Groupon Stats

Hey Small Business Owners – want to promote your business to a qualified audience on the cheap? Check out Groupon.com which is particularly good for the tourism industry– attractions, museums, restaurants, sporting events, and for local business owners. And if you like saving money, sign up to get their daily deal in your city. Want to know who’s their typical customer? Check out their demographics here–

http://bit.ly/GrouponDemo

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media, small business marketing

Here’s some interesting Facebook facts I ran across recently thanks to Paul Hughes.

Did you know that women aged 55 and up are the fastest-growing demographic in America? Now I know a lot of them are on Farmville & checking family photos, but there’s plenty out there shopping and networking. If you’re marketing to this group, you might just want to give some advertising a try within Facebook.

Image provided by Paul Hughes of Online MBA.

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media

I just spent a day at AdTech, San Francisco visiting with Facebook, YouTube and several up and coming technology vendors. Here’s a quick recap for you to read. You may want to reassess your marketing plans in light of what’s happening in social media. If you need a quick marketing business plan template, save 50% off with this coupon FB50. (Make sure you copy and paste this code into the promotional box, after the green box, add to cart).

1) YouTube is going to open up their branded channels to small business owners. They used to charge

$250,000 to participate in this program, which pretty much limited the experience to big brands. Now, you’ll be able to add tabs to your channel and create more of a social experience. Look how Cleveland Clinic is using their channel to drive traffic to their website and engage their audience via online video.   I circled some items below to help illustrate these points. Subscribe to my channel to get updates.

2) Facebook got rid of “Become a Fan” in favor of “Like” so you now have connections as opposed to “Fans.” The Facebook Connect button and brand will be disappearing and you’ll start seeing Facebook connectivity and features in more locations than ever around the web.

3) Location-based social games are hot for advertisers–Have you heard of Foursquare? The place to “check-in” whenever you’re out and about. It’s kind of like Twitter, only it’s location-based and they reward you for frequency.  I understand most of the users are male, by the way. Well, MyTown is similar but with insane targeting by geo-location and they incentivize check-ins. It’s played by over 1.6 Million people and is the most popular location-based social game ever! Users on MyTown are averaging around 70 minutes of playtime a day and it’s now an Apple Staff Favorite. Local businesses can test it out to capture their target market both by category and location. My Town is at the center of the latest hot trend for casual gaming, according to the San Francisco Business Times.

In summary, companies are spending less time and money on building expensive websites in favor of  leveraging Free social networking sites like YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to expand their audience reach, build trust and engage with their users. Think of it as another way to build word-of-mouth referrals and we all know how valuable those are.  E-mail info@rlevinmarketinggroup.com if you need help with your marketing strategies.

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media, The Cocktail Napkin Marketing Plan™

Featured in Inc. Online, Start-Up Toolkit for Entrepreneurs

‘Like’ us on Facebook and network with other entrepreneurs, marketing professionals and small business owners.

Congratulations to Michael Papi from Austin, TX, who is our winner this week.

““Robyn Levin’s eBook and interactive template, Cocktail Napkin Marketing Plan™ is like marketing magic. In less than two hours, I created my marketing plan with specific quarterly goals that were simple, straightforward, and achievable. Robyn has the wisdom of a sage and the ability to communicate like the finest actor.”

Joanne S. Black Professional Speaker and Author

No More Cold Calling®: The Breakthrough System That Will Leave Your Competition in the Dust (Warner Business Books).

Posted under The Cocktail Napkin Marketing Plan™

LinkedIn, the #1 professional social networking site announced its own integration with Twitter today. Users of both services will be able to sync some or all of their tweets on Twitter and “network updates” on LinkedIn. This is more reason to “think before you tweet,” as I often say in my social media marketing boot camps.

According to BusinessWeek.com, Tech Beat author, Rob Hof says, “Specifically, users in LinkedIn will be able to check a “tweet this” box near their network update post to Twitter. And while on Twitter, they can add the hashtags “#in” or “#li” to their posts to appear on LinkedIn. Finally, a new app called Tweets will let users put their Twitter streams on their LinkedIn profiles.”

Here’s a video with LinkedIn Executive Chairman Reid Hoffman and Twitter cofounder Biz Stone and you can click the video to read the full story.

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media

Top 10 Twitter Marketing Tips for Small Business Owners

By Robyn Levin

If you’re like most business owners, you’re super busy figuring out ways to be profitable, however, you feel compelled to join the social networking world. One question that comes up frequently is, “What should I tweet about and how often?” Think about what you want to share when you see the box, “What are you doing?” Be strategic so you’re using your time effectively. Twitter has been proven to help drive traffic to your blog, website and even trigger a phone inquiry like the one I got this week. It’s a good idea to observe 1st and notice what other tweets appeal to you. How often? Once or twice a day works for me. If you have a dedicated social media marketing staff, tweet more frequently. Keep these top 10 Twitter Marketing Tips & suggestions in mind and remember; give value and you’ll get quality followers. Things to “Tweet” about:

1. Hosting an upcoming event or Webinar
2. Writing a new blog post
3. Writing an article
4. Writing a press release
5. Networking & looking for groups or people in your niche
6. Sharing breaking news, industry trends, etc.
7. Re-tweet someone else’s tweet or link
8. Announcing a special offer
9. Sharing a new video
10. Sharing recent & interesting stats

* Big TIP here– include a link to your blog or website and track your results using http://budurl.com

Feel free to “Re-tweet” this post on your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media

Cocktail Napkin Marketing Plan™  was featured this week in Inc.’s online Toolkit for Entrepreneurs. Here’s an excerpt from the author, Howard Greenstein after his interview with Robyn Levin last week.

