Survey Finds Small Biz Driving Growth With Social Media | Small ...

Small businesses are increasing their use of the Internet and social media platforms to connect with customers and grow their businesses, according to a recent Citibank survey.

Sixty-five percent of the 749 small business owners surveyed across the United States cited increasing marketing activities as a key step in growing their business. While the overwhelming majority (70 percent) used their company website as a marketing channel, 41 percent said they have used social media channels, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, in the last year. Sixty-two percent haven?t used email for marketing purposes ? a figure that remains the same from when Citibank first surveyed small business leaders about social media and online marketing in April, 2010.

As small business owners are moving online, and relying more heavily on their company website, online channels represent an emerging opportunity to help grow their businesses. In fact, many small businesses plan to use digital and social media tools in the coming year. According to the survey:
- 60 percent plan to increase activity on their website for marketing purposes.
- 40 percent intend to use social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter for marketing or expanding their business ? up 10 points from 2010.
- 38 percent plan to leverage email marketing tactics to drive awareness and sales of products and services.

?Although small business owners have been slower to adopt online marketing channels, they are clearly warming up to using these tools to target customers,? said Maria Veltre, Managing Director, Small Business Marketing & Customer Experience at Citi. ?They are seeing that social media platforms can be an efficient and cost effective means to increase awareness of their business, engage with customers and, ultimately, to drive growth.?

The number of small businesses selling goods and services online or via email rose from 16 percent to 24 percent since 2010. The use of social media tools, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, is up six percentage points during that same time frame. The survey also revealed that nearly three-quarters of small business owners who have a website find it very or somewhat effective in generating more business for their company.

Small business owners under the age of 45 were more likely to use digital and social media to address their marketing needs. In the past 12 months, 54 percent of small business executives under the age of 45 used social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, compared to only 36 percent of their peers aged 45 and over. Younger small business owners are also more likely to use a company website (72 percent versus 68 percent of older respondents) and search engine optimization (44 percent versus 33 percent).

?Today, the web is first place consumers go for information on products and services,? said Tracey Weber, Managing Director, Internet and Mobile for North America Consumer Banking at Citi. ?The perception is that these channels are expensive and time-consuming, but the reality is there are simple ways to reach current and prospective customers online. Small businesses have a great opportunity to leverage online tools and social media to market their businesses and to help drive growth.?

Tips to help small businesses take advantage of online marketing and social media tools, can be found on the Citibank website at: https://online.citibank.com/JRS/popups/smallbiz/TipsOnlineMarketingSocialMedia.pdf

The survey also found that Smartphones ranked as the best the technological solution for small businesses, with nearly half (48 percent) currently using Smartphones. Over one-third (34 percent) said that they plan to use Smartphones in the future. Tablet computers have penetrated one-quarter of small businesses, and another 23 percent planned to use them more or add one in 2012.

Tags: Citibank survey, Facebook advertising, features, making money online, marketing, online promotions, SBO Newsletter, small business opportunities, social media, twitter

Category: Features

Source: http://www.sbomag.com/2012/07/survey-finds-small-biz-driving-growth-with-social-media/

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Senate HELP Committee Releases Report on, Recommendations ...

WASHINGTON?Today, Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and the Senate author of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act,?released a report?detailing the current state of employment for adults with disabilities, and describing policy recommendations that would help to increase labor force participation. Following a series of bipartisan HELP Committee hearings to explore the persistently low employment rate of people with disabilities, this report outlines the next steps to achieve Chairman Harkin?s goal of raising the number of Americans with disabilities in the labor force to six million by 2015.? Harkin?s report comes a day after Delaware Governor Jack Markell?announced?that he will make expanding employment for Americans with disabilities the defining initiative of his new National Governors Association chairmanship.

