For entrepreneurs, social media marketing can be a fantastic venue. Unlike, say, purchasing Super Bowl airtime, it doesn’t cost anything to actually set up a social media account. New advertising tools like Facebook’s Promoted Posts and Twitter’s Promoted Tweets can definitely generate some costs, but these are still relatively minimal for small businesses compared to many other options.

The barriers to use for social media are pretty low, and it represents a great opportunity to really get the personality and soul of a startup brand out into the world and interacting with customers. It can even help generate buzz and build a potential customer base pre-launch.

Of course, it’s not as easy as posting links to your favorite cat videos. A reputation is a fragile thing that’s easy to break online. Examples of PR disasters on Facebook and Twitter are all-too common for both major enterprises and small businesses.

Here are three major pointers for using social media as a startup.

1. Be genuine. Social media can record your best and worst moments for posterity. Even if you delete an embarrassing or inaccurate post, screenshots have a way of surfacing just when you don’t want them to. If you screw up, honesty can be your best policy. The American Red Cross posted a blooper of a tweet in 2011 – but handled it with humor and tact in a way that actually generated increased donations.

2. Don’t market in anger. Just this week, this well-publicized, profanity-laced restaurant meltdown went viral, giving a great example of how NOT to use social media.

3. Recognize that users may take your message places you didn’t originally intend. By interacting directly with customers, you necessarily give up a bit of control over your messaging, a reality many businesses have been challenged to adapt to. McDonalds learned this lesson the hard way with its #McDStories campaign.

Have you thought about your startup social media strategy? There are lots of great tools out there for figuring out how you might use new media marketing techniques. Social Media Today is a good place to start learning about the social media marketing world. Forbes often publishes high-quality content and case studies about new media and its marketing potential.

And hey, if it turns out you’re great at marketing your brand using social media, you might think about monetizing that skill. Relatively strong growth in the Public Relations Firms sector of 4.2% over the next five years is expected to be driven primarily by expansion into social networking services. The time might be right to launch a business that helps other brands use these powerful online tools to their advantage.

Entrepreneurs and companies come to us at different times and for different reasons, but, unsurprisingly, nearly all of our clients intend to hire employees during the year after using our service. Makes sense, right? If you’re writing a business plan, it’s probably because you’re planning on growing your business, and more work means you’ll need more people to help you.

Most often, when owners and managers think about the workers they want to hire, they think of a list of skills that they need their workers to have. Sometimes they’ll have an organizational chart laid out with a pre-ordained hierarchy of employees. Thinking ahead like this is great, and it’s just what an owner/manager has to do. But it’s not only the technical skills of an enterprise that will be defined by who a company hires. The people that take on the roles described in an organizational chart will not be simple mechanical cogs completing the tasks outlined in a job description. They will be living, breathing personalities that will define a company culture. And don’t think for a second that culture isn’t part of what makes a company successful.

Different types of workers work in different ways. More than just the skills a person has determine how they get the job done: attitudes craft action. Two of Inc.‘s articles we noted focus on how certain character traits will often line up with certain types of work. For example, if a business is going to need to perform a lot of creative work—perhaps a marketing or web design outfit, or a production studio, businesses for which we write plans very often—it would be wise to think ahead about the character traits that often go along with the creative skill set. Another factor might be working to find a balance between extroverted and introverted workers. Extroverts tend to help “raise the bar” in the office, at least in terms of communication and public goal-setting. But it turns out, studies show that more introverted workers tend to be the ones who put their noses to the proverbial grindstone to make things happen.

The cultural composition of a company will have a profound impact on what your team accomplishes. A company must be skilled and competent, but it also needs to work together. Even if you have a team of all geniuses, if they can’t coordinate, then group projects (read: your business) will never get done right. Each subsequent employee will enter into the culture created by the previous ones: the tone of your office will start to be set by the first employees you hire.

