Have You Sent Out Your E-Greeting Yet? You ShouldHave You Sent Out Your E-Greeting Yet? You Should

The holiday season offers smaller businesses an easy, cheap way to do some effective networking: the e-card. And if you put a little thought into yours, it could get you noticed.The New York Times has an article on the rising popularity of e-cards in the business world. Writes Maria Aspen, "Once seen as the tacky, last-minute substitute for pen and paper, e-cards have become more acceptable this holiday season, especially in the corporate world, where LinkedIn and Facebook have become popular places for sending holiday greetings."

The NYT highlights the efforts of McKinney, an advertising agency based in Durham, North Carolina, which had one of its employees spend a few days in a life-size snow globe with a Webcam streaming live video of him to the Web. The agency then sent out 400 holiday e-cards directing people to the site. The power of the Internet took over and the video made its way to YouTube, The Early Show, and was viewed by over 45,000 viewers.

The agency had to buy more ban width to support the extra traffic to its site but it also got as the NYT writes, something most smaller businesses crave: "wider fame."

You might not be able to get one of your employees to spend a few days in a snow globe, but the Internet offers lots of ways to connect, or reconnect, with your customers. Take advantage of the holiday season and get creative. For a smaller business, sometimes that's all it takes.