by Jennifer Laycock

A round up of what Jennifer read and found interesting today on the web. From new data on offline conversion rates to social media via newspapers, check out four posts Jen thought you need to read.

• Geoff Livingston points to a new report from e-Marketer that continues to show online traffic pushing offline sales. According to the report, the web influences $3.45 of store sales for every $1 in online sales. Further proof of the need for brick and mortar stores to mix online and offline promotions to increase overall sales.



• If you serve a local market instead of a national market with your small business, you need to check out Matt McGee's post on the trend of newspapers building out social communities on their web sites. Matt's post focuses on a new online community in San Diego, but offers up some great advice for small businesses serving local markets all over the country.



• While I'm still not sold on Plurk, Mack Collier makes some good points on why Plurk may beat out Friendfeed as a potential Twitter-killer in his post today over at Marketing Profs Daily Fix. Of course apart from the steep learning curve, Plurk is still populated mostly by ultra-techy early adopters and marketers. That means there's not a lot of true value for small businesses looking to do things other than network with the over-networked. Will that change in time? We'll see. I doubt it, but I've been wrong before...



• Anyone who has heard me speak on any topic at all knows I'm big on relationship building. The long-term process of getting to know your customer and then soft-selling them is a proven way to build the type of customer base that stays loyal and sells your product for you. That's why I found Clate Mask's short post over at Small Business Trends to be interesting. Clate asks if you are hunting or harvesting your customers. Worth reading.

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