SuccessMirna Bard | Mirna Bard

Proud to be Nominated for Orange County’s Seventeenth Annual Women in Business Awards
Posted May 10th, 2011 By Mirna Bard in Business With | No Comments

WOW! I am so excited and tremendously honored to be selected as a nominee for The Annual Women in Business Awards for the 2nd year in a row!

This premier awards program was designed by the Orange County Business Journal (OCBJ) to recognize the accomplishments of the community’s outstanding business and professional women.

The 17th Annual Women in Business Awards will be held on Wednesday, May 25, at the Hyatt Regency Irvine, featuring keynote speaker Terry Sjodin, Principal & Founder of Sjodin Communications.

A warm congratulation to all the beautiful ladies of Orange County who are nominated this year. It is a true privilege to be amongst all of you, and I salute your success. You inspire me!

Also, thank you so much to all my supporters! I would not be able to move forward with my business without you!
20 of the Most Favored Social Media Blog Posts of 2010
Posted Dec 20th, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Blogging, Business, Social Media With | 1 Comment
Here are 20 most read and widely-shared social media blog posts of 2010 on MirnaBard.com. It’s a good time to revisit many of these posts, as they are great reminders when planning for 2011. Please let me know what your favorite one was in the comments below.

Thank you for all my supportive readers. I appreciate you more than you know!
Which one of the 20 was your favorite of 2010?
Case Study: IdeaPaint Embraces the Possibilities of Social Media
Posted Oct 21st, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Case Studies, Social Media, Social Networking With | 3 Comments

Everybody’s waiting for the next big thing. You’ve heard this phrase before. You’ve even seen the proof, but you are hesitant to jump on the social media train yourself. Trust me, it is the next big thing, and it is already here.

We all love rags to riches stories. Perhaps a few kind folks are altruistic and are genuinely pleased when a little guy hits the big time. Most of the rest of us just think, “If that person can do it, surely I can.” Success stories breed more success, so in that spirit, read on for the impact social media can have on your business, no matter what niche you are in.

IdeaPaint is a Boston-based company. They have a website, and on this website they maintain a blog. How do you blog about paint, you may wonder? The answer is that if you are passionate and customer-centered, you can write enthusiastically about anything. This company was smart enough to share their blog on their company Twitter and Facebook pages. They take advantage of the social aspect of this media and take time to interact with their customers via these friend and information generators known as social media. The impact of choosing to market this way? These social media platforms are now the company’s largest source for increasing their leads and traffic. The growth is not only maintaining but ramping up, and that means good things for this business. (more…)
The Visa Business Network Invites Mirna Bard to Help Mentor 100,000+ Business Owners
Posted Aug 14th, 2010 By Mirna Bard in Blogging, Business, Facebook, Social Media, Social Networking With | 10 Comments

A couple months ago, Visa Business Network’s Outreach team discovered my blog and reached out by completing the form on my site to let me know that they find my blog to be very impressive and a valuable resource to businesses. They asked if they could feature my blog on the Visa Business Network as part of their public blog roll.

And what was even more exciting was Visa’s invitation the following week, inviting me to be one of the expert mentors for their 100,000+ active member community. Of course, I accepted and anxiously waited for their announcement this week. Yeah!

Recently, the Visa Business Network launched enhancements and new features to their community site to help small businesses connect learn, and accomplish goals. Visa quickly realized that social media is playing a huge role in business and wanted to provide its community with a better way to connect, learn, and grow.

The new features include:

Business Goal Toolkits – These are step-by-step “how to” guides that lead small business owners through the process of setting and achieving business goals.

Small Business Mentor Program – Small businesses will now get personalized help and guidance from other successful small business owners through a question and answer forum. Through the mentor program, members are able to collaborate by asking questions related to their goals and receive personalized advice and responses from small business peers and mentors with experience across a wide range of industries.

Mentors were invited based on the following criteria:

- Expertise in the topic/goal area

- Previous mentor experience

- Small business experience. Since this is a community of peers, owning or working for a small business is required

- Previous active online community involvement

- Ability to help provide initial goal content

- Enthusiasm for selected goal and helping small businesses succeed

“We are thrilled to have our new mentors on board as we launch the Visa Business Network with new features. Our mentors are leaders in their respective fields and will lend their expertise to small business owners on the Visa Business Network, who are looking for guidance as they work to grow their businesses. The mentors will be vital both as a resource and participant in the growing Visa Business Network community, and we look forward to working with them to encourage and foster small business growth.” Rich Yang, Head of Small Business Marketing

I will specifically be mentoring businesses on creating and promoting Facebook business pages to help businesses grow and thrive on this giant social networking site. My answers will enable many business owners to gain more clarity, eliminate confusion, and reduce overwhelm when it comes to promoting their businesses on Facebook. So, I invite you to ask away!

Content Ranking – Their new ranking system will also provide small businesses with quick access to the resources and articles fellow small business owners have declared most useful.

I am sharing this with my readers for two reasons:

1. This opportunity happened due to my content strategy and online visibility. So, this is a reminder to all of you. By showcasing your expertise online, you will open many possibilities. As I always say, you never know who is reading, watching, listening and sharing your content online. Transparency does equal opportunity, and this can come from anywhere and anyone (including people who you think are competitors).

2. It is easy and free to join Visa’s rapidly-growing community. You can quickly create your profile by visiting www.visabusinessnetwork.com. You can also join their Facebook community.

What do you think of Visa’s idea? And, do you have any great success stories due to your blogging efforts? I would love to read them in the comments below!