Get Ready to Add Social Media Monitoring to Your Morning Routine

What makes up your routine when you get into the office in the mornings? Grab a cup of coffee, check voice messages and emails, review the day’s to-do list, etc.? Better get ready to add another task to your list. In an online world of 24/7 tweets, facebook status updates and daily blogs, social media can wreak havoc on your company and brand if you aren’t monitoring what is being said. So, set aside 10 minutes to check the online activity happening while you’ve been away.

1. Check Twitter for company and brand chatter – estimated time: 2 minutes.

2. Scan Google Alerts – estimated time: 1.5 minutes.

3. Check Facebook stats – estimated time: 1 minute.

4. Answer industry-related LinkedIn questions – estimated time: 3 minutes.

5. Use Google Reader to check Flickr, Delicious, Digg and other social sites – estimated time: 2.5 minutes.

Where is MY piece of the stimulus pie?

There is a big chunk of the $800 billion in funding up for grabs via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), but getting your piece of that proverbial pie may be more difficult than the government has let on. Consultant and author Mark Amtower recently wrote an article outlining an action plan to land government contracts for your business (at all levels of government – local, state and federal.)

While a lot of money is out there at all levels of government, Amtower doesn’t want you to get your hopes up. If you have no experience selling your services to the government, he doubts you will land a significant contract. But, “significant” to the government is often a seven figure sum. I’m sure you’ll settle for less! If time is on your side and you are ready to do your homework and be persistent, then other stimulus monies may be at your grasp.

Here is Amtower’s action plan for small businesses looking to benefit from the giant stimulus.

1. Decide where you fit. What products or services do you sell that are truly germane to these projects?

2. Decide what level of government you want to sell to. Are you going to stay local to your business? Can you ramp up to state or federal business? Target the government agencies you wish to target.

3. Go to Government Express Resources (http://www.governmentexpress.com/resources.html). Scroll down to "Doing Business with Links" (for Cities, State and Federal). Each of these provides direct links to the procurement websites for all states, all federal agencies and many major cities. What you will do here is start your education on how each level of government procures goods and services. You need to understand this before you proceed. Browse and bookmark this site while you are there, as it has lots of free information on doing business with the government.
4. Next, go to Recovery.org. Government contract tracking firm Onvia created this site to show on a state-by-state basis where the money will be spent. You may need to subscribe to Onvia's bid tracking service to get details on each emerging opportunity.

For more steps to Amtower’s action plan, check out this article on Entrepreneur.com (http://www.entrepreneur.com/money/article202570.html#ixzz0LAVC1gN5&D). Your local government offices should also be able to provide resources to help you along in this process.