What are people's take on boutique agencies specializing in social media marketing? Social media marketing is becoming a must for getting the word out about your business, but to the points mentioned above, it's often difficult to manage and where do you find the time? I'm sorta on the fence on this, I see the value those boutique's bring, yet I can do it all for free on my own...curious to know what others think?

I've actually found that freelance Web developers tend to be the most affordable and effective way to get things built on the Web. The tricky part when dealing with freelancers is that it's difficult to find quality, top notch workers. Where do you start? Most people think Craigslist, or ask a friend, but there is no good answer for how to find quality freelancers, although, they are out there.

I have some background in Web development, so I have a baseline understanding of what to look for when looking for freelance developers, and where to find them. If you are looking for affordable Web development, a good freelancer is the way to go. They are typically easier to work with, as they are independent business owners themselves, so they are willing to negotiate. They need your work to survive, so they will do what it takes to get the job done. The difficult part about working with freelancers is finding the good ones...

As a PM for an Internet company a couple of years ago, I have experienced more problems dealing with expensive development shops than I have had problems dealing with independent freelancers. This may be completely opposite of what others have experienced, but at the startup, we simply didn't have the cash to spend on dev shops, so we turned to freelance.

There are good resources out there for finding good freelance work, http://www.readydone.com is a company started by a couple of freelance buddies of mine. It's an online community of freelance web developers, designers, and business professionals. Basically, they are the Craigslist of freelance web developers.

Point taken, well said Ken! Regarding the "low hanging fruit" - your current clients, and established relationships - how often is too often to be asking the same people? I understand it's an art, not a science, but do you have any general guidelines as to frequency and persistence of going after the low hanging fruit?

I have no hesitation for asking, only concerns for asking too often and damaging an existing relationship.

Jennifer, thanks for writing this article. With the new year coming up, and with everything else going on in our world today, it's always great to get excellent coaching to remind us of the things that really matter.

Great article Phil! My question is regarding the follow up: how often do you meet with your referral network professionals that you have gotten through this system? Is it a regularly scheduled monthly meeting? This seems like a great system to build relationships, but once the connection is made and relationship established, I'm wondering if you have a system for that as well.

Thanks for the invite Howard, unfortunately, I will not be able to attend this event.

I used to work for a startup that focused on sports highlights for amateur sports, and YouTube lended itself nicely to this market. I agree with Karen, it depends on the industry you are in. The videos that get the most views on YouTube are typically the funny videos, the amazing clips you have to see, music videos, sports clips, and overall, things you would send your friend to check out. For businesses, I feel this means to successfully use YouTube for advertising, you need to create a video that will succeed in YouTube, and not just an infomercial, it needs to be something that creates a buzz.

We used YouTube successfully to create a buzz marketing campaign. We created a series of videos over the course of a couple of months, and released them systematically. We generated enough "buzz" and views to the point when we were actually featured on the front of the "sports" section of YouTube videos. That's when we saw a huge spike in views and traffic on our website.

I used to work for a startup that focused on sports highlights for amateur sports, and YouTube lended itself nicely to this market. I agree with Karen, it depends on the industry you are in. The videos that get the most views on YouTube are typically the funny videos, the amazing clips you have to see, music videos, sports clips, and overall, things you would send your friend to check out. For businesses, I feel this means to successfully use YouTube for advertising, you need to create a video that will succeed in YouTube, and not just an infomercial, it needs to be something that creates a buzz.

We used YouTube successfully to create a buzz marketing campaign. We created a series of videos over the course of a couple of months, and released them systematically. We generated enough "buzz" and views to the point when we were actually featured on the front of the "sports" section of YouTube videos. That's when we saw a huge spike in views and traffic on our website.

When I'm thinking of describing something new to somebody who has not heard of it before, I tend to relate it to something known. For Biznik, the 800lb gorilla is LinkedIn, when you think of online business networking, you think LinkedIn (unless you are apart of the Biznik community!).

Biznik is not LinkedIn, to me, Biznik is more "real", meaning it's more than just an online connection and a profile, it's a way to blend online activities with real life. When I talk to people that are on LinkedIn, the overwhelming majority respond "I have an account but I don't use it", or something like that. Biznik users, on the other hand, use it far more often.

I think a lot of what Biznik is has to do with the actual community itself. They are all "solopreneurs" or "self-employed", so they are using Biznik as a tool as opposed to just having a profile and connections.

So back to the original question, how would I describe what is going on here? Well, it's a better LinkedIn, and the community uses it to enhance their business...it's difficult to break it down to a phrase, and I'm terrible at this, but here's my attempt: "enhancing(ed) business networking". Just some food for thought...

disclaimer: I have used LinkedIn and have found it useful to some degree; it has it's place. I just like Biznik a lot better and have found IT to be much more beneficial to my buisness.

Great idea for an event! Unfortunately, I have prior commitments and can't make this fun event. Talk about a great excuse to hit the links! I look forward to the next one...

Great overview Josh. One thing I would include as an additional bullet point is knowing and defining the population that you are going to be sampling for your data. This ties directly with the purpose of the study - who you are sampling is just as important as what you are asking.

Thanks for the invite Christi, I look forward to meeting you all.

Something came up and I won't be able to make it, I look forward to more events in Bellevue.

Attending this event has helped me understand how to fully utilize the tools offered on Biznik. Thanks for putting on this workshop, I can't wait to really start Bizniking!