?As someone who has sought to expand rights and opportunities for children and adults with disabilities for almost four decades, I am convinced America is ready to address this next great barrier of disability employment,? Harkin wrote in the report. ?At this time we are seeing a convergence of strong bipartisan leadership from the public and private sectors with the coming of age of a new generation of young adults with disabilities who have high expectations for themselves and have the education and skills to succeed in the modern workplace.? If we make this issue the priority that it deserves to be, in the next few years we will see a real change in employment outcomes for Americans with disabilities.

??My hope is for this report to support and encourage bipartisan leadership in the public and private sectors that will have a measurable positive impact on employment of Americans with disabilities in 2012 and beyond? Our country showed bold bipartisan leadership in 1990 when it passed the ADA and America is a better place because of its implementation.? It is now time again to show the same kind of leadership and open wide the doors to better jobs and careers as well as create an accessible pathway out of deep poverty and into the mainstream of the American middle class for the more than 20 million working age American adults with disabilities.?

As the first generation of Americans who have grown up under the ADA approach adulthood and wounded warriors return from Iraq and Afghanistan, our country has a unique opportunity to address the issue of disability employment. In recent years, public- and private-sector employers have gotten more serious about growing the disability workforce, prompting both President Obama and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to set specific goals for welcoming people with disabilities into the labor force. Companies like Walgreens, Lowe?s, and Best Buy have led the way in the private sector.? As the economic recovery moves forward, Chairman Harkin will continue to work to ensure that Americans with disabilities are not left out of opportunities to earn a living and join the middle class.

Through several hearings and extensive staff research, the Committee found that:

• There is no evidence that employment outcomes for people with disabilities as a whole have improved since 1990, and participation rates have been persistently lower than for people without disabilities. In June 2012, just 32.1 percent of working age people with disabilities were participating in the labor force, compared with 77.7 percent of those without disabilities.
• Between July 2008 and December 2010, workers with disabilities left the labor force at a rate five times greater than workers without a disability: 2.1 percent of the non-disability workforce, versus 10.4 percent of the disability workforce, left the labor force over that period.
• The median earnings for workers with disabilities is less than two thirds the median wages for workers without disabilities: in 2010, $19,500 for workers with disabilities versus $29,997 for workers without disabilities.
• Individuals with disabilities also experience a disproportionate level of poverty because of their low employment participation and earnings rates, their underemployment and the low levels of federal disability cash benefits.? In 2010, the poverty rate for working age adults with disabilities in the U.S. was 27.3 percent.? The poverty rate for working age adults without disabilities was 12.8 percent.

To build on the bipartisan?successes of the ADA and continue to improve disability employment outcomes, Harkin plans to introduce legislation to:

• Improve outcomes in competitive, integrated employment for youth and young adults who are transitioning from school to higher education and work;
• Increase contracting opportunities for disability-owned businesses;
• Create incentives for States to develop and test innovative initiatives that can lay the foundation for modernizing our largest programs providing income support, health care, and long-term services and supports to our citizens with disabilities; and
• Encourage savings and wage support that will help people with disabilities leave poverty and enter the middle class.

This entry was posted in Veterans Articles & News. Bookmark the permalink.

Source: http://veteransforcommonsense.org/2012/07/16/senate-help-committee-releases-report-on-recommendations-on-disability-employment/

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UN urges peaceful solution to Camp Ashraf standoff (Providence Journal)

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A year after floods, shippers face low Miss. River

MEMPHIS, Tenn.?? A year after the Mississippi River swelled to near-historic proportions and flooded farms and homes from Illinois to Louisiana, the level along the waterway's southern half is so low that cargo barges have run aground and their operators have been forced to lighten their loads.

Wide, sandy strips of shoreline usually invisible even in the low season are now exposed, shrinking the river's width and affecting the way tow captains navigate.

Such is life along the nation's main inland waterway, where millions of tons of goods are shipped every year, some of which end up as exports departing from south Louisiana ports. Those who make their living along the Mississippi learn to adapt to the river's fickle nature.

"It's remarkable, but it's completely normal," said Jim Pogue, spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers in Memphis. "You get a low river, you get a high river, but it's completely normal."

