I was pleased today to have someone tell me that Brownbook is mentioned in Chris Anderson’s new book “FREE” (sub-title: “The Future of a Radical Price: The Economics of Abundance and Why Zero Pricing Is Changing the Face of Business”).

Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail” was a great influence on us when we were thinking about creating Brownbook – in fact I’d say its essential reading for anyone wanting to get mass adoption for their website – so this was great to see him taking note of us.

Thanks Chris.

Free free global business directory that anyone can edit now lists 28 million businesses worldwide

United Kingdom: Brownbook.net, the free global business directory that anyone can edit, is celebrating its first year in business; a year of sustained growth. Today, the site continues to thrive, with thousands of businesses being added, worldwide, every week. The international distribution of listed businesses can be seen here: http://www.brownbook.net/countries.

• Miamism.com, USA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rFyBJT5CeM
• R A Hilton, Jeweller, USA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX0SAmObg-k
• Bush Marketing, Australia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBF9qDwHPRU
• Carpet Doctors, UK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx2__rhjsYI
• Sort Out My Visa, UK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQOARcUve0k
• OM2 Marketing, UK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_GcM_LqIug
• Elite Advertising Consultants, UK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jWHP6yb8qw
• Pople Web Design, UK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIAotTqPvkk
• French Tutoring, UK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpXlAk2W8Es

Brownbook also regularly enjoys positive reviews about the site; these left, for example, on Brownbook’s own listing page:

“Love it… Love it… Love it. This is SEO magic for the uninitiated. Simple, quick and powerful. Love it! Have recommended BrownBook to ALL my friends! Actor Expo Team, www.actorexpo.co.uk, May 25, 2009 17.23”

“I had a wonderful review of my business appear on my [Brownbook listing] a few days after signing up for your service. It was an unsolicited endorsement from a business associate. Right on! May 22, 2009 11.06”

Marc Lyne, co-founder: “We are currently listing 28 million businesses from all around the world. One of the reasons for Brownbook’s success, I would say, is that we never stop providing innovative new features to businesses, helping them to get found online. This keeps the site fresh and on its toes. Here are 2 of our latest enhancements, for example:

1. Stats counters and stat graph on every businesses page; plus a global stats league table, since May 5, 2009, here: http://www.brownbook.net/user/hof/top-viewed-profiles

2. Bidget (Business Widget) for reviews. Now anyone can add their reviews that appear on Brownbook to any other website, blog or forum. See an example here: the Brownbook page for Onedrywash: http://www.brownbook.net/business/31008544/sjk-products-ltd, and their Brownbook reviews which they have placed on their own blog: http://onedrywash.blogspot.com

Video marketing campaigns have previously been dominated by large global businesses that have huge marketing budgets.   But now, thanks to the Internet, small businesses can also benefit from the power of video to reach their customers and drive their brand recognition.  Interacting and engaging with customers through the use of online video is an important part of social media marketing or the Web 2.0 phenomenon and this article examines why it should be adopted by all business of any size.  It gives examples of a handful of different video sharing opportunities including You Tube, Brownbook.net, My Space and blip.tv and suggests how you may like to use the channel of video to communicate directly with your customers.

Why online video is vital to your marketing strategy

• To demonstrate and show off what your product or service is – Brownbook.net does exactly this with a video showing its users how to use their DIY website creator service http://blog.brownbook.net/2008/12/17/web-site-creator-demo/
  
• To provide information and explain things about your business:
  Hobby Box used its listing on Brownbook to add an informative video http://www.brownbook.net/business/2234317/the-hobby-box
  PatientsLikeMe uploaded a video of them speaking at a conference onto blip.tv – http://where.blip.tv/#976819
  
• To show the personality behind the company, what the company is all about and how you want your brand to be recognised.  Miamism uses Brownbook.net’s video uploading feature to give a great insight into their business  http://www.brownbook.net/business/31014168/miamismcom—miami-beach-real-estate-resource
  
• To demonstrate your knowledge and expertise such as financial planner Andrew Horowitz did on Business Week http://feedroom.businessweek.com/index.jsp?fr_story=36a57b3b6982001f5af806073a86811a604be482
  
• To offer added value services to customers.  This wedding planner produced an online video wedding planning guide and put it on My Space http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=28696203&searchid=897faf39-3848-4cca-a2fb-9506a217cb2b
  
• To create or upload an online advert, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1jywlZG74o
  
• Videos can give the customers a new shopping experience where the shop is brought directly to them at their convenience.   Visual representation is highly effective in assisting us with our purchasing decisions as it makes the business more tangible and provides us with the information we need to form perceptions about the company
• Google seems to like videos and thus ranks them highly.   Furthermore, according to Google, “America streams over 10.1 billion videos online” per month and “76% of US internet users view video online”
• Online videos do not require huge marketing budgets as with the advent of mobile, internet and camera technology most people have the ability to produce a video and then upload it to the net
• Use videos to spread word of mouth – Sarah Warren, Head of Marketing from Brownbook says “Business should encourage their customers to give them video testimonials, it’s very powerful to have a real customer telling others about the great service they got from you.  Businesses listed on Brownbook can not only upload their own videos but they can also direct their customers to their listing and ask them for a video review.  And lastly, businesses can get in touch with professional organisations and experts to ask them to review their products and services using video like here http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=46822858”

A business may chose to produce any number of the styles of videos mentioned above to engage potential and existing customers in order to ultimately generate more sales.  These online videos are part of the creation and development of an alternative online world in which consumers and businesses buy and sell.

