Search

  - All Sections -Content Search Advanced Search

1. The next 15 trends in social networking

There is no hotter trend in the internet, marketing and media space than social networking. What started out as a way for ‘cool kids’ to talk to each other has now become essential part of every company’s marketing strategy.  ...

2. Don’t investigate employees on Facebook, expert warns

Businesses should avoid using social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace to investigate the personal details and histories of prospective employees, a legal expert has warned. Bronwyn Maynard, senior associate at Harmers Workplace Lawyers, has said that employers must be aware of legal obligations under the Privacy Act, and employee rights under the new Fair Work legislation, in regards to social media. "Whenever an employer or recruiter collects persona...

3. About Us

SmartCompany is a completely free news, information and resource site for Australia's entrepreneurs, small and medium business owners and business managers to help keep them ahead of their competition. Our writers have many years of experience reporting for the best websites, newspapers and magazines. Contributors include Australia's top entrepreneurs, experts and advisers. Every Monday to Friday, SmartCompany posts a daily news briefing, a round-up of business trend...

4. Top drop, top return? New wine group gives customers the cha

A new business model for wine is turning customers into angel investors, encouraging them to invest in a $1.5 million trust fund designed to help independent winemakers crack the market. Naked Wines, which launches in Australia on July 1, was founded in the United Kingdom in 2008 by Rowan Gormley, former chief executive of Virgin Wines and Virgin Money. Over the next year, Naked Wines will invest $1.5 million in Australian vineyards. The company aims to help fund up to 20 in...

5. Internet pioneer on new web trends

Lloyd Ernst had an early start on the web, and has learnt how to achieve growth the hard way. He talks to AMANDA GOME about future web directions and what’s in the pipeline. By Amanda Gome

6. Australia’s 25 best business blogs

Did the great corporate blogging revolution ever happen? It seems only a handful of years ago that, inspired by US automaker General Motor’s FastLane blog, nascent social media pundits (and this writer) were predicting that corporations would open up and begin a two-way dialog with customers. But in the ye...

7. Australia’s top 20 online retailers

What a year it’s been in online retail. This time last year the retail industry was up in arms over the “unlevel playing field” supposedly caused by the GST-free import threshold. Now, that argument has been diluted by concerns over wages, penalty rates, and workplace relations. And online sales have continued to climb. According t...

8. Australia’s top 10 online retailers 2011

The past 12 months have seen a revolution in the online retailing sector.  Emerging players such as DealsDirect, Catch of the Day and OzSale dominate Australia’s top 10 online retailers and the past year has seen Australia’s big retailers finally start to take online selling seriously. Major department stores Myer and David Jones have ...

9. Zuckerberg's marriages

Mark Zuckerberg must be crazy. After floating Facebook on Friday night US time, the world’s most talked-about chief executive went out and got married to his long-time partner, Priscilla Chan, in what looked like a pretty simple ceremony in the Californian tech haven of Palo Alto. Simple or not, everybody knows that getting married is one of the most stressful things you can do. I’ve never floated a $US104 billion company, but I’d imagine that ranks pr...

10. Australia’s 25 top business blogs

While Facebook and Twitter might hog the social media headlines, the humble blog remains a much-loved communication tool for many Australian business people. Around the country, and throughout many different industries, there are thousands of Australian consultants, contractors and entrepreneurs running lively, informative and at times, very persona...

11. The 10 next social media trends

Social media still dominates headlines as the new direction for business marketing, but it seems many businesses are resisting the call. A recent survey by Optus found that only 28% of small businesses used social media to promote their business, while 56% had no near-term plans to start. It's an understandable response. Jus...

12. 30 hot entrepreneurs aged 30 and under

They are young, smart and come from industries as diverse as IT, fashion and agriculture. BRAD HOWARTH profiles 30 hot young entrepreneurs aged 30 years and under. By Brad Howarth    

13. Our top 10 online retailers

The battle for the title of Australia's top online retailer has come down to a fight between the two heavyweights of the local e-tail sector. Both sell discount goods, both are growing rapidly – and both claim they hold the top position. In SmartCompany's second annual list of the country's biggest online retailers, department store...