What can you do to forge the right culture for your company? Inc. has you covered on the details, too. This last article is a great interview with Paul Spielgelman, founder and CEO of BerylHealth, a hospital call-center business. We love his “10 Steps to a Remarkable Company Culture”, steps which helped him grow his company and sell it to an industry leader with a $9 billion market capitalization. Check it out, and start your business out on the path to success.

But whether I’m working with an internet start-up owner or a restaurateur, there’s a question that it seems nearly every business owner has, usually near the end of their engagement with us. It’s a question they didn’t pay us to answer, but it’s the question they want answered most.

What do you think about my plan? Is it a good one?

In 2003, when I got that question, I was usually tempted to give the client a detailed opinion critiquing their core idea. I’d tell them how I would approach the situation. Typically, this just resulted in them taking my advice, regardless of whether it was good or not. I then had to rewrite a few sections of the plan, and the client would leave less satisfied, as the idea was no longer really theirs. When you’re in a position of authority with respect to starting a business, sometimes people start to think that you can run any business, and not just the business planning business you originally thought up. But I’ll be honest, 10 years of business plan consulting have given me a unique perspective on this question. I can now say what my answer always is: Whatever I think, it doesn’t matter.

Mind you, my staff and I have lots of great advice on how to present your idea. We’re great writers, and we know how to lay out a financial model in a clear, concise, and detailed manner. But when it comes to the question of whether you will succeed, we don’t staff any psychics, and don’t plan to.

In 10 years I’ve seen businesses I thought were destined to be the next Facebook or Twitter before I had heard of Facebook or Twitter. But guess what. You’ve never heard of them. You’ve heard of Facebook and Twitter instead. I’ve also had a few business owners come to me with what I thought was a simply stupid idea. Well, those stupid ideas now take in more revenue every year than I do.

I’ve learned that I just don’t know what’s going to work and what won’t. This is great for my clients, because now every plan is approached with the same candor. Our business is about making each plan shine, not about finding the needles in the entrepreneurial haystack.

And still, I find that sometimes this answer doesn’t sound quite sufficient. Sure, you can’t read the future, they say, but what do you think?

The truth is, I still think that in answering such a question, my talk is cheap. But the blood, sweat, and tears of the entrepreneur asking me were not. And that’s the question such an entrepreneur inevitably needs to ask. What do I really think about this plan? Am I going to make it? Both common wisdom and scientific study suggest that confidence is key to successful business creation. And so if I have a crystal ball, it’s only this one: if you believe in your idea, if you think you have what it takes to make your business succeed, then my bet is you’ll make it. But if you don’t believe in your idea, no business plan in the world is likely to lead you to success.

Bryan Howe
CEO
Masterplans.com

Yet new research conducted by The Boston Consulting Group suggests that small businesses are much less likely than larger businesses to promote their products and services online. On March 19, Adweek reported that businesses with fewer than 100 employees spend only 3% of their total advertising dollars online. Bigger companies, in contrast, spend as much as 16%. While most of these small businesses have websites, experts think that small businesses are too focused on getting products off the shelves to put much energy and time into long-term advertising strategies. (If you’re a small business owner, this might sound familiar.) Since online advertising can have a big impact on a business’s chances of success, this represents a huge opportunity: both for businesses and for advertisers.

Increasingly, however, mobile app developers are focusing on the needs of small businesses, just as we do at MasterPlans. Foursquare, the social networking app that allows users to “check in” at local businesses, is courting small businesses with a brand-new mobile app. Designed specifically for small business owners, this app will allow businesses to “push” specials and updates to customers on the go. Over a million businesses already use Foursquare to connect with their customers, but this app allows small business owners to alert customers to a new menu item or a great spring sale through the palms of their own hands.

Interested in other apps that can help you manage and promote your small business? Check out Forbes’s list of 10 Brilliant Apps Small Businesses Should Use. And remember to keep in mind the needs of today’s increasingly mobile-minded consumers when you put together your products and services.