“A movie magnate was once quoted as saying “If you can’t fit your idea on the back of a business card, you don’t have a clear idea.” Brevity is popular these days – try Twitter. And then there’s the somewhat timeless metaphor – entrepreneur writes out her ideas during a meeting on the back of a cocktail napkin – and success soon follows. There’s entrepreneurial wisdom in brevity.

As a marketing and PR veteran for over 20 years, Robyn Levin found the Entrepreneurs and startup marketing teams she was coaching were missing a simple way and brief way to create a focused marketing strategy.” You can read the rest of the article on Inc’s Blog.

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media, The Cocktail Napkin Marketing Plan™

Social Media Marketing in 30 Minutes A Day

Read this article to learn how you can promote yourself using social media marketing in just 30 minutes a day.

“Thought article was dead on and just what the doctor ordered for me. I get too involved with trying to do everything at once.”

Social Media Marketing in 30 Minutes A Day
Are you overwhelmed with all the social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube) and trying to figure out how to incorporate these tools into your marketing mix? You’re not alone. Many clients often ask me how much time should they devote to social media marketing for business purposes and what’s the ROI. These are very good questions. My suggestion is to devote 30 minutes per day to social networking for brand building, getting referrals and to test the waters. You can’t possibly know if something is effective or useless until you try it for your own business. Best marketing practices include using a combination of social networking sites and other tools like online video, PR, blogs and Webinar marketing, and you’ll improve your results. The key is to think strategically and make it meaningful.

Most professionals want to increase sales and online visibility and those of you in this category should consider using Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube as your main social networking choices. Facebook has some good applications too, like Facebook Connect, however, I’ve found this to benefit big brands in particular. For example, Ben & Jerry’s promotes new flavors and solicits votes for brand building and to drive traffic to their stores through their “fan” page on Facebook. If you can think of a promotion and tie it into a major cause, this could be effective for you. Remember how CNN promoted the presidential election campaign using Facebook and Twitter to disseminate information to their audiences? CNN’s screen still says, “Follow us on Twitter” and, by following, I’m able to keep track of breaking news….

Sign up in the yellow box on the top left to receive the full article and other great tips on Internet Marketing!

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media, The Cocktail Napkin Marketing Plan™

iPhone Users Watch More Video… and are Older than You Think

According to Nielsen News this week–

“Upon Apple’s announcement of a new iPhone – the iPhone 3G S, slated to be available June 19 – Nielsen takes a look at iPhone insights on its users and usage.”

As of April 2009, Nielsen estimates that there are 6.4 million active iPhone users in the U.S., up from 2.1 million a year prior.

I thought this was particularly interesting about online video- 37% watch video on their phone (6x as likely as the typical subscriber) That’s why you should consider creating videos in your marketing mix, if you’re not already.Take a look at the chart below. Click here to read the full article, http://budurl.com/iPhoneVid

iPhone Users

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media

Many business owners and marketing executives ponder this question daily – Have you really seen ROI from Social Media?

I read this blog post and case study by talented author, Timothy Ferriss of The 4-Hour Workweek. By the way, this book is a great read, if you haven’t read it already. After I read his book, I was ready to run to Malta and Italy and run my business from the Amalfi Coast. Here’s a brief glimpse into his blog post so you get the idea of his educational non-profit campaign using Twitter – “Tweet to Beat.” Ferriss says, “The gist: To benefit U.S. public school students, I will bribe the entire world to follow me on Twitter for $3 each.”

“Social media marketing! Twitter consultancies! Conversational communications! Oh, these are exciting times. It seems like everyone and their grandma are getting into social media.
On a whole, I think this is a good thing, but here’s the problem: whenever technology becomes fashion, return-on-investment (ROI) tends to get lost in the excitement of the latest .com catwalk.
It’s going to help “the brand”? Show me data. It’s going to drive more “awareness”? Define it, isolate it, and translate it into a sales increase? In this post, we’ll look at some real numbers (total capital, conversions, redemptions, etc.) from my latest educational non-profit campaign, the Twitter-based Tweet to Beat, which was a follow-up to the blog and leaderboard-based LitLiberation campaign, which outraised Stephen Colbert 3-to-1 with no staff and no material hard costs…”
You can read the rest of his story about Social Media and ROI here.

If you’re struggling with all the new terms and tools and feeling a little stale with your marketing; attend my GET SMART Marketing Boot Camp this Friday, May 15th in San Francisco to jumpstart your social media marketing campaign. You’ll learnhow to cost-effectively improve your results in this 1-day semi-private interactive program. Guaranteed you’ll learn how to grow your business in new and profitable ways!
Learn more and SAVE $100 instantly with this special code– twit515 when you register for the Marketing Boot Camp.

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media, The Cocktail Napkin Marketing Plan™