14. 10 must-haves for your marketing plan

As the list of ways to promote your business grows, working out the most effective way to spruik your business can be half the battle. That's why it's vital that small- and medium-sized businesses put a solid marketing strategy in place and make sure they don't deviate from the plan. Here are 10 things your plan mus...

15. Five top business ideas that made millions

According to Paul Graham, investor and founder of Y Combinator, the best way to get a winning business idea is to not think of any. Instead, you should be looking at which problems you can solve. “The very best start-up ideas tend to have three things in common: they’re something the founders themselves want, that they themselve...

16. Facebook wins the right to use facebook.com.au

Social networking site Facebook has successfully acquired the rights to its Australian domain name, facebook.com.au, after the World Intellectual Property Organisation stripped the address from another business.Marketing company Callverse has held the facebook.com.au address since 2007, but Facebook argued that because the group held no Australian or international trademark rights to the name, they had no basis for its ownership. Facebook pointed to its status as the sixth most ...

17. What are the benefits of a CRM system in your business?

First of all what does CRM stand for? CRM = Customer Relationship Management. The concept of CRM has been around for a long time. The original form of CRM was a manual card system kept by a sales person that usually sat on the sales person's desk or alongside them in the car. These client card sets were very valuable to the sales person as this is where they kept important customer information such customer contact details, key contacts in the company, a running commentary on thei...

18. Australia’s top web 2.0 entrepreneurs

The search for Australia’s best and brightest web 2.0 entrepreneurs reveals a tangled web of companies, individuals and technologies reports BRAD HOWARTH, tied together through an equally complex web of professional relationships and friendships. By Brad Howarth

19. The digital dozen – our next big things online

While Australia is yet to produce anything of the scale of Google, eBay and Amazon, there is always an interesting crop of up-and-comers threatening to burst on to the scene. We've compiled a list of 12 companies that demonstrate the spirit of innovation that exists among Australia's internet entrepreneurs, and which may go on to become the "next bi...

20. Advertising Standards Board decision opens potential legal

Businesses have been told to monitor comments left on their Facebook pages, following a decision by the Advertising Standards Board which found a brand's Facebook page was an advertisement. The decision was prompted by a complaint to the ASB – the advertising industry's self-regulatory body – about the official Smirnoff Vodka Facebook page....

21. The best of the best iPhone apps

It's almost impossible to think of a faster growing industry than the mobile application sector. In just 12 months the market has been transformed from virtually non-existent to a sector worth billions of dollars.   The undisputed leader of the sector is Apple. In the last 12 months, its App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch has recorde...

22. SmartCompany Smart50 Awards 2012

#headerwrap, #ja-mainnavwrap { display: none; } .award_top { margin-top: 0!important; } PROUDLY SPONSORED BY

23. 10 ways to make your website Google friendly: Tips from Goog

Making your business Google friendly so it gets picked up by Google’s search engines is “pretty easy actually”, according to Google’s chief technology advocate Michael Jones. Jones was previously chief technologist of Google Maps, Earth, and Local Search, the teams responsible for providing location intelligence an...

24. Woolworths’ social media success: Five lessons from the bi

Supermarket giant Woolworths is well known for its jingle “Woolworths the fresh food people”, but the line recently became the crux of a social media scandal. On Monday a social media storm erupted as consumers took to Facebook to express their outrage over a Woolworths’ billboard erected on the Warrego Highway near Ipswich which labelled donuts as ‘fresh food’. The complaints started when Facebook user and I...

25. How do I use social media to shamelessly market my business?

The wonderful world of the web these days (WEB2.0) enables us to touch base with our customers/potential customers in a soft way, build up trust, get creative with content, have the freedom to add and change information on our websites and blogs plus drive traffic to places we want it most - all for the cost of our own time. Social media is one of the most powerful ways to do this right now. Okay, so I'm always looking for quirky and powerful ways to market the business online (an...

