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Create and Distribute Effective Online Coupons*

From Lynnea Bylund | Catalyst House

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*Source:  Darren Waddell | Mashable
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HOW TO: Create and Distribute Effective Online Coupons

Darren Waddell is Vice President of Marketing atMerchantCircle.com. He can be found on theMerchantCircle blog and on Twitter.

The age of the coupon is upon us. With historically high unemployment and uncertainty about the economy weighing heavily on consumer spending, the humble coupon has enjoyed a resurgence. Both the classic clip-and-save variety and new online options delivered via the web, e-mail, social networks, and mobile phones are popular among consumers.

Coupon redemption in the U.S. rose 10% in the fourth quarter of 2008 –- the first rise in coupon use since the early 1990s –- and total coupon redemption reached 3 billion in 2009, according to Inmar. What's more, the use of printable coupons, where people print online coupons and redeem them in stores, rose 308% in the first half of 2009, while 10 million digital coupons were redeemed during the same period, up 25% year-on-year.

Price sensitive consumers want deals, and smart local companies realize coupons are a great way to attract new customers and retain existing ones. Increasingly, local businesses are eager to use online coupons as a simple, cost-effective way to attract local customers. But while it's fairly easy to create a coupon online (more on this below) the bigger trick is making sure people find it. To ensure a small business coupon promotion reaches enough people in your local area, a well-planned distribution strategy is crucial.

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What is an Online Coupon?

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Before I jump in with some concrete tips on how to create, distribute, and track redemption of online coupons, let's take a step back and answer the seemingly simple question: What is an online coupon?

The truth is, an online coupon can mean many things: A small clickable banner on a homepage offering 10% off; a discount offered via e-mail, redeemable online, over the phone, or in-store; a printable coupon consumers bring into a merchant's store or office; or even a limited-time deal offered solely to a company's Twitterfollowers or Facebook fans. Whether or not you've used online coupons before, now is the time to test the waters. Some 80% of consumers say they would increase coupon use if relevant coupons were delivered online, according to recent research from Prospectiv.

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Create Your Online Coupon

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The first step in creating an online coupon is deciding on the level of discount you want to offer, and how long you want the promotion to run. Be clear and direct with the promotion: "10% off this week" or "Buy one get one free today only."

Next, you'll need to create your online coupon. There are many national coupon sites targeted at large consumer brands, likeCoupons.com and Redplum, but they aren't suited to smaller businesses. Small businesses need to reach a targeted, local audience with their promotions, so it makes more sense to create a coupon on a site like Craigslist or Local.com, which let local businesses create and distribute coupons with just a few clicks. You can also create a "coupon" by simply coming up with an offer to send out via e-mail.

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Distribute Your Online Coupon

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Once you've created a coupon offer, you need distribution. If your local business coupon isn't getting into the hands of local consumers, what's the point? Here are several free or inexpensive ways small businesses can distribute online coupons.

1. E-mail a coupon to your client list. Allow recipients to print the coupon and bring it into your store, or simply "mention" the promotion to receive the discount.

2. Blog about it. Even if you only have a few customers subscribing to your blog, posting deals will encourage recommendations and new subscribers.

3. Post your coupon on an online business directory site or social network that automatically distributes coupons to targeted audiences via a network of local sites and social channels, such as Facebook, Local.com, or Valpak.

4. Particularly if you are a service business, create a Craigslist posting in a relevant business or service category offering your discount. Even a simple text-only coupon works well.

>> CONTINUE READING AT MASHABLE


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Links: Main Website, ADMAX MAIN SITE, ADMAX PR  &  NEWS, Catalyst House, Lynnea Bylund's SBIU Newsletter,ADMAX Categories: Professional Services | News  &  Media | Publishing | Business to Business | Advertising | Communications  &  Media Tags: seo, sem, internet, marketing, business, 
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Top Five Tips for Success in 2010 from MerchantCircle

From Lynnea Bylund | Catalyst House

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Source: MerchantCircle Education Center

MerchantCircle's Top Five Tips for Success in 2010

1 - Update your status regularly

Frequently updating your status is a great way to communicate with customers and to market your business. To read more on how to use this feature, check out this community forum thread by Kathleen- A Tile Nation.

Read more about Updating Your Status

2 - Track your activity daily

Tracking your activity on your MerchantCircle listing page is key to understanding how many visitors/potential customers are visiting your page. Furthermore, it can also indicate that you might need to revisit your content to increase visits. Here is a great ‘How-to' from MerchantCircle on tracking visitors on your MC listing page. Check it out.

3 - How to invite members to your network

Networking on MerchantCircle is extremely valuable. Increasing your network not only allows you to network with other local businesses, but allows you to share and spread your coupons, sales and promotions across your MerchantCircle network. Bottom line - the more places your ads exists, the more potential for a customer to find your offers online. Make sure to build your network in 2010. Read more.

4 - Add content and do it often

Creating content like a blog, coupon or a weekly newsletter is more than simply communicating your marketing message - it's vital to the performance and traffic of your MerchantCircle listing page. In other words, the more relevant content you post about your business and the more you do it, the more traffic you will drive to your page. Read more.

5 - Stay active

The biggest mistake a merchant can make on MerchantCircle is not being active. To make MerchantCircle work for you you have to be active. Many merchants will simply claim their MerchantCircle listing, fill in a little bit of information and then disappear, never to be seen again.

