There’s a surprise contender in the social media portion of our blog building scheme. It’s a site you may have scoffed at before. I admit to having done so myself. It’s Twitter: the site that has users create an account and then post – in 140 characters or less – the minutia of what they’re doing at that very instant.

Why do I think it has value? Well, first it makes it easy to define your audience. Other social media sites that we’ve used (Small Business Brief, I’m looking at you), feel like pushing content out into a void. Who reads it? I don’t know. Probably no one, unless you’re an entrenched user of the site and are adept at creating posts that appeal to that specific audience. (I was going to give an example of an absurdly titled post on Small Business Brief that nonetheless ranks highly, but will defer to better judgment. Suffice it to say, that most businesses don’t have the time it takes to create the site-specific presence necessary to get folks to read anything they post, no matter how absurdly titled.)

Twitter is much more personal at the outset than other social media sites. You can follow individuals, which puts their posts in your Twitter inbox. When you request to follow a person, they get notification that you’re doing so and may follow you in return. There’s a connection. Who are the leaders in your industry? Are they on Twitter? In certain industries I’d bet they are. Reach out to them, follow them, make a connection with them.

Because the things you post to Twitter are smaller and – by definition – very specific to what you’re doing, it’s easy (almost addictive) to become invested in the site. Plus, it’s fun.

Who knows if Twitter will actually work for us in our blog building mission? We’ll start off cautiously, trying to get the lay of the land. Because the site is so personal in nature, I don’t want to hard sell anything. But I’m optimistic about it. Want to join us? Follow us at http://twitter.com/jjhill_library.   

(Note: Also, Twitter can be less professional. For example, see our tweet about Hill blogger Allen, and his baby born Tuesday!)

This monthly newsletter looks at what’s new in libraries, business, and technology by highlighting relevant reports, articles, and blog entries. It saves you time by bringing to light issues affecting these industries today and issues that may affect them tomorrow.

In the June 2008 issue, the Encyclopedia Britannica bends to the wiki model, the Associated Press smacks down bloggers with (overzealous?) copyright restrictions, and an international agreement changes the makeup of URLs in a major way. Also, remember when Twitter died last month? You can relax and stop worrying. FriendFeed is here to replace it.

While the Internet may be a great democratizing force, that doesn’t mean everyone uses it in the same way. In fact, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that Web surfing techniques and preferences vary widely country to country.

The Norton Online Living Report provides country profiles detailing how people across the world tend to use the Internet, the frequency that they go online, and their privacy concerns while there. These profiles paint a broad picture of Internet use across geographic and cultural boundaries.

For more broad pictures painted by this study, scroll down on the site to find Internet use reports by audience (male, female, parent), topline data sheets, and more.

There’s much discussion these days regarding the aging of the baby boom generation and the effect their maturing will have on the marketplace. This attention is such that even businesses who haven’t thought about focusing effort on this group of people may now be considering it. If you’re moving into this space, differentiating yourself from the legions of other businesses doing the same is a must. One way to do so is by “knowing” this group of consumers as well as you can before you start to reach out to them. 

We’ll get there, but first some background: The Census Bureau defines baby boomers as folks born between 1946 and 1964. The term “baby boomer” is – like “gen y” or “millennial” – a marketing term, coined by our friends at Yankelovitch. As such, no one actually thinks that everyone under this heading conforms to some sort of blanket set of characteristics or traits. Instead, using a heading like this one is a more or less effective way of articulating a target audience and making some general assumptions about that audience based on research. Individuals will vary within this demographic, of course, but by looking at research sources covering this age group, we can start to see some general characteristics and consumer preferences emerge. And you can start to feel confident about investing time and money in reaching out to them knowledgeably.

Today we’ll walk through three steps to researching the baby boom generation. First, we’ll look at this population in a particular place and recommend tools to analyze generational trends locally. Second, we’ll investigate purchasing habits and time use of boomers regardless of location. And lastly we’ll take a look at some specific consumer issues affecting this age group.

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While it admittedly feels a little odd to write up a blog post that doesn’t include a single link, we’ve recently added a subscription database here at the library that is unique to the area, and valuable enough to highlight as a token for those of you around Minneapolis – St. Paul who would be able to visit the library in person.

