Verizon Business Markets Blog

Guest post by Olivia Trusty, director, public policy for Verizon.

Last week, in celebration of the 50^th Annual National Small Business Week, the U.S. Small Business Administration hosted an event at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, DC spotlighting the significant contributions that entrepreneurs and small business owners make to our economy each year.

In keeping with the tradition of past presidents since 1963, President Obama issued the following proclamation announcing National Small Business Week and commending small businesses for their work and important impact on our economy: http://www.sba.gov/nsbw/about.

The two-day event in Washington, DC featured lively plenary sessions dedicated to addressing how entrepreneurs and small business owners can sustain the development, growth, and long-term success of small business in an era of global economic competition, social media, the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and limited financing resources.  There were also a few sessions that touched on issues that have become increasingly important to small business as production activity and operations migrate to technology-based services, such as cyber security, supplier diversity, and intellectual property.

As a sponsor of this event, Verizon Wireless was on hand to showcase its products and services specifically designed to enable small business to continue to grow, drive innovation and investment, create jobs, and remain competitive in the global economy in the 21^st century.  Verizon recognizes the critical role that small business plays as an engine of job creation and strong economic growth and is committed to and engaged in developing solutions that facilitate their activity and improve their bottom line.  To review some of the free resources we offer small businesses download this one-pager: http://vz.to/14m0t1u.

Last month we celebrated small business in the Philadelphia area check out this video that provides a recap of our activities:

I had a wonderful experience yesterday at the events taking place in Washington D.C. during National Small Business Week.  The Social Media Forum: Get Your Business Connected offered great tips to the many small – and medium-sized businesses in the audience.  I even learned about a few businesses using very creative and low-cost tactics to market their business and creating that buzz -- that everyone wants -- online.  Bottom-line, you have to have great content.  I (@VZSmallBiz) tweeted insights during the forum as did many just search in Twitter for #sbw2011 to read all about it.

My colleague, Terrie Howard, Verizon’s small business marketing manager, and I met the very lovely Rieva Lesonsky, president and founder of GrowBiz Media, a content and consulting company specializing in covering small businesses and entrepreneurship.  Rieva was also one of the speakers at the Social Media Forum.  Terrie and I asked Rieva to share some highlights from the forum – see the video below.  I won’t say, ‘I told you so,’ but do consider reading this previous post if your business still does not have a website.

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