SBO can create a stand alone web page of their own called 'braggits' and share it instantly with other business owners and their social networks. This helps building them a business network where new ideas born and the businesses help each other reach new customers.
BizBrag is a great platform to give your business a strong stand and to build a healthy network across social accounts. We have one of the team members of BizBrag with us to helps us understand this awesome start-up. Catch Hunter Sherman's interview below with a video clearly explaining BizBrag's concept:
Hunter, let's start with a brief introduction of yours.
My name is Hunter Sherman and I'm the chief engineer at BizBrag Inc. I have degrees in Business and Computer Science, and my background is in web development for small businesses, primarily real estate.
Enlighten us with BizBrag's concept. What is it all about?
The idea driving BizBrag is that small businesses can collaborate to reach much larger audiences than could be possible if they went it alone. Large companies have marketing budgets that small businesses just can't compete with, so we try to give them a competitive advantage.
On BizBrag, companies create stand alone web pages called 'Braggits' that contain their news, deals, videos, or anything they want to get out on the web. Braggits are search engine friendly, and are extremely easy to share to social networks. All our users have to do is type what they want their Braggits to say, pick where they want it to go (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Wordpress, Blogger, Tumblr, E-mail Contacts, and their BragForce), and send the Braggit on it's way. We do the rest. The thing that really makes Braggits so powerful is the BragForce.
The BragForce is a social marketing network, where collaborative businesses share each other's Braggits to reach more customers. It's a win win, because the business creating the news has a much higher reach than they could achieve on their own, and the business receiving the Braggit has local, relevant content created for their social pages with no effort on their part. We put together a video to explain how the BragForce works:
How did you come up with BizBrag? Do you have a story to share?
Our founder, Brian Smith, has spent his career as a small business owner. He realized early on that social marketing was going to change the way that small businesses market themselves, and that there really wasn't an easy solution out there. Knowing my background with small businesses, Brian reached out to me to help build a new platform that solved these problems.
Honestly, a lot of our ideas come from our community. We have a fantastic core of businesses that have been with us since we were a simple blogging platform, and they never run short of ideas. We spend a lot of our time implementing features and usability improvements that they have brought to our attention, because at the end of the day it's all about what they need.
If you're to list BizBrag's three top features/advantages, what'd they be?
- The BragForce - There really isn't anything like it out there. Businesses are now able to connect with other like minded business owners and grow their social reach exponentially.
- The Braggit Itself - For Being something so simple, the Braggit is extremely versatile. It can be a daily deal, a hot Youtube video, or a simple update. Our community is finding new uses for the Braggit every day. All we have to do is make sure that search engines find them, and that they're easy to share!
- Tracking And Feedback - Getting your business out there is the first step, but you also want some feedback to know if what you're doing is working. We have built in analytics that monitor page-views for Braggits, traffic sources, keywords used, and more. We have also built a feature called the BragBack that allows users to send any customer an e-mail that asks them to review the business. These reviews can then be used to create Braggits, or be added to the user's BizBrag profile. Using these tools our users can track their progress, and receive feedback from their customers.
Share with us your pre-launch experience. What was the major difficulty you had to face?
Pre-launch was a lot of coffee and cold pizza! The hardest part was finding a way to make our technology easy enough to use that a busy small business owner could quickly cover their social marketing, and then get right back to managing their business. We completely scrapped and redesigned our dashboard four times before we were confident that we had reached that goal.
Now that BizBrag is up and running, what is the biggest challenge for you?
In my opinion, our biggest challenge is not having enough time to build in everything we would like to see. We have a very bright team, and combined with the ideas that come from our community there just aren't enough hours in the day to build everything we want. We spend a lot of time prioritizing, and making sure that we don't lose track of our core competencies.
Share your fondest memory with 'BizBrag'.
This is a very hard question to answer. I'm lucky enough to work with a great team, doing work I love, and we have a lot of fun every day. Two very memorable moments would be our 1000th signup, and when one of our users; DUCTZ of North Carolina and the Grand Strand (http://www.bizbrag.com/bizfolio/ductz-of-eastern-nc-and-the-grand-strand) landed two large jobs for over $15,000 from a Braggit found on Google, which was our first big success story.
What are your dreams/vision for 'BizBrag' as a whole?
Our ultimate goal is to empower small business owners to reach and retain more customers through collaboration with other businesses. We would like to become the platform small businesses go to for all of their social marketing needs. We firmly believe that businesses are strongest when working together, and we would like to see that concept change the way that they market themselves.
One big project that we've been working on is BizBrag for franchises and enterprise companies. Franchisees have the same troubles with social marketing that independent business owners have, but they are also required to use the Franchisor's materials. We solve this problem by connecting franchisees to the franchisor's BragForce, allowing them to have content created for their social networks. The same is true of retailers and manufacturers. We hope to be a solution for all small business owners. To this end, we've been working on several strategic partnerships that will allow us to reach these businesses.
Since you've recently started up, one can look up to you for the best advice. What would you like to advise an aspiring SBO?
The best advice I can give would be to really get involved with your community and customers. Everyone has their own ideas of what their product or service should offer, but I have learned so much from our community about what business owners really want and need, and BizBrag has changed substantially because of it. Especially with tech businesses, once you are in production it is easy to get very focused on what you are offering. Don't forget to listen to the end user!
And a final word for our readers?
If you think your business could benefit from our platform, please give us a try. We offer a 30 day free trial with no CC required. If you want to stay after the trial, use the code E-JUNKIE to get 10$ off your first paid month! Best of luck to everyone, and thank you for the interview.
Hunter, thank you for this extensive interview with us. Wish you all the success!
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Thank you for the interview!