There isn't much man can do to deal with the exceptionally low river, which at Memphis, is just about six feet above the record low.

"Pray for rain," said Tommy Hart, director of the port in Greenville, Miss. "I'm not a big fan of rain, but this time I am."

Aside from that, the best coping mechanism is careful navigation. With the river this low, the channels are shallower and narrower, presenting problems for barges loaded with coal, grain, iron, steel, sand, gravel and more. They must reduce their loads to avoid bottoming out and take extra care not to collide when passing another string of barges in the thinner channel.

Also, low water at docks and terminals makes it more difficult to load or unload material, as ships have trouble getting close enough to docks. Companies must get permits from the Army Corps to dredge near their docks to find deeper places to load and unload.

The National Weather Service said the Mississippi River gauge in Memphis was at minus-4.8 feet on Friday, but there's no need to panic. The "minus" reading does not mean the river is dried up ? it's just a measurement based on how the river gauge is designed. Essentially, the reading means the river level is far below normal.

That low level stands in contrast to the flood of 2011, which saw the Mississippi fall about a foot short of the record crest of 48.7 feet set in 1937. The National Weather Service has set the official crest of last year's flood at 48.03 feet on the Memphis gauge.

"It's basically just the opposite of last year," Pogue said.

One reason for the difference is a lack of rainfall in the Ohio River valley and the north Mississippi River basin, said Ryan Husted, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Memphis. Sections of Tennessee and regions to the north are experiencing drought conditions. Most areas in the Mid-South are 10 inches or more below normal for rainfall for the year, the weather service said.

Lower-than-normal snowfall levels over the northern plains this winter are also an issue, Husted said. Less snow means less water from melted snow making its way into the Mississippi and the rivers that feed it.

The record low on the Memphis gauge is minus-10.7, set during a severe drought in 1988. That year, a stretch of river about 100 miles south of Memphis was temporarily closed, Pogue said.

Near Greenville, Miss., more than 700 barges were backed up on the river. Crews dredged day and night to make the river deep enough for traffic to resume.

A paper published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in September 1989 estimated that the drought caused the U.S. barge industry to suffer a 20 percent income loss, with total losses at about $1 billion that year.

The Army Corps predicts that the river will drop to within about two feet of the record, but it is not expected to reach it, Pogue said. So far, no stretch of the river has been closed, but at least one harbor, in Hickman, Ky., has been shut down.

Since 1988, the Corps has worked to improve the navigation system in the river, making sure channels are sufficiently deep. That means the river wouldn't necessarily close, even if the record low is reached this year, Pogue said.

Although Coast Guard officials say closings are not imminent, there have been problems. Towed barge groundings are up compared with years when the river's water level was normal, said agency spokesman Ryan Gomez.

Meanwhile, barge operators have to carry less cargo to avoid running aground, which means they make less money each trip.

Nashville-based Ingram Barge Company, which operates on the Mississippi and other rivers, has seen business suffer, said Ingram spokesman Keel Hunt.

"Captains and crews know how to navigate through waters high or low," Hunt said. "In a time like this, however, it's a particular challenge because in some cases it's just very difficult to move a barge full of products."

In Arkansas, the water is so low where the White River meets the Mississippi that barges must pass through a series of river locks. And in New Orleans, the Mississippi is so low that the wooden pilings of the wharfs near the French Quarter have been exposed.

But shippers and river pilots reported no navigation problems. Michael Lorino, the head of a pilots group that takes ships across the pass at the mouth of the Mississippi, said recent dredging by the Army Corps had made it a smooth ride for ocean-going vessels.

Anthony Hauer, director of the port at Natchez, Miss., said his port has a deep water channel, and it's not likely barges would have to lighten their loads there.

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At Greenville, port director Hart checks the river's level every day. This is harvest season, a busy time for a port that ships goods from the heart of Mississippi's farmlands. According to the Mississippi Department of Intermodal Planning website, the port at Greenville ships potash, rice, corn, wheat, grain feed ingredients, fertilizer and scrap.

