Week In Review: Small Business Saturday, Twitter Experiments and More

It’s time again for our week in review. Here are the top stories important to your small business this week from the Small Business Trends editorial team.

Holidays

Small suppliers benefit from turkey shortage. Butterball, one of the nation’s largest producers, was short of big fresh birds this year. Not to worry though. Small farmers came to the rescue…and are smiling ear to ear.

Parking free in 42 communities on Small Business Saturday. Free parking is intended to further encourage customers to shop at local small businesses. Check out the post for a full list of participating communities.

Social Media

Twitter experimented briefly with new messaging program. For about a month, Twitter gave users the option of letting followers direct message them — even if they weren’t following them back at the time. It doesn’t seem the feature has made the cut.

LinkedIn rolls out Showcase Pages. They could be helpful if you happen to have a few niche products or services and need to target slightly different audiences with each. Here’s a basic overview.

Business Basics

Square eliminates flat rates. It’s a big blow to small businesses that use the pocket-sized credit card reader to avoid fees on a major credit card merchant account. The flat fee has been a major incentive for many small businesses to try the service.

Italy’s oldest family business seeks foreign customers. For centuries, the Pontifical Marinelli Foundry has served mainly one large local client, the Vatican. But tough economic times have forced this local bell maker to look at increasing exports.

Tech

Acer introduces two ultrabooks. These devices are new to the U.S. market and are aimed directly at business users. They have plenty of featured but don’t expect a bargain price.

Policy

Raising the minimum wage. The Affordable Care Act raised many concerns — now seemingly confirmed — in the small business community. But another policy on the horizon may be easily as dangerous. And that danger may not be only to the businesses themselves. Scott Shane has more.

Another Obamacare website delay. Yes, there’s another delay related to the Obamacare website. And this one affects small business with 50 employees or less. Small Business Trends CEO Anita Campbell has more.

Reading Photo via Shutterstock

The post Week In Review: Small Business Saturday, Twitter Experiments and More appeared first on Small Business Trends.

via Make Your Own Website Tools Tips Tricks http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SmallBusinessTrends/~3/cEVTENs4xgY/week-review-small-business-saturday-twitter-experiments.html Best WordPress Hosting