There’s a great synopsis of the history of female entrepreneurs here, at the National Women’s History Museum website. In the 19th century, woman-owned businesses were a much less common sight in America, generally restricted to small enterprises like retail stores, taverns, and inns. These businesses were often left to a woman after the death of a husband or father. The Progressive Era saw the beginning of a period of transformation that would extend to the present day. Central to this change was the increase in support services and communities for women business owners, like the Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, started in 1919.

Today there are even more resources available for women starting their own businesses. The Small Business Administration has set up this page to centralize their resources for female entrepreneurs. The SBA also runs over 100 education centers across the country ready to help women start and manage their own businesses. The private sector has joined in, too. Goldman Sachs released research showing women make the best investments and has implemented the 10,000 Women program to help women across the world access education in business and management.

More progress is yet to be made: women are still often underpaid in the workforce and underrepresented on executive teams, for example. However, the advancement made by female entrepreneurs in the last century is something we can be proud of. Today, women run some of the most exciting businesses in the world, even in industries (like tech) that have historically been even more male-dominated than most.

At MasterPlans, we focus more on women’s futures than women’s history. 54% of our clients and over half of our staff are women, and we’re devoted to helping female entrepreneurs find success. So let’s make March not only a month when we look back at the women who have made the world thrive, but also look forward to the successes yet to come. And if you want MasterPlans to aide you in making this month monumental in your personal women’s history, know that we’re here to help.

So what are the most promising industries for startups this year? We’ve checked with news sources (like Inc. and The Week), research firms (like IBISWorld), consulting groups, and the U.S. Census Bureau to bring you this list of the best industries for startups in 2013.

1. Social network game development: As mobile devices become ever more popular, people will naturally spend more time on them. Connecting with friends and playing games are favorite activities, and this rapidly growing industry combines them both. Social network game development is expected to have grown by an impressive 30% in 2012, and its compound annual growth rate over the next five years should weigh in at 184%.
2. Corporate cloud services: Secure data storage is a must for today’s multinational corporations, many of which employ teams who must work together seamlessly in offices around the globe. Big data was a $3.2 billion industry in 2012, and it’s expected to hit $17 billion by 2015.
3. IT consulting: As more businesses move to mobile and cloud-based computing, this industry has grown at a remarkable rate. Between 2007 and 2012, the industry added 200,000 new jobs, and grew by more than 8% a year. Experts predict a growing emphasis on security consulting to help businesses keep their data secure.
4. Restaurants: Thanks to the rising rate of per capita spending, even budget-conscious folks can afford to eat out. This industry already employs about 10% of the workforce, and is expected to grow by 5.5% in 2013.
5. Residential construction: The recovering economy has finally put this industry back on its feet. Now that property developers can afford to build, and homeowners can afford repairs and renovations, this industry will grow by more than 10% a year over the next few years, hitting $573 billion in 2017.
6. Pet services: Almost two-thirds of us own at least one pet, and we’re more inclined than ever to spend money on our best friends. The pet services industry was worth almost $53 billion in 2012, and it’s expected to grow by more than 5% a year over the next five years.

Whether you’ve always wanted to be your own boss or whether you’re on the lookout for lucrative expansion opportunities, these industries are a great bet. Of course, if you have a truly innovative idea that the market yearns for, perhaps it’s time for you to help define the hottest industries of 2014…

The Small Business Administration’s Small Business Training Network has created a lot of great online courses made specifically for small business owners and entrepreneurs to help them figure out how they can make their business a success. Actually, the SBA often gives the same advice to entrepreneurs that we give to our clients. One course they have online now is a great example of their work: How to Win Customers in Today’s Economy.

What we like most about the info the SBA provides is that, like us, they start with the basics. When they start the course with a lesson on how to explore new markets, they begin with a definition of what marketing is: “Marketing is the process of planning and executing the development, pricing, promotion, and distribution of products and services to satisfy customer needs.” The key word, they say, is satisfy. A business must fill a need experienced by consumers or other producers.

