Brendan Allen of Castlemine Farm in Roscommon is destined to be Ireland’s latest Internet sensation. A few short weeks ago Brendan was a typical, unknown and unsung Irish farmer, but today, thanks to the power of social media, Brendan now has followers in every continent and is at the forefront of promoting Irish produce to the world.

It all began with an innocent tweet……….

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Leading social media expert, and contributor to allaboutbusiness Fiona Ashe is running two courses- one on LinkedIn and one on Facebook Marketing -see details below:

SOCIAL NETWORKING: LEVERAGING YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE
Tuesday 5th April, 6pm – 9pm, Camden Court Hotel, Dublin 2
Standard Ticket – €150. Early Bird Ticket – €99 Early Bird booking closes on Thursday 31st March

SOCIAL NETWORKING: FACEBOOK MARKETING
Tuesday 12th April, 6pm – 9pm, Camden Court Hotel, Dublin 2
Standard Ticket – €150. Early Bird Ticket – €99 Early Bird booking closes on Wednesday 6th April

Fiona is also happy to organise trainings in other parts of the country, you can contact her on  087-2372289.

To coincide with National Enterprise Week, we produced a print version of allaboutbusiness.ie.

There are exclusive interviews with the Irish Dragons, including newest addition Norah Casey, as well as articles from a range of experts in the fields of technology, social media, finance and innovation.

Packed with business tips, advice, how-to guides, this publication will give SMEs and entrepreneurs valuable insights into how they can progress their business.

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Innovative and attention grabbing, guerrilla marketing can make a big difference to your business.

The term was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson with SMEs in mind and is defined as an unconventional method of promotion that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing spend.

Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive; and consumers are targeted in unexpected places. The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral. …

Social networking has become a mainstream business tool in Ireland with fully 40% of businesses having successfully used social networks to win new business, reveals a new global survey commissioned by global workspace solutions provider Regus.

Testimony to the faith businesses are now putting in the social networking medium is seen in the fact that 26% of Irish businesses are setting aside a proportion of marketing budget specifically for social networking activities. …

Facebook has begun the rollout of its new feature, Facebook Questions. While online Question and Answer services are not exactly new, Facebook’s community of 500 million users adds a new dynamic to the space and could potentially create an exciting opportunity for small businesses.

A Facebook blog post explained the service: “Millions of people ask their friends questions on Facebook every day. What new music should I listen to? Where’s the best sushi place in town? How do I learn to play the piano? With this new application, you can get a broader set of answers and learn valuable information from people knowledgeable on a range of topics.” …

Foursquare, a location based social network that incorporates gaming elements, is planning to distribute a free analytics tool, which will give business owners access to a range of information about visitors to their premises.

With the new analytics dashboard, businesses will be able to see a range of real-time data about Foursquare usage, including who has “checked in” to their place via Foursquare, when they arrived, the male-to-female customer ratio and which times of day are more active for certain customers.

According to the New York Times, a test customer, P.C.C. Natural Markets, a Seattle-based organic foods company, saw a large number of new Foursquare users coming to its stores over the weekend and used the analytics tool to figure out where they were coming from.

“By using the Foursquare dashboard, we figured out that they were coming for a new organic doughnut that had been advertised on TV,” said Ricardo Rabago, social media specialist for the company. …

The House of Lords at College Green was packed out yesterday as over 250 entrepreneurs and businesspeople participated in the Breakfast Briefing.

Mark Cunnigham from Bank of Ireland, Margaret Ward from Clear Ink and Rick Keeley from Facebook were the main speakers at the event. …

Day two of National Enterprise Week, and branches nationwide have hosted a series of events or facilitated exhibitions for local businesses in the area.

Highlights today include  the Farmers’ market on Dublin’s College Green,  a conference in Waterford with the theme “Going Green” (check out the exclusive video section to watch the videos), an enterprise breakfast in Thurles aimed at helping businesses to map the future as well as numerous  networking evenings across the regions. …