This Week in Small Business: The only thing certain is change…and social media marketing!

news you can use

Change is a major topic this week: changing your habits, changing your reactions and getting the older generation to change are two of the topics you’ll find among the curated contented presented here. We also cover branding, blogging and podcasting.

Leadership, management and productivity

Small business succession planning adds a major wrinkle to estate planning. Since August is Make-a-Will month, it’s the perfect time to look at the options you have for handling your small business.

Setbacks happen. (What’s that bumper sticker?) It’s all about how you react to them. Don’t react in these ways.

We are creatures of habit. However, if you have any of the four habits here, you may be dooming your small business.

If your small-business loan application was recently rejected by a bank, you’re not alone. The approval rate of small-business loans at big banks was just 22.4 percent as of July 2015. Find out why applications get rejected. And while we’re on the subject, if you need a loan to cover an emergency, here’s the info to get you going.

The Leadership Freak talks about how to convince the older generation to change. I’ll read it as soon as I yell at those kids to get off my lawn!

Marketing and sales

Personal branding is a major component of marketing today. In this YouTube video, I discuss how to build a personal brand with Evan Carmichael.

Do you know when a blog is the right form of content marketing for your small business? Read this and you will.

Blogs and even more so podcasts are the thing today. Here’s how to use big data to find sponsors for yours.

If you use images in your social media marketing (and you should) you’ll want to print out this cheat sheet that gives you the ideal sizes to use.

Entrepreneurship, startups and innovation

Ben Horowitz, one of the most successful VCs in the United States, has some powerful advice, including (surprisingly) not to follow your passion…

Geoff Woods outlines how to make the jump from employee to entrepreneur in five steps…six if your count reading this article.