What We’re Reading: Get the Most Social Media Bang for Your Small Business’ Buck

Although the use of social media isn’t critical for every business, there’s no question that it’s a vital tool for many small business owners. Facebook and Twitter are two excellent ways to attract new customers as well as keep existing customers engaged. But social platforms are constantly evolving, and if you’ve determined that a social media presence is right for your business, or you’re looking to decode the ROI you’re getting from your existing social media presence, you’ll need to keep current on the latest and greatest. Examples like Facebook’s seemingly ever-changing news feed can affect how many of your existing followers are actually seeing what you post on a daily basis, so you may need to make adjustments or invest more time and money. But armed with a consistent strategy, your business can reap the benefits of social media and help your bottom line. We’ve provided some articles below to decode the in’s and out’s to help you get the most bang for your social media buck. If you have any social media tips or strategies that work great for your business we’d love to hear them. Tweet them to @IPNTeam.

How Do Small Businesses Build High Engagement on Facebook?
Huffington Post: article by Melinda Emerson

There is no doubt that Facebook is a major player in the way small businesses engage with their customers. But, before putting together a marketing plan to build your Facebook fan base, let’s take a look at the meaning of having lots of “likes” on your page. Social marketing gurus have pondered the tangible value of Facebook fans for years. Last year, when Facebook decided to limit the amount of access you have to people who have liked your fan page (unless you pay for people to see what you post), they significantly reduced the inherent value…

Read more

10 Social Media Time Management Tips for Small Business
Forbes: article by Aileron contributor
Social media is one of those things that small business owners know they need to do, but they are not quite sure how to find the time to do it. Here are the top ten tips for effective social media management:

1. Have a plan
2. Don’t worry about perfection
3. Focus on one tool at a time
4. Show up consistently
5. Use your own voice online
6. Set a time limit
7. Turn off notifications
8. Schedule new content posts
9. Review analytics
10. Set an expected return on your investment

Read more

New! Mobile Payments + Custom Branding

Your customers can now pay from their smart phones

You can now create your own QR payment code. Your customers can then use this code to pay you from their mobile phones. ITS THAT EASY!

Steps for small businesses:

1) Log in to IPN and click on ‘Enable Mobile Payments’ on the left

2) A QR code will be generated that you can use by:

a) Printing on ‘Event Fliers’, ‘Marketing Banners’ or a fliers that you can paste at your retail store

b) Copying and pasting it on your printed invoices, emails, etc

Steps for your customer:

1) Download a QR Code reader on their Android or iPhone (if they do not have one already)

2) Scan your image to pay you

Extending branding capabilities to ‘eCommerce’ and ‘Payment Request’ flows + More Colors

You can now apply ‘Your’ small business brand across pay link, eCommerce and ‘Payment Request’ flows. Just click on the ‘Branding Customization’ button on the left to use this feature.

Also, you now have more colors to choose from to match your website or business style. Here is an example of what your customers will see after you customize it:

Enjoy and please provide feedback. These requirements were built on feedback we received from you.

- Your IPN team

Customers can now see your brand on Pay Links + Guest eCommerce payments

Introducing Customizable PayLinks!

You already know that you can create your own unique pay link URL to paste wherever convenient for customers, but now you can:

• Upload your own logo
• Create a slogan
• Choose a color theme

After making your branding choices the new payment page that your customers see will look like this:

In the above example the small business picked an ‘Orange’ theme and the slogan is ‘Automobile Parts’.

For those of you that don’t have pay links you can easily create one by logging in to IPN and clicking on ‘Custom Pay Link’ tab on the left.

Guest payments and credit card on eCommerce buttons!

Customers that pay you by clicking on an eCommerce button are no longer needed to sign up for an IPN account. (they can do guest payments). Also if you have credit card turned on, they can pay you via VISA or MasterCard.

For those of you that don’t have eCommerce buttons you can easily create one by logging in to IPN and clicking on ‘Ecommerce Buttons’ tab on the left.

