National Journal Community Of e-Experts

Whether it's a launch party, a conference or a networking event, companies have been hosting and marketing live events for decades. In the age of social media, spreading the word about an event is easier — and more beneficial to your brand — than ever.

"Social media is absolutely a must-have strategy for events," said Amir Zonozi, chief strategy officer at Zoomph, a social engagement platform designed for live events. "Not only are you connecting with more people at once, but you're connecting and branding yourself, verifying your expertise to an industry and audience on a digital stage."

Based on the insights of marketing experts, here's a guide to marketing your event on social media, from creating the initial buzz to following up after the hype has died down. 

Before the event

The first step to event success is making sure people know about ...

Are you tired of paying fees for basic banking services to one of the mega-banks that dominate the American financial scene? With a little effort, you can keep more of your money.

The 2008 financial crisis led to some action in Washington that affected banking and borrowing customers -- the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the passage of some regulations requiring proper disclosure and longer notice of changes. But the most significant result of the debate leading to these reforms was to scare the pants off the big banks. In advance of any new restrictions, they moved to protect their profits by creating new fees and hiking others.

However, plenty of alternatives to the "Big 10" banks offer comparable services for significantly fewer and lower fees. You may not know about them because they lack the marketing and advertising ...

If you flip a coin 20 times and it comes up ‘heads’ each time, the odds of getting another ‘heads’ on the 21st flip is still 50-50. In a pure game of chance, past results have no effect on future outcomes. There is simply no way to change that.

But when a game includes strategy and you’re competing against others – as in poker – that’s an entirely different story. Chance or luck still plays a role, but better players who consistently make the right bets on the right cards do win over the long haul.

It’s the same in business … and in life. Success and happiness are both about making the right moves, making the right decisions, over and over again. That’s all there is to it, like it or not.

Look, we ...

Pull up a chair to hear about the time I tried to correct my credit report. Or would you rather learn about my late-night conversations with confused debt collectors? Oh wait, there’s a hilarious one about a bank losing a big mortgage check.

Not interested? Fine. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is. The federal agency wants to publish Americans’ narratives of financial frustration online, allowing people to describe every Kafkaesque turn in disputes with the multi-billion-dollar firms that handle their money.

The bureau logs more than 20,000 complaints a month in its Consumer Complaint Database -- bank blunders, mortgage malfeasance, misdirected money transfers, and more. Each complaint and company response is categorized in a dry spreadsheet, with no elaboration. The CFPB bets an upgraded, expanded database would bring financial service providers ...

Retirement planning is a process that actually continues throughout your retirement years, with tweaks and changes to ensure that you stay on track. Many folks will immediately think of their portfolio and rate of return, but your age is also an important factor that can help you maximize certain benefits, while helping you avoid mistakes, which are often accompanied by hefty penalties. Make sure to mark your calendar for these important milestones.

In order to help illustrate these points, we'll use the example a fictional 49-year-old named Claire, who was born in 1965. Claire is still putting in hours at the office, but her children are in college and she's starting to think more seriously about her retirement. Let's examine how these retirement milestones work for Claire and many others years away from retirement:

...

Six years ago, we decided that each founder of our startup would work from their house or apartment. The idea was to avoid committing ourselves to the expense of an office rental.

Everything started as an economic decision, but today, when we can afford to rent an excellent workplace, we still choose to work from home. The work and life quality is simply better. Even while making our enterprise scalable, we continue to implement our philosophy of successfully working remotely.

Back in 2008, we were the only startup with no office. Today, many startups adopt this new working style.

To improve as an enterprise, we studied how to implement this methodology with 26 startups that also work without an office. Here are the three main ...

Many of us have fallen prey to the pressures of a conglomerate car retailer, including myself. In 2011, I walked into a Toyota (TM) dealership with the sensible goal of simply checking out the merchandise. My lease was drawing to a close, and I wanted to see what my options were. Instead, I got caught up in the allure of shiny metal and, to my surprise, ended up leaving the lot with a new car.

Two years later -- after the excitement of new car keys clinking in my purse faded, along with that new car smell -- I realized that perhaps I hadn't made the best financial decision. I admitted my error and dealt with the mixture of guilt and frustration. Then I got motivated.

The first thing I did was consult a financial expert who specialized in car loans. ...

Seinfeld fans may remember the episode where George Costanza (Jason Alexander) is working for the Yankees and is trying to look busy during the off-season when he finds himself with little responsibility. He explains to Jerry and Elaine, “I always look annoyed. When you look annoyed all the time, people think you are busy.” I have to say, George was on to something with that ploy. Many of us work in an environment where the assumption is that our external expressions of stress reflect our internal level of commitment to our job. In other words, the more stressed out and unhappy we are, the harder we must be working.

Veto! I think that to perform at our best, we need a little workplacezsa-zsa-zsu with laughter. I’m not alone in this opinion: honest-to-goodness real research has been done on fun. That research has shown ...

Really, who has the marketing budget Coca-Cola and Nike can boast? Smaller companies sit in awe of the glitzy commercials and celebrity endorsements and think, “I could never do that.” Honestly, without those monster marketing budgets, you can’t. That doesn’t mean you can’t make a big impact with the money you have, though.

To make the biggest impact, you don’t have to make a splash. You just have to be savvy and patient in equal measure. Not many campaigns will bring customers in droves overnight, but you can build a steady stream of leads through your inbound marketing efforts. Want to know how? Here are 5 ways to make a huge impact with less money.

If you don’t know who is buying your products or services, you’ve already lost the war. A deep understanding of your buyers and their pain ...

There are so many to-dos on the list of an aspiring business owner. You’ve got to choose your business structure. Determine your marketing plan. Find capital to get started.

But have you given any thought to how you will accept payments from customers once you launch? This might not seem like an area you need to deal with before you start your business, but having a clear-cut plan will lay the foundation for smoother sailing once you start making money. After all, you’ll have plenty of other things to worry about!

Here are five things you should understand about accepting payments from customers:

1. The More Forms of Payment You Accept, the More You’ll Make

It’s baffling that more than half of small businesses do not accept credit cards as payment. After all, most of us don’t carry cash anymore, and customers prefer ...