And that means research: Who will be the clients? Where are they located? What are their needs? What products or services might they buy to meet those needs? These are the types of questions that we run through with our clients every day. The most important part of our process is helping the client consider the answers to these same questions in a systematic fashion, and help them find the answers.

Look around the SBA Learning Center. There are courses, videos, and interviews with leading business experts and entrepreneurs. It’s a great resource for anyone looking to start or expand a business or even a nonprofit organization. Even if you’re going without financing for now, take advantage of other entrepreneurs’ experience and the resources put out by businesses and the government. You’ll find you don’t have to go it alone.

You’ve Got Mail: This remake of the 1940 Jimmy Stewart classic The Shop Around the Corner updates pen pals to email pals, thanks to dial-up modems and AOL’s three-word announcement of new email. When Tom Hanks’ chain bookstore threatens to squish Meg Ryan’s cheek-squeezingly cute kids’ book shop, she chants “It’s not personal; it’s business” while psyching herself up for an interview. (OK, Hanks’ advice of “Go to the mattresses” is technically from The Godfather.) The takeaway? Do like Ryan did and use every marketing method available, from newspaper coverage to TV news interviews. You may not have the budget of a huge corporation, but you can still be creative and scrappy.

Romy And Michele’s High School Reunion: Claiming to have invented Post-Its (like Romy and Michele did) or something equally implausible is pretty dumb, with Google only a stab of the iPhone away. So before you make any grandiose statements about your target market, do your homework. At least in a dream sequence, Lisa Kudrow’s character knew her stuff, spouting: “Um, well, ordinarily when you make glue, first you need to thermoset your resin, and then after it cools you have to mix in an epoxide, which is really just a fancy-schmancy name for any simple oxygenated adhesive, right? And then I thought maybe, just maybe, you could raise the viscosity by adding a complex glucose derivative during the emulsification process, and it turns out I was right.”

Pretty Woman: Unless You’re A Total hater, don’t discriminate against people who don’t look like your envisioned ideal customer. Money is money, right? Otherwise potential customers may take their dollas elsewhere, like Julia Roberts’ character did, returning to a snooty store to ask, “You work on commission, right? BIG MISTAKE.” (On the flip side, appearances matter. Don’t wear your Snuggie to an investors meeting.)

10 Things I Hate About You: Speaking of investors, sometimes they’re a better choice than a small-business loan, as the endearing dweebs championing Heath Ledger demonstrate in this “Taming of the Shrew” adaptation set in high school. “We need a backer,” announces David Krumholtz. “What’s that?” asks Joseph Gordon-Levitt. “Someone with money who’s stupid,” answers Krumholtz. Although we’d never condone thinking, much less speaking, of your investors so derisively, cash you don’t have to repay can be pretty essential. Just make sure you deliver on your promises or you may find yourself shoved up against a locker with Andrew Keegan snarling, “When I shell out $50, I expect results.”

Basically, these pouches are a blend of wine (or vodka, or rum) and a tasty fruit flavor, perfect for when spiking your Jamba Juice is even too much for your sun-stroke-suffering self to handle. You pop ‘em in the freezer, then squeeze ‘em out into an obviously very classy goblet or snifter topped with a slice of fresh fruit. Because of course you aren’t a college student who’s trying to get wasted during class (unless you’re Food Beast writer Dominque Zamora, who enthuses, “Freeze them overnight and get yo’ illegal classroom-drank on the next day—all without ever using a blender or fake ID”). The 10-ounce pouches retail for about $2 each. (As Zamora points out, Framingham Liquors was on this trend an entire year ago, with its line of Daily’s frozen lemonade, mojito, margarita, strawberry daiquiri, and more.)

Booze pouches are everywhere from grocery stores to major drugstore chains, Ad Age notes: “Pouch drinks are making rapid distribution gains in grocery stores, according to SymphonyIRI Group. While distribution is lower at drug and convenience stores, chains such as Walgreens have begun stocking pouch brands in coolers at some stores.” So you can snap up a squeezable grown-up drink while filling your prescription and grabbing shampoo (just don’t confuse the three).