Please check these new features out and let us know what you think.

- Your IPN team

Guest payments and credit card on Custom Pay Link

You don’t need to sign up to purchase groceries; or to dine at restaurants. Then why do you need to sign up to pay with IPN???

We are now getting rid of mandatory sign ups for those paying by custom pay links. A payor can now click on a custom pay link and initiate a guest payment. Also, if the small business has enabled credit card, a payor can initiate a credit card payment on a custom pay link.

• Screenshot of the new custom pay link payment page

• What is a custom pay link?

A custom pay link enables a small business to get paid from any channel they want (Facebook, Craigslist, etc). To create your own pay link click on the ‘Custom Pay Link’ tab on the left once you sign in to IPN.

Please provide us feedback!

Thanks,

Your IPN team

Happy holidays from the Intuit PaymentNetwork Team!

As we wrap up the year, we’d like to wish you a joyful holiday season and a prosperous 2012.

You might be hearing sleigh bells ringing, but this year, we heard you – our customers – loud and clear! As a result of your great feedback, here are a couple of the many features we’ve implemented:

• Credit card acceptance –Intuit PaymentNetwork businesses that send invoices through QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online and the Intuit PaymentNetwork site can now get paid by credit card, in addition to bank payments.

• Custom pay link – You can create your own pay link and insert it anywhere you want to get paid from (QuickBooks statements, your web page, your social page, emailed invoices, etc). Just sign in to Intuit PaymentNetwork and click on the ‘Custom Payment Link’ tab in the left navigation.

Lastly, we wanted to thank you for the positive survey feedback. The majority of our customers have reported that they are extremely likely to recommend Intuit PaymentNetwork to a colleague or friend. The best compliment you can give us is this level of referral, and for this, we are quite grateful.

Thank you for using Intuit PaymentNetwork. We hope we helped make getting paid faster and easier. The team here is looking forward to rolling out new functions and features in 2012 to make your business even more successful than ever.

Warmest wishes – IPN Team

QuickBooks Online users can now accept credit card payments

This holiday season, while elves are busy making toys … we’re working hard on adding functionality to make Intuit PaymentNetwork even better. This week, we launched a handful of new features and here are just a few highlights:

1. QuickBooks Online users can accept credit card payments.

Turning on this feature gives your customers the ability to use a credit card to pay their invoice. As a QuickBooks Online user, you can manage (turn on/off) this optional feature at any time by signing into Intuit PaymentNetwork and clicking on ‘Profile’ in the left navigation bar. Navigate to ‘Receiving Preferences’ and click the ‘Turn On’ button. That’s it – easy! All invoices you create and send after turning this option ON can be paid by either credit card or bank account. You can turn this option OFF at any time.

2. IPN pay links go mobile!

It’s now even easier for your payors to pay you quickly – wherever they are! We’ve introduced a mobile friendly experience for custom pay links, which allow your customers to easily pay you when visiting your website/Facebook page etc. And now, if customers tap on your pay link through a mobile device* they will see a mobile friendly site (see below).

* Devices supported: iPhone, iPod touch and Android devices. Other devices will display the desktop friendly IPN website.

 3. Scheduling credit card payments

Customers who receive invoices through Intuit PaymentNetwork and QuickBooks can now schedule a credit card payment, once signed in. Please note that merchants must accept credit card payments to activate this feature.

4. Adding other forms of payment

While sending a payment, in addition to selecting previously entered payment accounts, payers can now add a new bank account or credit card without exiting the payment process.

A big thanks to our Intuit PaymentNetwork customers for the feedback, which helps us build great products for you. Keep the comments coming!

Increase payment conversion by using IPN – Getting rid of sign ups

Dear users,

We work hard at helping you get paid fast. Based on your feedback we launched the following new features:

1) Guest payments on payment requests

Customers that receive ‘Payment Requests’ sent from IPN do not need to sign up anymore to make a payment. They can do one time ‘Guest Payments’.

