NEW MEDIA MATTERS: Small-business tips for 2016

Approaching 2016, here are three marketing ideas small businesses should embrace starting today:

1. Online marketing tools have been in existence for decades, and they can truly impact your company's bottom line. Collaborative project boards improve efficiency, proactivity, communication, efficiency, customer service and accuracy. Reap rewards using a new service like Dapulse (www.dapulse.com) that works like a souped-up spreadsheet. Customize with categories to best serve customers or clients or to roll out a new business. Also, look into proven management solutions like FreshDesk (www.freshdesk.com); FunctionFox (www.functionfox.com); or SmartSheet (www.smartsheet.com).

Caught in a fast food drive-through line? Held captive in the doc's waiting room? Hopefully you've downloaded Goggle's new Primer app on your smartphone, providing savvy marketing advice in a 5 to 10-second read. It's akin to a speedy boot camp for overwhelmed business owners on-the-go.

2. The idea of branding is passe. The term "branding" will continue to be misunderstood and overused in the online marketing vernacular. Let's be honest. Unlike many online marketing efforts, branding isn't scalable; a lot of branding ideas simply evolve. Branding can't easily be measured either. It's merely a term used loosely to designate a particular brand name and its associations (colors, graphics, text tone, culture, etc). For instance, what comes to mind with Paula Deen brand (comfort food, Southern, baby boomer, restaurant, racist scandal, charm, cooking, smile, drawl, Old South, weight loss, hunky sons, butter, diabetes)? All these ideas plus hundreds of other impressions constitute the Paula Deen brand (like it or not). So let's scrap that tired and increasingly trite idea of branding your small business. Know that unless you have millions of dollars to spend, or a product as innovative as "Star Wars," or at least 10 years to build and communicate unique concepts that can truly differentiate your company, you aren't going to be branding anything outside a tattoo parlor. You will be promoting and marketing yourself.

3. Blogging and vlogging -- or video blogging -- will continue to rise in importance. We have read and heard all the excuses for not blogging, or worse, for relegating this all-important marketing task to an intern. By controlling content and playing by the rules that will draw an eager audience into your blog or vlog, you can position yourself among the biggest and the best, even if your company staff is only a two-person show. This applies to nonprofits organization, too. What do I mean by blogging correctly? It's all about content management and being well-versed in that root skill. You begin by typing "content management" into your search box. It has never been easier to learn online, yet sometimes we overlook the obvious.

Paige Henson is a local writer and a new media consultant for businesses and non-profits. Her email address is paigechenson@gmail.com.

This story was originally published December 15, 2015 at 10:27 PM with the headline "NEW MEDIA MATTERS: Small-business tips for 2016 ."