University of La Verne SBDC Small Biz Blog

by Joshua Botello This article was originally published on LinkedIn here . If you are looking to start a business blog and platforms like WordPress.org look too complicated to start up, the built-in article tool for LinkedIn may be what you need. Not only is it easy to get started but you can reach your audience where they already are. Here is a quick guide to getting started with blogging on LinkedIn.  First things first The first thing is you will need to create your LinkedIn profile, but since you are reading this, you are already on LinkedIn. However, if you really need to know how to get started, here’s a quick refresher. Go to LinkedIn.com and click sign up. Enter your email. You are ideally going to use a business email or personal email if you don’t have a company one. Fill out all the information about you. This will be professionally useful when you start writing and this will establish your credibility when you publish articles. Once you have your profile c...

Mighty River Wellness   www.mightyriverwellness.com   Mighty River Wellness is a fertility acupuncture, and integrative health practice in Los Angeles, CA. Beck Hoehn LAc initially came to the University of La Verne SBDC for assistance in applying for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. "When the world shut down all the issues and nightmares I stressed out about as weaknesses in our business all became true in a matter of moments. It was glaringly obvious in the middle of a pandemic that I needed to recession-proof my business. I had NO IDEA how to do any of that. My friend recommended I seek guidance from the SBDC,” Hoehn said.     During the first few months, Beck began working with Jeffrey Wolf and junior consultant Annie. They both provided her with foundational business, growth strategies, and "how to survive" basics. That knowledge inspired her to move forward and develop a strategy to increase business.  Worki...

by Joshua Botello For most business owners live streaming seems like an impossibility because of the tech and quality needed to pull it off. However, basic live streaming is as simple as having an account on social media and clicking a few buttons. So in this video, I'll show you how to live stream on any budget and stay to the end for tips on getting the best quality for your live content. Let's begin our journey with live streaming from your phone. It’s the easiest to do and most people have phones and apps to live stream from anywhere. The biggest caveats will be the location you're streaming from, your service provider, and your signal strength. But with that said, Let’s get streaming Facebook (iPhone/Android) On Facebook, log into your account and in the post section, tap "live" and the live stream settings will come up. You can set who your audience is like friends only, public or private; then add a description, and when you're ready tap “Start Live Vi...

by Joshua Botello Digital marketing has been alluring for small business owners to leverage the technology that larger corporations have been using for the last few years. Many small business owners looking to jump into the foray without quite knowing what digital marketing is. Small business owners may not understand marketing as a whole, so if they want to migrate or expand into digital marketing it tends to become a technological mess. It usually means cleaning the slate and rebuilding effective marketing starting from scratch. In this article, we’ll cover the 4 Aspects of a digital marketing strategy to build digital dominance. What is Digital Marketing? Digital marketing is essentially traditional marketing in a digital space. With digital marketing, the idea is to leverage online platforms and properties like websites, blogs, social media, video, live streams, webinars, and email marketing. Many of the fundamental marketing principles such as goals, target markets, marketing chan...

by Joshua Botello At first glance, Twitter may seem like a neverending wall of noise, but if you are serious about using Twitter as a marketing channel, then you need to know how to properly set up your account. So let’s get into a step-by-step guide for starting your business on Twitter. And stay till the end for pro tips to leverage Twitter for your business Set up  First, head to twitter.com and click sign up to get your account started. Type in your Twitter username called a handle then your email and your own birthdate even for business. Now that your account is created you need to build out your brand on Twitter.  To do this, you need to add a bio that explains your business, A profile picture, this can be a logo or other brand image, and finally a header photo of your location or other scenic picture. How To Use Twitter Now that you have all that done let me show you how Twitter works. Posts on Twitter are called tweets and have a limit of 280 characters. These can be t...

by Joshua Botello If you avoided using Twitter for your business up until now, let's start with some numbers: There are 48.35 million monthly active Twitter users in the US. 38% of Twitter users are between the ages of 18 and 29, 26% of users are 30-49 years old. 56% of Twitter users $50,000 and more in a year. 80% of Twitter users are affluent millennials. If you haven't started using Twitter because it is just a “never-ending wall of noise” and you don’t “get it”. Fear not. Here are 10 ways you can easily use Twitter for your business. #1 Promote Your Blog If you aren't blogging for your business. You should consider starting immediately. If you are, congratulations, it's time to amp that up on Twitter. You can promote your blog with several strategic tweets that are scheduled out to give your blog the maximum traction it needs. How? You can schedule out 5 tweets in this example from Neil Patel , to get eyes on your blog and keep it fresh witho...

by Joshua Botello Are you looking to build an audience on Facebook for your business? Whether you have been in business for years or you are just starting out, figuring out how to use social media to grow your business is going to be a challenge. So here is a list of 4 tips you can use to build your following on Facebook.  Tip #1 Contact Existing Customers Tip number 1 is to Contact your existing customers: If you're currently and have existing customers who are also on Facebook, you want to let them know once you join. You can do this a few different ways by putting a Facebook like button on your website that connects to your business page so they know they can connect with you there.  If you have an existing email list let them know you are on Facebook and have a follow button in the email as an easy call to action to click.  If you have a brick and mortar location, post your Facebook page name somewhere visible for the customer to follow you and get all the latest info...

By Joshua Botello The world of grants is a hazy one, especially for the uninitiated. To outsiders, grants seem to be free money floating around that people are willing to just hand over and are ridiculously easy to get, but difficult to find (unless you know where to look). If by some miracle, one of those previous statements might actually be true (uh, no), the world of grants and business financing is confusing and difficult. There is a lot of information and misinformation in the world, so let's dispel the myths and uncover the truth about grants. But first... What exactly is a Grant? A grant is one of many forms of federal, state, county, city, corporate, or foundation funding. Within the federal government (the largest grant funder), Federal financial assistance is a broad term for the various ways the U.S. government distributes resources to eligible recipients. Simply put, a grant is any money that funds ideas and projects to provide public services and/or stimulate the ec...

by Joshua Botello If you are looking to start digital marketing, a Facebook account is a good start to reach your customers, with over a billion active users. If you need to run a business from your Facebook account, track who views your page, and make sales with Ads you need to invest in a Facebook Business Page. A Facebook Page is a free and easy way to gather analytics on your audience, Schedule and post content, and use advertisements. So let hop on to Facebook and start-up that business page. The Set-up We’ll naturally start on Google.com. We need to make sure that we are logged into our Facebook profile so let's go to Facebook.com. We will type in our Facebook profile login and password. Verify you are logged in to our Facebook profile and then open a new tab. Now it’s time to open your Business page. On your profile, in the 2020 interface will be these buttons. Click the plus button and choose the page. it will bring up a page with a sidebar that looks like a profile. The f...

by Joshua Botello Non-profits are some of the noblest organizations to help communities all over the United States. The National Council of Nonprofits describes nonprofits this way: “America’s 1.3 million charitable nonprofits feed, heal, shelter, educate, inspire, enlighten, and nurture people of every age, gender, race, and socioeconomic status, from coast to coast, border to border, and beyond... They foster civic engagement and leadership, drive economic growth, and strengthen the fabric of our communities. Every single day.” While some look to build a business others look to starting a nonprofit organization to make a living, by helping the community. Here is a list of the major differences between for-profit companies and nonprofits, if you are looking to start a nonprofit of your own. Profits The biggest myth with non-profit organizations is that unlike for-profit companies that can’t make a profit. The term non-profit is somewhat of a misnomer. Non-profit organizatio...