Signing up does gives them the benefits of doing recurring payments and saving their bank account and credit card information for future payments…. but its not mandatory anymore.

2) Pay button on payment requests

Based on your feedback we have incorporated a ‘Pay By IPN’ button on payment requests.

3) Increased focus on your small business brand

The pay page on a payment request now says ‘Pay Payment Request from Your Company Name‘ at the top.

Here are some screenshots of our new features:

• New Payment Request email that a customer receives:

• Guest payment page when a customer clicks to pay:

Please provide feedback on these features.

Happy Thanksgiving from your IPN team

Help us spread the word – Like us on Facebook

WE ARE NOW ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER

Follow us on Twitter (@ipnteam) and check us out on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/IntuitPaymentNetwork)

You can also tweet about us (Twitter), recommend us (Facebook) or like us (Facebook) from the IPN Home Page

Top 5 reasons for joining our fan base:

1) Give us feedback. Your feedback has helped us improve IPN (recurring payments, pay links, guest payments, etc). Now you can post your thoughts on Facebook and we will consider your suggestions

2) Get updates on latest features and releases. You can now check our ‘What’s New’ section on Facebook or read our posts/tweet to be abreast of the latest features we launch

3) The more you rave about us….the more it helps awareness. With every like, recommendation or tweet, more users find out about IPN and start using IPN. This in turn helps you get more payments through IPN

4) Find out what others are saying about us.

5) and last but not the least…”We like you”.  As our esteemed customers we would love to have you be part of our social networks

IPN sign up in QuickBooks Online (QBO) is now simpler than ever

We’re happy to announce that we’ve rolled out a new and improved IPN signup in QuickBooks Online (QBO)

You can sign up for Intuit PaymentNetwork inside QuickBooks Online in the following ways:

• From Company > Preferences, on the side menu, select Accept Online Payment and then click Learn More

 

• From Create Invoice, click on Learn more under “Let customer pay online” in the Delivery Information box.

New improved sign up lets you get started in minutes.

 1)      It’s just one step: create an account using your QB online log in info and let us know which bank account you would like your invoice payments to be deposited into.

2)      Next, set up QuickBooks Online to record Intuit PaymentNetwork payments automatically.

 

 

Receiving more payments through IPN

While we’ve simplified signup, we recognize that our customers often need more processing power. You can either apply for higher limits right away, or later, by logging in to http://ipn.intuit.com.

Try it out and let us know what you think!

Significantly better “Reconciliation” for QuickBooks 2012

Dear users,

For the last few months you told us:

1) Is there an easier way to connect my QB company file with IPN?

2) Which business profile in SYNC manager should I use to link to IPN? There are many I have created and don’t really know which one I should use.

3) The current process of reconciling is complicated and is very challenging to understand and use.

4) Why does SYNC do double posting on my invoices?

5) Why cant I reconcile my 50 c fees in QB? My bank statements don’t match my deposits in QB. Can you fix this?

6) Whats a realm id?

We took all of your inputs and recently launched a turbo charged way to reconcile in QB 2012. Here is what you can now do to close your books

Access reconciliation directly from your Quick Books

Once you are in the QB company file that you want reconciled with IPN, go to the ‘Online Services’ menu in QuickBooks then click ‘Intuit PaymentNetwork’ and select ‘Download Payments’

Login to your IPN account that you want reconciled

Download payments into QuickBooks

• Click the ‘X’ if you don’t want to select a specific payment to download

• You can either chose to only close invoices or also choose to do bank deposits. Bank deposits will automatically record the fees against the QB bank you pick. Fees will be marked in an ‘IPN Fees’ expense account in QuickBooks

• You can select a single payment or multiple payments

• Both ACH (bank payments) and Credit Card payments can be reconciled

• Only payments off QB invoices can be reconciled

Confirmation

View downloaded history

Enjoy and please provide feedback on this feature…Your comments truly help us build a better product.

- Your IPN team