A major concern at Greenville and other ports is that the entrance to the river could get too shallow. If that happens, barges could be forced to carry lighter loads to make it to the channel, and the port is hoping to dredge its opening to the river to keep traffic flowing.

"We seem to be living in a day and age of extremes. We had the flood last year and now we have low water," Hart said.

___

Mohr reported from Jackson, Miss. Associated Press writer Cain Burdeau contributed to this report from New Orleans.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48197693/ns/us_news-environment/

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AmericanRoadMag: Road Trip London, Ontario-Visit Banting House National Historic Site of Canada-home to the man who discovered insulin. http://t.co/y8GlmSx3

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Iraq warns Turkey over separate Kurdish oil deal

BAGHDAD (AP) ? Baghdad warned Turkey on Sunday that its separate oil deal with Iraq's northern self-ruled Kurdish region could damage trade relations, the latest sign of tension between the two neighbors.

This month, Iraq's Kurds announced that they have started exporting crude oil and gas to Turkey. The goal is to barter it for refined petroleum products to meet domestic demand.

The deal is part of a bigger agreement the Kurdish government negotiated and signed with Turkey in May without going through Baghdad. The agreement envisions the Kurdish region exporting not only oil but natural gas through a web of pipelines through Turkish territory to the international market.

"Exporting oil from the Kurdistan region to Turkey is illegal and illegitimate," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement. "The oil and gas are the property of all Iraqis and those exports and revenues must be managed by the federal government which represents all Iraqis," al-Dabbagh added.

He accused Ankara of "participating in the smuggling of Iraqi oil ... and this issue will affect the relations between the two countries, especially the economic ones."

The Kurds and the Arab-led government in Baghdad have been at loggerheads over the right to develop and export the north's natural resources. Baghdad maintains that the region has no right to sign deals unilaterally and that exports must go through the state-run pipelines, while Kurds argue that the constitution does in fact give them the right to sign agreements without consulting Baghdad.

The Kurds have gone ahead and unilaterally signed scores of oil deals. Baghdad keeps a blacklist of the companies involved.

In early 2011, the two sides reached a tentative agreement by which the Kurds send the oil to Baghdad. But the exports were halted in April by the Kurds, who claimed that Baghdad was withholding revenues. The central government in turn accuses the Kurds of keeping billions of dollars that ought to go into state coffers and also of smuggling oil on the side. It has threatened to cut the Kurdish region's share of federal funds.

Baghdad and Ankara for their part have seen their relations strained after Iraq's fugitive Sunni vice president Tariq al-Hashemi, who faces terror charges, sought refuge in Turkey since early 2012. Al-Hashemi says the charges are politically motivated.

Another point of contention is the uprising against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Ankara wants him to leave, while Baghdad, which has close ties to Assad's ally Iran, has been hesitant to take a stand on the Syrian conflict.

Also Sunday, Baghdad signed a preliminary deal with a Pakistani company to explore for natural gas in the country's east, the latest move by the war-torn country to develop its vast natural resources after decades of war, U.N. sanctions and neglect.

In May, Iraq awarded Pakistan Petroleum the right to explore for gas in the 6,000-square-kilometer (2300-square-mile) Block 8 in Diyala province. The company will be paid $5.38 for each barrel of oil equivalent.

The contract was signed at the Oil Ministry in Baghdad and it will be sent to the Cabinet for final approval. The contract is one of four Iraq awarded in the latest bidding round to search for oil and gas. Others will be signed this month.

Since 2008, Iraq has awarded 15 oil and gas deals to international energy companies, the first major investments in the country's energy industry in more than three decades.

The goal was to boost daily production from about 3 million barrels now to 12 million barrels by 2017. But Iraq is mulling whether the target should be revised downward to fewer than 10 million barrels, considering a possible drop in demand on oil in the international market and infrastructure bottlenecks.

____

Associated Press Writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-07-15-Iraq/id-2424b43b28dc414aad52d7da21431ecb

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