3 Things You Should Know About Small Business: March 19

NEW YORK (MainStreet) -- What's happening in small business today?

1. Businesses in Austin are complaining about SXSW 2012. South by Southwest, the annual music, film and technology festival, isn't getting rave reviews from some local Austin businesses, says the Huffington Post, citing local TV station KVUE.

Some business owners say they actually lose money when the high-profile festival comes to town, given the blocked-off roads and locals who want to avoid the area. A few are finding it's more profitable to close shop altogether for the week.

2. Here are 10 tools to help business owners get free online publicity. Small businesses don't have a lot of money to put into advertising, so The Miami Herald's BizBytes columnist, Tasha Cunningham, put together a list of free resources allowing businesses to get more exposure for less cost, leading to more customers.

Topping the list is LinkedIn(LNKD) Search, "a highly effective way of finding journalists who may be interested in writing about your products or services," the article says. Business owners should also check out Regator, a site that aggregates blog posts from around the Web, to find posts about topics related to your business and reach out to the authors to pitch your company. MuckRack is a Twitter director tracking journalists, while iNewswire allows you to distribute press releases for free.