photo by prunderground

Here’s a fun summary on the ones I find the most useful:

1) Wireless Bookmarks - need an easy way to keep track of all of your favorite links and not always have them be on the same computer or profile. You can login and see links anytime you want.

2) Mail Chimp – one of the easiest ways to get out a newsletter. Can’t beat how user-friendly their software is to use!

3) Flickr – it has it’s own social network. If you are an artist or photographer and aren’t on Flickr, you are missing out!

4) Skype – it’s amazing how much this has helped families businesses communicate for FREE. Have you tried their conference video calling yet?

5) More tools: I couldn’t leave out some favorites like Blinksale or Google Calendar. I use these tools almost daily! I love how Google Calendar is getting to have better integration on an iPhone as well!

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Wefollow.com is an online Twitter directory that makes it easier to search for famous folks and celebrities. My first impression was, why would I follow celebs?

If you are new to Twitter, find a few folks you respect, for example, journalist from NPR or an author you respect. The power of Twitter is that by following them, it allows you to have a very unique dialogue with these folks. If you reply or direct message them, it’s much more powerful than emailing or phone calls. You can also get insight into what they are into or what’s going on in their lives. It’s also fun to see who else is watching them, you might find some other great people you want to follow.

Wefollow also ranks tweeters and let’s you know whose getting more followers, whose moving up in the ranking and whose moving down.  You can type in keywords to find specific people, for example, if you type in “seattle”, Pearl Jam are the top tweeters!

This is a great tool is you want to start following Though Leaders on subjects such as small business, marketing, coaching, it just goes on and on. Overall, it’s fun tool that keeps it simple.

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Being a small business owner is getting easier these days….you no longer need to download tons of software to operate and monitor everything. Here’s a list of tools that I personally recommend to make your business operations stronger and simplier:

blinksale.com – a tool to help you create professional-looking invoices and track payments. It’s helped me keep by billing straight and even offers a direct link to your paypal account.

Google checkout – this is a great way to accept credit cards from clients and customers without them having to sign up with paypal. It’s easy to set up, send invoices, and process payments.

Rememberthemilk.com – a wonderful tool to help reminder you do things once, weekly, monthly, you name it. I use it to help remind me to backup my computer, marketing tasks, and sending out emails.

Google’s Calendar – what a lifesaver this is! The best part about this calendar is you can share it with other people and coordinate schedules. I love the different views of the daily, weekly, monthly outlook. I even set mine up to be able to show the five day weather forecast.

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I tend to move back and forth with my laptop and office materials all the time and wanted a way to separate my business calls from my cell phone. It’s really good to keep work and play separate, right?

So my husband suggested Skype and after looking into it, I was super excited. I already had an account, where I talk to family members. I found I could get a phone number, (even one with a local area code!),  a voice mail service, and a monthly subscription that allows me to call anywhere in the US for around $15

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After setting everything up, I bought a Plantronics headset with a USB plugin off of Amazon. I did a few configurations with my Skype account and set up my voice mail. I started switching my cell phone number to my new business Skype number and have been a happy camper since. This has been a great solution to help me keep track of business calls and save money in the process. I highly recommend this phone setup for other small business owners such as graphic designers or programmers that are on their computer a lot and need a business line.

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I have an aunt who is a Mosaic Artist and has been using Flickr as a way to connect with other artists. It’s really simple – they share photos of each other’s work on a Flickr group and give comment/suggestions. They also share tips and techniques with each other in a very supportive environment. My aunt has met artists around the world, been introduced to unique contests, and overall, has noticed she’s more excited about her work. Getting instant feedback is just amazing as well as learning from other’s with the same passions as you.

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By Cindy Monica

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