26. The hottest gadgets for 2010

There's nothing better than a hot new gadget, and 2009 had plenty of them. A plethora of smartphones, laptops, netbooks and software have given technology fans enough to keep them satisfied over the past year. With new features and services released every month, it's becoming harder and harder to keep up with the industry's innovation.

27. The eight new rules of customer service

The Australian economy might have sailed through the recession relatively unscathed, but don't think that customers haven't been changed by the GFC. That's the message from international marketing guru Paul Bennett, the managing partner of global design consultancy IDEO, which organisations including Nokia, Intel, Bank...

28. A lifetime of business lessons from Stefan Kazakis

Name: Stefan Kazakis Company: Board of Directors 12 Location: Doncaster, Victoria Stefan Kazakis will be your coach, but not your friend (at least when it comes to business). ...

29. 2012's Hot 30 Under 30

They are young, smart and hungry for success. Meet SmartCompany's Hot 30 Under 30 class of 2012 – a group of entrepreneurs aged 30 years and younger, drawn from 30 of Australia's fastest-growing SMEs. These 30 young people are well on their way to becoming Australia’s next generation of top entrepreneurs.

30. The next 10 online trends

It’s never been harder to keep up with the latest web trends - with the expansion onto mobile platforms, the growth of social media and the need for start ups to be aware of new SEO techniques. As a result, we’ve assembled a team of web experts to help you and your business keep on top of the most important trends on the web. Constructing a mobile website, creating social media campaigns and selling online are just some of the challenges businesses will face during 2010.

31. The 10 digital commerce trends changing the retail sector

Endless technological advances are having a significant impact on Australian retailers. But this year could prove to be a tipping point for some. Here are the 10 key trends changing the market. 1. Retailers will stop pointing the finger For years now, even large department stores have publicly blamed weak financial results on eve...

32. RedBalloon rising

Naomi Simson is the founder and CEO of online gifting and experience company RedBalloon. She also happens to be one of SmartCompany's very well known bloggers. Naomi shares how RedBalloon is adjusting to the downturn, how she's saving time (and still hiring staff) being more productive, and...

33. Top social media campaigns & what you can learn from them

Social media is a great business tool, but how many companies are actually using it well? With so many SMEs and huge brands now using sites like Twitter and Facebook to promote themselves, simply creating a basic fan page isn't enough.Businesses need to be creating and designing social media marketing campaigns to connect...

34. Will Australia’s Groupon bubble burst?

You can call it the great Groupon gold rush. In just 12 short months, more than a dozen new group buying sites have been launched in Australia, all modelled on US group buying pioneer Groupon, which has annual revenue of about $US350 million and a valuation approaching $1 billion. In some cases, even the names s...

35. Social central

Bebo, one of the most popular social networking sites, has 40 million registered members. Founders Michael and Xochi Birch tolk to JACQUI WALKER about web trends and priorities for the future. By Jacqui Walker  

36. Advertising Standards Board tightens net on Facebook adverti

The Advertising Standards Board has found an advertisement on Shear Ewe Livestock Services' Facebook page which depicts a man shearing a woman is exploitative and degrading to women. The decision reinforces the ASB's finding last month that a Facebook page also serves as an advertisement for a business. ...

37. I've had enough and I want to sell my business. Help!

Dear Aunty B. I want to sell my online business. And badly. The business has been up just over a year. During that time, despite the 80-odd hours I've worked each week, it's grown at a snail's pace. At the moment I'm coming in at about $100 a month in income - if I'm lucky. This is despite the fact that (1) it is a better- developed online business than the competitors (2) it uses social media (both Facebook...

38. The 12 sales trends for 2011

It's been another challenging year for Australia's sales professionals. While most sectors have now weathered the storm of the GFC, markets remain tough, buyers remain reluctant to spend and sales people continue to be tested. And while economic conditions are expected to improve in the coming 12 months, 2011 looks set to throw up a new set ...