The Chain Store Guides --- in-depth directories of retail and foodservice industries --- have long been staples of our print collection, and are valued for the accuracy and currency of the information about the profiled companies, as well as the level of detail they include. Now, the content of these print directories is available in electronic format, allowing greater search functionality and easy downloading.

Directories that can be accessed in the database include:

Single Unit Supermarket Operators
Discount Stores and Specialty Retailers
Supermarket, Grocery & Convenience Stores
Home Center Operators & Hardware Chains
Apparel Specialty Stores
Chain Restaurant Operators
Leading Chain Tenants
Drug Store and HBC Chains
Home Furnishings Retailers
Foodservice Distributors
High Volume Independent Restaurants
Department Stores

The Chain Store Guides will give you the nitty-gritty information generally found in directories (contact information, sales, employees, etc.), but they go farther to provide many additional specific nuggets, depending on industry: company units, projected store openings or remodelings, product lines, sales space in square feet, menu information, point-of-sale software used, average check, and more.

Personnel listings in the database will include the standard owners, presidents, C-level executives, etc., but also often include names of those responsible for buying decisions, and other titles not often found in other directories. And having this resource available electronically means you can view complete profiles in PDF, or download abbreviated records into Excel.

To learn more about Chain Store Guides (and to allow me to include a link after all), click here. And visit the library to access this resource electronically.

I don’t know if anyone has told you this today, but your company is lucky to have you. You bring a unique set of skills to the work you do, you’re invested in the success of your employer, and - let’s face it - you spend a good deal of your time within their four walls. So of course you should be compensated. And fairly, at that.

But when you’re relaying all of this to your boss it can be useful to have some solid evidence to back up your demands. That’s where salary surveys come in. Salary surveys look at actual compensation in an industry and attempt to provide an average pay range for particular types of job. Numerous variables play into this calculation, so consider your geographic location, urban vs. rural setting, and organization size – but these surveys can give you the data you need to ensure that what you give to the company you work for is repaid accurately.

Oh, and bosses: your employees are lucky to have you, too. Especially if you use sources like these when creating new positions or when adjusting existing position salaries to the going rate. 

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Check out the Hill Library’s new Web site! In addition to bringing us a bit closer to the 21st Century design-wise, the site offers easy links to online training classes put on by librarians Deborah, Allen, and Matt; a listing of all of our online research tools; some of our library initiatives; and a bit more about the resources we have for folks visiting us here at the library. Drop on by, stay for a while, and let us know what you think. Thanks to IT and the redesign team for their great work!

Say you’re interested in finding recent blog posts on a particular topic or in a niche industry. Or you want to track the use of a term in blogs over time. Forget about Google. Remember Trendpedia.

Trendpedia searches across recent postings in an attempt to shed light on what bloggers are talking about at a distinct moment in time. Today, for example. Or yesterday. Run a search on a term and find a chart tracking that term’s use over time, complete with links to the actual blog posts themselves. You can also compare multiple terms (e.g. mobile vs. email marketing) and email results.

The site is European, which becomes evident from the date structure (June 24 = "24-06"), but the coverage is universal. Use Trendpedia to keep close tabs on the blogosphere.

One of the more common --- and more challenging --- questions entrepreneurs ask us about is startup costs: what resources exist to get an idea of the initial investment required to get my business off and running?

First it needs to be said that finding average startup costs for specific types of businesses is pretty difficult and usually involves some good-faith best guesses. Why? Well, so many factors are involved --- location, local economic conditions, current industry trends, experience of the business owner (are clients already lined up, is the necessary equipment already available), ambitions/scope of the business, cost of inventory/supplies, type of business, and so on --- that even if an average cost were readily available, it may not be all that meaningful for the circumstances of the specific entrepreneur posing the question.

In the end, the people most likely to have the most useful and accurate numbers --- your already-established direct competitors --- may be less than willing to help you out. So where else can you look?

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Gary Price, of our favorite Web site ResourceShelf, was recently awarded the SLA President’s Citation. This award was granted by the Special Libraries Association to Mr. Price for “raising the visibility of librarians.” Keep up the good work, Gary! I wonder if Shirl Kennedy will throw him a party?