5 Minutes With... Anita Campbell

While no one has a crystal ball that can tell you what will happen with your business in 2009, we can look to experts to identify trends. Anita Campbell is the CEO of Small Business Trends, LLC, the media company that produces Small Business Trends (smallbusinesstrends.com) and the Small Business Trends newsletter (of which she is editor-in-chief) and Small Business Trends internet radio show (of which she is host). In 2005 and again in 2008 the website won the Forbes “Best of the Web” distinction for small business blogs. Campbell spoke with managing editor Daria Meoli about trends that small businesses need to know about in 2009.

Daria Meoli: What business technology trends do you see becoming more important to small business this year?

Anita Campbell: The whole idea of software as a service is taking hold. It’s really leapfrogged from last year and I expect it to be very significant and increase in popularity as we go forward in 2009.

DM: Why is it becoming so significant?

AC: Price is one reason. You don’t have to pay several hundred or potentially several thousand dollars up front for a software license. Software-as-service can be set up as a monthly fee or even an annual fee. Your payments are spread out over time, letting you manage your cash better. Another thing that is particularly important for a small business that does not have an IT staff internally is that there is no need to install software on a server or on individual computers. The software is simply accessed using a browser over the Internet and you don’t have to worry about updates or patches. If your business uses a lot of different software packages, it can get pretty expensive if you have to call your outside IT consultant every time a software issue needs to be addressed.

DM: You’ve written about Twitter as an emerging trend. Why has Twitter caught on?

AC: I’m amazed at how fast the uptake has been by small businesses and those interested in small business. For example, I don’t think blogging was taken up that quickly. Twitter use has accelerated in the last six months—everybody’s talking about it, everybody wants to get on it, or already is on it. That’s been a surprise to me. One of the reasons it’s caught on is that it’s a way to reach out on a crowded web. It’s getting increasingly more difficult and more complex to be found and get attention online. For example, it’s now harder to use Google AdWords to get traffic without losing your shirt. Twitter has been seen as an easy and inexpensive way to find people, have your message be heard, and drive traffic to your website or blog. It’s a way to get news out about a special offer or an event. The only thing Twitter will cost you is your time. It’s got a lot of business utility in addition to the social utility.

DM: So, is there a qualified audience there? Who really uses Twitter?

AC: There are consumers and owners of small and larger businesses who are Twittering. I don’t think anybody has any real hard data as to who’s on Twitter, but I would say it’s still leading-edge people and early adopters. But, the interesting thing is that people are bypassing things like blogs and even Facebook and jumping to Twitter because it’s so fast and easy. Users only have 140 characters, so when you put something out there, there’s not a lot of complexity to it. You don’t have the big commitment of time that you have with blogs.

Increasingly, the people you wouldn’t expect to be on Twitter are gravitating toward it. You have access to government officials—I just connected with former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell on Twitter—and public figures. You can connect with actors, singers, and sports figures in a way you would never have hoped for before, and they actually respond. With small businesses, it’s a way of reaching out and making a personal connection with people in a way that you might normally be unable to because you don’t have the money or the time required by other methods.