Brownbook, You Tube, My Space, blip.tv, are examples of just some of the places where you can upload videos or photos to market your business.  Marc Lyne, CEO from Brownbook.net said: “We have made some tweaks and added some new features to the latest version of Brownbook, but the video and photo facilities are already proving to be popular with users.

Video gives small businesses a cost-effective and powerful way to reach the widest possible audience. It enables you to personalize your messages and reach a large, global audience.  So, get filming.

Miamism is a client-centric and forward thinking real estate team with Majestic Properties that serves Miami Beach and its surrounding neighborhoods. Ines Hegedus-Garcia, Rick Garcia and Karen Alvarez make up the experienced and enthusiastic Miamism Team.

Ines and the Miamism team understand the value of online marketing and show their thought leadership with interesting industry related articles posted on the Miamism blog and the nationwide realtors blog, Agent Genius. Ines is also extremely active in social networks such as Twitter, where she engages people in conversations and posts insightful links. If you’re on Twitter, I definitely recommend following @Ines!

Ines has really maximized her business’ Brownbook listing by taking advantage of the easy to use customization features. The Miamism listing on Brownbook is completely personalized to display important business information and links, as well as videos, pictures and the Miamism logo. Ines’ use of multimedia on her Brownbook page displays Miamism’s vibrant personality and shows clients and potential clients the people behind the business. If you haven’t already, take a couple of minutes to watch the Miami Mojito video!

Hello from sunny Miami! I wrote another post for the SBDCNet national blog discussing the value that customer testimonials bring to a business. Please feel free to read the article here. Brownbook provides the ideal platform for customers to write reviews of local businesses and makes it easy for businesses to ask their customers to review them online.

If you’re on Twitter, follow me @ChristineMAdolf!

I have written an article featured on the Small Business Development Center National Information Clearinghouse (SBDCNet) about online word of mouth marketing for small businesses. The post points out several things that small businesses can do to create buzz for their company online. You can check out the article by clicking here. Feel free to contact me with any questions or feedback about Brownbook in the US by e-mailing me at christine [at] brownbook [dot] net. You can also connect with me on Twitter: @ChristineMAdolf.

Hooray, we just got the Brownbook.com domain name.

(but we still go by the name of Brownbook.net, we’ve become quite attached to it )

www.brownbook.com

Want to get inside my head?  You can follow me on Twitter, my profile is here http://twitter.com/daveingram and click “follow” (if you don’t have a Twitter account you’ll need to register first).

Dave Ingram, CEO Brownbook.net

I was the recipient of an interesting direct marketing email this week, and it struck such a chord with me that I thought I’d share it with you here.  Some very interesting stats that really drive home the importance of being online and findable for every small business.

(you may want to check this article in The Telegraph this week in the same vein)

(PS: I’ve removed the name of the company to protect the innocent )

MAKE THE WEB WORK FOR YOU

With ******** Internet Solutions
2.7 Billion Searches – Every Month!*
What’s your share of the search?

With all these searches on the internet why isn’t your business getting it’s fair share? 79%** of searches are performed on Google, with the rest trailing far behind – just 8% on Yahoo, 5% on Ask, 4% for MSN and a mere 2% for all the other search services and directories on the Internet. Does the website of the telephone directory you pay to advertise in feature in this list?

Over half – 54%*** to be precise – of the UK population use the internet regularly, and if YOUR business is not on the Internet – or not highly ranked on the number one search engine – then potential customers don’t know you exist.

The numbers speak for themselves – what’s YOUR percentage of the 2.7 BILLION searches?

People are looking for your product or service online – call ******** today and find out how we can increase your share of the search to improve your business performance!

• Can your business afford not to take advantage of the web?
• Are you one of the many businesses that still don’t have a website?
• Are you still spending hundreds – or even thousands – on paper advertising?
• With £70bn** of business today conducted on the web – isn’t it time you asked why?

* comScore
** Hitwise, an Experian Company
*** UK Office of national statistics
DI>  I liked the email, and very useful stats too. Of course you could take the DIY approach and add your business to Brownbook.net with relevant tags.  No need to talk to us, no need to fend off any sales person either.  Our SEO ensures you get found on all the major  search engines helping you win new business. Simple as that.