The booze pouch boost in popularity isn’t surprising when you consider that Americans feel incredibly busy and stressed. According to the American Psychological Association’s 2010 Stress in America survey, 44% of Americans say they’ve become more stressed over the past five years. Notes the APA perhaps obviously, “The most common reason given by adults for not doing more to manage their stress was being too busy or not having enough time.” Duh! Somewhat less scientifically, Jordan Weissmann at The Atlantic concurs: “If the collective obsessions of the Internet have confirmed anything lately, it’s that a thick slice of America feels very, very busy.”

Translation: People don’t have time after coming home from a busy day at work to run to the store for fresh (or even frozen) berries, find some that blend well with a nice rum at the liquor store, throw the whole thing in the blender, and kick back on the porch (or couch). It sounds crazy even typing it out. Who has that kind of time?! Popping the top of a beer is about as much as I can manage, in between scooping cat litter, making dinner, and jiggling my fake imaginary child—so I can’t even imagine what it’s like for single parents or people with multiple jobs. Bottom line? If you can make a product that saves Americans time and lets them treat themselves, you could have the next multimillion-dollar idea on your hands.

Manage expectations.

Everybody talks about the importance of a business plan for a new business venture. Before you sit down to get started on your plan, list your expectations from the plan. Do you hope it’ll get you funding? Chart your company’s course for the next 10 years?

Elaborate on the following:

• Key Offering: Details about your main products or services. The focus should be on how it helps consumers solve an important everyday problem.
• Market Analysis: Include relevant data and key insights derived from the data collected.

Don’t forget to discuss strategies—your key plans for main business functions like marketing, distribution, finance, and so on.

• Financial Projections: Expected time for break-even and similar estimates.
• Management: Credentials of the core management team.

Build your business plan around this basic structure. If you’re struggling, talk to people from the industry who can advise you. Wondering who to ask? The expertise of a professional business plan writing firm can be invaluable. Find a reliable firm with a good reputation, like MasterPlans.

What’s MasterPlans, you ask?

MasterPlans is a professional business plan writing company that creates first-rate business plans for companies in every industry. We’ve worked on more than 10,000 business plans since starting in 2002. MasterPlans’ team of business experts from different fields bring a wealth of expertise and understand the specific requirements of a plan.

So why should you choose MasterPlans?

Business plans from MasterPlans are nothing short of excellent. We have a huge portfolio of plans we’ve created for a range of different clients with unique requirements and various types of businesses, so there’s a pretty good chance we’re familiar with your industry. Our excellence and experience truly set us apart.

So what should you expect when you hire MasterPlans?

Meet the team that will work on your plan

MasterPlans will assign a project manager and dedicated team of experts for your plan. You’ll get to know your project manager during an in initial kick-off call.

Convey your expectations

One of the most important activities in the whole process of creating a business plan is initially making sure you and your project manager are on the same page. Be very clear and firm in conveying your requirements and expectations from your plan. Clarity is extremely important.

Leave it to MasterPlans

Once you have briefed the team, MasterPlans will give you the estimated time to come up with the basic plan. If you want to check on the progress of your plan, get in touch with your project manager anytime.

Five days flat

Just five days! That’s all MasterPlans needs to draft a plan. Our Team Planning Model allows a plan to be drafted quickly without compromising on quality. Be ready to review your first draft after that and send any revisions.

Share edits

Take time to compare the business plan draft with your initial expectations. Make note of things you want to exclude and include, and share it with your project manager.

Continue the revision process

For up to three weeks of delivering the first draft, MasterPlans allows unlimited revisions. If the plan is different from what you were expecting, share your feedback, and we’ll happily revise it. MasterPlans promises to rework your business plan ’til you’re satisfied.

Our systematic approach to each business plan guarantees you’re happy with the end result. We’re committed to create outstanding plans that are compelling—and that will not just convince investors but also put you on the track to success.