COMMENTS
Yes the SMB market deserves coverage! But the magazine industry model is broken, that's why Entrepreneur and Inc's ad pages are down, like at all pubs.
Most news about tech, for example, outside of Apple, Google, the carriers and big mobile and consumer electronics brands is coming from smaller companies. It feeds blogs like VentureBeat, TechCrunch, GigaOm, and Technologizer every day, as well as mine at http://newdigitalcafe.com
Is HubSpot over 100 employees yet? If not, you guys are in the SMB market too, and you've done a decent job of getting your own coverage via inbound marketing.
The "media coverage" model is changing, shifting from large media publications (print or online) to the blogosphere or some combination or symbiotic relationship between the two.
Media sites are also increasingly looking at freelancers to write their content and to consumers to deliver photos and video (look at Fizwoz) thanks to social media and massive camera and smartphone adoption. The media houses have less people on the beat so they are leveraging others.
I think you need to look at SMB from an industry segment perspective, rather than an overall SMB soup to nuts perspective, which is what Entrepreneur and Inc. are. So maybe the media outlets for SMB need to be specialized around the industry segments and include what SMBs are doing.
I would encourage you to differentiate between those selling B2B and B2C, between those selling tangible goods and those selling services, and those selling expensive goods vs. goods for immediate consumption. They all have slightly different needs. While each can learn from the other, it is nice to have your thoughts on the applications for the different segments.
Who has time to read magazines? Seems like a dated business model unless you need something to read on vacation. Forbes thinks these blogs are really good fro the SMB business market- http://www.forbes.com/bow/b2c/category.jhtml?id=320
I am interested in the best SMB blogs that are out there rather than info that is weeks or months old.
In my opinion, the SMB does deserve and need the coverage, specific needs deserve specific attention.
I do not feel portfolio does a good job at creating a user friendly site. I like RSS feeds, I was unable to find on. I also like following (and engaging with) companies on Twitter, I was unable to find that too.
How are they going to properly serve the SMB market if they are not ahead, or at the very least, with the curve?
Well I think any small businessman would agree that you only 'deserve' what you earn. And earning it in media means that there's enough readership to turn a profit. In my time as Director of the Brand for Yellow Pages Group (who have the biggest group of small business customers in the country) I learned that small biz owners don't use media to the degree the rest of us do because very simply they're too damned busy. Even up to a few years ago 60% of our customer base didn't have an email and the same percent didn't have any advertising other than the Yellow Pages. It wasn't because they were lazy; I learned that MOST were simply too wrapped in their own businesses to have the time or inclination. I think this is also why most online B2B communities have had trouble becoming successful on a large scale (however I have seen some small biz podcasts that are doing well I believe partly because they fit the busy small biz lifestyle). Hope this helps.
You pose an interesting question when it comes to the amount of attention smb is getting. Most of the coverage is in relationship to how a growing smb is part of a greater growing economy. Yet, when times are booming it seems the smb gets left in the dust as journalists report on the press releases of the "market movers." If you look through old smb journals during boom times, there are always stories about how to run your company like GE, Pfizer, etc.
I think a great smb journal would be one that helps smb's get the national or regional recognition they need to kick it to the next level. Help them network with potential customers and learn from like minded spirits. A journal that gives them great tips, tools, and tricks to keep their cash flow coming in.
Oh... wait... they did. It is called Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.
@Erroin, your sentiments are mine as well. When I heard about all these SMB magazines shuttering, I sort of just poured one out for the people who lost their jobs and hoped that the misplaced journalists will find a home using new media.
I think the SMB market is much more at home in the new media space, anyway. Small companies are smaller and more agile - they move quicker and things can change so drastically in an instant - this speed and ferocity definitely goes hand and hand with the instant satisfaction and sharing capabilities blogs, Facebook and Twitter give.
Great job, glad they are doing that.
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