39. The rise of location-based marketing

Web-savvy businesses have been obsessed with making sure their website is at the top of Google search pages for ages but during the past two years a new platform has been added to the mix – location marketing. In addition to websites businesses are now using a variety of apps and portals to reach out to customers who are literally walking right past them.

40. Australia's new dot com boom – and why it’s different

It’s the sort of spending spree that’s bought back memories of the dot com boom. In the last six months, a host of local and overseas investors have poured more than $300 million into 18 of Australia’s leading web start-ups. But there is one very important difference between this spending binge and that which preceded the dotcom bust in 2000 – most of the companies a...

41. 2011's Hot 30 Under 30

Meet SmartCompany's Hot 30 Under 30 class of 2011 – a group of entrepreneurs aged up to 30 years, drawn from 30 of Australia's fastest-growing SMEs. While many of the entrepreneurs here have leveraged technology to grow their businesses, this group of business owners prove that IT isn't the only avenue to q...

42. 10 ways to prepare your website for Christmas

It's that time of the year again - with just 77 sleeps until Christmas, it's time for online retailers to start panicking about their key selling period. While normal bricks and mortar retailers have the luxury of shutting up shop every night, the internet is open 24/7 and online retailers know their shopfronts require constant att...

43. The 20 best iPad apps for entrepreneurs

Got a spare $100? That's all you need to transform your iPad from a cool tablet device into one of the most powerful business gadgets on the market – and one that will make you consider ditching the laptop forever. The iPad is a nice piece of hardware, but it's the apps that really unlock the power of the device. Here...

44. Study shows 75% of SMEs spend over 10% of marketing budget o

Australian companies are now fully embracing social media, according to a new report conducted by Nielsen, which found nearly three-quarters of businesses allocated 10% or more to their marketing budget for social media, but corporates have more presence than SMEs. The Nielsen-Community Engine 2011 Social Media Business Benchmarking Study comes just days after a separate report from KPMG found Australia's largest banks are taking up social media more than ever before. Peter Fraser...

45. How to connect to Generation Z

In March 2010, social researcher Mark McCrindle finished up a survey of 500 under-18 Australians. He asked participants to keep a media diary mapping all their entertainment activities for a week and discovered that they were spending an average of seven hours and six minutes using entertainment media everyday – that means time spent plugged into the in...

46. 55 Twitter tips

Like any medium that captures the public imagination, Twitter brings a myriad of opportunities to strengthen customer relationships and build brands and businesses. But not all tweets are equal - and because Twitter allows users to choose whether to listen, it also means they can just as easily choose not to. "If you'r...

47. ACCC says companies are responsible for dodgy testimonials p

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Graeme Samuel says companies will be held responsible if they do not delete or respond to false, misleading and deceptive testimonials on Facebook or Twitter. The comments follow the Federal Court’s decision to fine an allergy products company and its director $7500 for allowing false and misleading testimonials to be published on its commercial Facebook and Twitter pages. The company, Allergy Pathway, and director Paul ...

48. The 12 most influential people in Australian ICT

The information and communication technology industries underpin almost every facet of our working lives, and increasingly our personal lives too. For many of Australians, it is only when we sleep that we are not "connected" via a mobile phone, PC, notebook or tablet. But who wields power in this increasingly importa...

49. Businesses warned to register Facebook profiles before someo

Businesses should register Facebook profile page names before another company or individual registers the same name in a method known as ‘cyber-squatting', social media experts warn. The warnings come after the social networking giant last week allowed users to pick individual profile names; a feature already seen on rival sites such as Twitter and MySpace. Over three million Facebook users have registered individual profile names, with 500,000 registered in the first 15 minute...

50. Businesses must develop mobile websites to keep up with smar

Businesses must develop mobile websites to accommodate for the huge number of smartphone owners using their devices to access the internet, a new Nielsen report suggests. The firm's new survey, which measures the amount of engagement smartphone owners have with their gadgets, indicates that 43% of all mobile phone owners are able to access the internet with their handsets, with about 29% of those now actively using the internet via their phones. Additionally, smartphone users ar...