State University's College of Business, will present "Social Media for the Family Business" in 10 cities across the state this summer as part of the college's State Farm Family Business Program On the Road.
The seminars, which are free and open to the public, will be held at the following dates and locations:
Monday, May 21:
Lewistown, 1-3 p.m., Central Montana Education Center
Tuesday, May 22:
Glasgow, 2-4 p.m. Cottonwood Inn
Wednesday, May 23:
Havre, 10 a.m.-noon, MSU-Northern
Thursday, May 24:
Great Falls, 2-5 p.m., MSU-Great Falls.
Wednesday, May 30:
Miles City, 2-5 p.m., Miles City College
Thursday, May 31:
Billings, 2-5 p.m., MSU-Billings
Wednesday, June 6:
Kalispell, 9 a.m.-noon, Flathead Valley Community College
Wednesday, June 6:
Missoula, 6-8 p.m., Axmen
Thursday, June 7:
Butte, 2-5 p.m., Montana Tech
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Wednesday, 02 May 2012 05:15 |
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 (Carol Buchanan) If you self-publish your work, you’re an entrepreneur whether you want to be or not. Once it’s between covers and in your hand, or an e-reader, your book is a product.
That means you’re in business. You’re an entrepreneur.
Me, too. I self-published my first book, God’s Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana, in 2008 and discovered I was in the publishing business. Then I published the sequel, Gold Under Ice, in 2010, and in December 2011, The Devil in the Bottle.
After nearly four years of being a self-publisher, what do I think about it? As with any small business, it’s incredibly hard work, but I love it. I’ve written journalism, academic papers, software manuals, and books and articles about horticulture and horticultural history, but writing fiction is what I was born to do. Although I’m not a best-selling author, I’m building an admittedly late-blooming career as a novelist.
To make more money from my books, I keep up with trends in publishing. I study book marketing and promotion. To save you some time, and perhaps save you from making the mistakes I’ve made, I pass on new mistakes and information to you, the readers of mtbusiness.com. I also teach “Successful Self-Publishing” at Flathead Valley Community College, and I write a sporadic newsletter on “Successful Self-Publishing.” (Leave a comment if you’d like to receive it.)
My mission statement as a writer is “Celebrating courage, faith, and hope in stories of people forced to make dangerous choices to survive in the West.”
I hope you find the information in this blog helpful. Good luck with the business of self-publishing!
It Walks Like a Duck
On April 11, the Department of Justice filed suit against five large publishers and Apple Computer, charging them with price-fixing in agreeing to set prices for ebooks. The suit charges that Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Penguin, and Macmillan colluded with Apple in what they agreed to call the “agency model” of pricing, by which ebooks were priced on the iPad at $12.99, and giving Apple a 30% share for allowing them to be loaded on its device.
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Tuesday, 01 May 2012 05:53 |
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 The Montana World Trade Center will host an Export Controls & Export Finance Workshop in Bozeman May 23rd to help companies understand necessary compliance, HTS codes, regulation and documentation procedures, and financing options.
May 23rd, 2012, 9am-5pm
Bozeman, Montana
$25/single workshop $40/ both workshops and catered lunch
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 01 May 2012 05:56 |
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WASHINGTON – Small business owners looking for ways to grow and develop their businesses are invited to take part in National Small Business Week’s free networking and educational forums and dialogue with leading business experts during 
