If you have a website to help generate online exposure and sales for your business then you have probably already figured out that it cannot survive on its own without a little help. Luckily, this outside help is free, with the caveat that it can take up some of your valuable time currently used for…
Get used to hearing the words virtual reality (VR) headsets. A once clunky-looking device that you may have seen in various theme parks, SkyMall catalogs, high-end arcades, and futuristic movies is now going to become more commonplace. You’ve probably heard the recent news that the Oculus Rift (a device that blew up on Kickstarter and…
It’s that time of year again! You can feel the shopping energy vibrating in the air just waiting to be released upon the world. The question is, how do you harness that energy to your advantage when you are a small business? How do you compete with big box stores, almost blindingly bright ad campaigns,…
LinkedIn has come a long way from its humble beginnings as a social media tool to help you connect with others in your industry. In fact, let’s take a look at some stats about LinkedIn (as of September 2021) Stats via Oberlo Connecting to other professionals is still the core of what makes LinkedIn so…
A lot of small businesses do everything they can to take advantage of free online services that, in their own ways, can contribute to their overall search-ability when playing the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) game. Which is why it’s surprising to find that many small businesses aren’t taking advantage of posting regular YouTube content to their…
Our favorite social media scheduler is Hootsuite, and up until recently users were not able to schedule their Instagram updates (or have an option for us to manage Instagram on behalf of businesses). This was frustrating for many businesses who would have to manually submit their content via phone, but now with the ability to…
When small business owners say to us, “We want better SEO,” what they’re really asking for is a magic bullet. In the old days, a black hat SEO company could promise big results by stuffing keywords into your site and creating disreputable backlinks to get your site a better page ranking. Google and other search engines…
Pinterest Introduces Advertising Opportunities for Business Profiles It’s here! The ability to pay to promote pins on Pinterest. If you are familiar with paid advertisements on other social media sites, like Facebook, you already have the gist of how paid promotional pins work. If you aren’t familiar, here is the rundown. Promoted pins run on…
It’s the New Year! Time to step back and ask yourself, “What do I want to do differently to grow my business in 2012?” Here are Hot Dog Marketing’s thoughts on what should make your 2012 New Year’s Resolution list: 1. Trim the FatNo matter how big or how small, there’s probably some extra bulk…
It’s time to start planning your budget and marketing for the upcoming year. This is a good time to reach out to your business coach, consultant, or Hot Dog Marketing to discuss your marketing strategy. If you’re writing your own marketing plan this year, this blog post is a basic outline to get you started….