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Stories by Angela West

  • Why your business still needs newsletters

    Marketing gurus pushed email newsletters hard back in the days before social networking. If you believe everything you read online these days, you'd think that Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other Web 2.0 services have left such vehicles in the virtual dust. Not so. Nor has the scourge of spam destroyed newsletters' effectiveness. Email marketing still achieves huge results--and pairing an effective email newsletter with a social media campaign can snag many more customers for your business than relying on social media alone.

  • PayPal payments keeps shoppers on your website

    PayPal's major drawback for small businesses has been that customers need to leave the website they're shopping on to process a payment. Starting today, however, the new PayPal Payments system will let you keep customers on your website while they're completing a purchase.

  • Groupon Offers Free Scheduler for Small Businesses

    Managing appointments, cancellations, and no-shows can be tough for a very small business to manage. Groupon is offering a free scheduling tool that you can easily add to your website. Groupon Scheduler has been running for a few months as a perk for merchants running a Groupon deal, and it's now available to any small business in the United States and Canada excluding Quebec.

  • Skype launches GroupMe for Windows Phones

    Skype this week launched the GroupMe app for Windows Phone, following its August acquisition of the tool that enables free, real-time group texting. GroupMe lets you communicate instantly with up to 25 colleagues using chat, photos, and location sharing.

  • Monitor your office from your smartphone or tablet

    If you have an office or a retail store, you may also have a security system that to alert you and the police in case of a break-in--or a <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/242578/how_to_set_up_a_wireless_network_webcam.html">webcam set up to monitor</a> your business in your absence. But the capabilities of security systems go much further than they did even a few years ago, letting you monitor your business from a smartphone or tablet.

  • More businesses will choose Mac over Windows: Report

    While Windows-based PCs are expected to continue dominating the workplace through 2013, Apple products will "storm the corporate hardware market", according to Forrester Research. And the push will largely come from the bottom up rather than top-down, eroding market share from Windows PCs.

  • Eight easy ways to green your business

    Greening your business has short-term effects that will save you money, let employees breathe better, and maybe even help land you a few more customers. These tips, sites, and kits can help your business go green for 2012.

  • Five tips for your 2012 social media strategy

    Whether you run a business employing one person or work for a corporation of 250,000, you’ll need a social media strategy for 2012. As more people embrace <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/241628/how_to_put_your_company_on_facebook_linkedin_and_twitter.html">Twitter, Facebook, Google+</a>, and other networks, it’s time to make social media an integral part of your marketing strategy.

  • Twitter Redesign Could Knock Out Third-Party Apps

    Twitter announced an update to its mobile client last week that may render third-party, multi-account Twitter clients obsolete. Third-party Twitter mobile apps have always been a few steps ahead of Twitter when it came to ease of use and features, but that will no longer be the case.

  • Comparison: Twitter, Facebook, Google+: Which business page is best?

    In the past two months alone, Twitter and Google+ have added company pages, following in Facebook's footsteps. The usefulness of each service depends on your company's needs, but to help you prioritize your efforts, here's what each has social network has to offer companies looking to engage with the public.

  • How PayPal almost cancelled Christmas

    Internet darling, Regretsy, is a site and community built around poking fun at strange and weird offerings on the handmade goods site Etsy. Regretsy is also known for its charitable funding efforts, which have helped Etsy sellers in need and charities to the tune of over $100,000 since 2009.

  • Nine Kindle Fire apps for getting work done

    The consensus of <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/240801/amazon_kindle_fire_first_impressions_solid_but_limited.html">most reviewers of the Kindle Fire</a> is that it's useful as a media consumption device, but not as an erstwhile laptop replacement like the iPad. While that may be the case, the Kindle Fire <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/240867/will_the_kindle_fire_spark_business_interest.html">is cheaper than its Apple counterpart</a>, and it still supports a wide range of productivity apps--especially when you take into account that you <a href="http://mashable.com/2011/11/14/kindle-fire-runs-nook-app/">can sideload any Android</a> application that you want.

  • Why Facebook is better for business than Google+

    Google revealed its Google+ Pages for business this week. While they are a must for any business playing in the online space, however, they still leave a lot to be desired when stacked up against arch-nemesis Facebook Pages. We are only seeing the first stages of Google+ and the network may develop over time into something more useful for business, but for now the service doesn't even come close to the services that Facebook offers business.

  • GUIDE: How to create a Google+ profile for your business

    Google+ has finally opened up business profiles to its Google Apps for Business users, presumably in an effort to roll out any kinks before throwing their doors open to the world. Being first at bat can have intangible benefits on the Internet, including a valuable backlink to your company website from your Google+ profile. Here's how to join this limited group of users and make the most of your Google+ profile before everyone else.

  • Google's latest buys can boost its sites for business

    Google has spent more than $1.4 billion on online properties and businesses in the last nine months. The Web has been buzzing about its purchase of the Zagat restaurant review brand, but the true goldmine for small businesses is with the new Google Offers.