MerchantCircle has been the online advertising solution for many small and local businesses across the U.S., but to drive traffic or potential customers to your page (which is what you want), you have to be found on the major search engines. We can help you with the hard parts, but you have to do your part by becoming an active member which includes: creating content (as mentioned in Tip 4), connecting with other merchants ( as mentioned in Tip 3) and finally, communicating with other merchants just like yourself in the Community Forums. The MerchantCircle Community Forums are a great resource to engage and trade marketing tips, sales strategies and much more with other local merchants.

Published 2009-12-17

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MerchantCircle Passes One Million Members!

From D. Marcus Keith | ADMAX Local Search Media

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Source:  MerchantCircle Blog

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MerchantCircle Grows to 1 Million Members!!!!

MerchantCircle Journal January 2010

From Kevin Leu - In June of 2006, MerchantCircle launched with 5,000 members, 8 employees, and bundles of optimism. Just three and a half years later, MerchantCircle is proud to announce the signing of our 1 millionth member! Danielle Biegler, owner of Nassau Avenue Nails in Islip, NY, is the lucky number 1,000,000. That's a lot of zeros! Danielle discovered MerchantCircle in her town of Islip after doing a search engine search for other businesses in her area.

"The website seemed pretty cool and I saw it was free to create a listing," said Danielle. "It was really easy-to-use. I built coupons, wrote a blog, and even got my husband to sign-up his business (MB Automotive inBayshore, NY) on MerchantCircle as well."

Currently, Danielle's marketing efforts consist of flyers and refrigerator magnets, which she places in car windshields and at fairs. She even tried out advertising in a local Penny Saver ad, which she spent $300 on. It returned zero results. After just a week of membership on MerchantCircle, Nassau Avenue Nails is already getting terrific exposure online. One of the big reasons for her early success is Danielle's use of all the tools MerchantCircle has to offer. She's built 3 coupons, written a blog, uploaded pictures, and answered several questions.

As the 1 millionth member, MerchantCircle is honoring Danielle with a free subscription to all of MerchantCircle'sonline marketing products, free MerchantCircle gear, and a new sign for her store!

"It makes me proud to say that we help great local business owners, like Danielle, find more customers online," said Ben T. Smith, IV, Chairman and CEO of MerchantCircle. "It's an honor to serve the 1 million local businesses who've joined our network to develop their web-presence for free. We look forward to adding another million members to network this year."

Danielle has some lofty goals – currently her shop is located in her house, but she hopes to have a retail location in two years. She's about 25% booked, but her goal is to be completely booked AND to hire another employee. After starting her business in August of 2009, Danielle has no shortage of courage and optimism. Sounds a little like a company that started in June of 2006... ;)

While much has changed in three and a half years, one thing remains the same: we'll do our best to make sure Danielle and all of our 1 million memberscontinue to be found by more local customers.

Thanks to all the passionate, hard-working local businesses who make MerchantCircle possible!

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Local Business Internet Marketing Changes as Google Maps Changes

From Lynnea Bylund | Catalyst House

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Guest Analysis by Randy Kirk | www.searchpage1.com 

Editor's note: This will be a continued thread discussion / Q&A; for the Google Maps  &  LBC

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Local Business Internet Marketing Changes as Google Changes the Rules Weekly

Google has changed the rules of the game at Google Maps Local Business Center (LBC) almost weekly for the last six weeks.  The changes at Google LBC have had a huge impact on small businesses, many of whom don't even realize why their phone stopped ringing.  If President Obama wants to know what is happening with the economy, he should ask his friends at Google to explain their plans for Google LBC.

Fellow MerchantCircle Marketing Advisor Randy Kirk, author of several business books including Running a 21st Century Business (Amazon), spends a huge part of every business day analyzing Google's plans and methods related to Google's LBC Maps.  As an Internet Marketing Consultant, his clients count on him to get them well positioned on the Maps.  Kirk is concerned that Google is dramatically affecting the overall business model for many small, local businesses.  

"The Google ten pack is now a seven pack, and might be headed to five.  What is a Google pack?  When you look up a business category such as bakery and add the city or zip code you are interested in to the search, you get a map near or at the top of the page.  To the right of this map will be listed from one to seven businesses who fall near that city or zip.  For many businesses, being on this list is critical to daily success.  For some like plumbers and other emergency services, being #1 on the Google Map is the holy grail." 

Kirk continues, "There used to be 10 businesses listed on a Google Map.  In October, Google lowered the number to seven to make room for future ads that they will sell in that space.  In one day, Google crushed the fortunes of 30% of small businesses in the US who used to be on the "outside" of this map, and were now relegated to the "inside" or only found after clicking on "more results" prompt."   It is believed that Google may be planning to reduce this further to five on the outside, further diminishing the number of businesses who are competitive in any given area.

Randy Kirk
Google's Local Business Center Maps do not always have even seven or five businesses listed.  Sometimes there is only one or two or three.  It is unclear to even the most dedicated followers and internet marketing consultants why this happens.  Using tax help Culver City, for example, results in only two listings.  

Kirk says that Google has made five other changes in the last 60 days that effect the ways that they deal with local businesses and their efforts to be seen on Google Search, and to be accessible on Google LBC Maps.  

It was little more than 60-days ago when ADMAX clients got hit hard by the LBC changes.  Many, perhaps 1 third, of the ADMAX LBC clients saw their Maps results tumble to oblivion.  We successfully restored them, or so we thought, only to see them collapse again.  This led to our first of several discoveries about how to optimize the LBC Maps Listings in the wake of the changes.

LBC Listing Insight #1 –

One of the things ADMAX found was that the clients' listings were being supplanted by fresh data feeds from ‘more credible' sources like InfoUSA.  Strange but true, Google Maps may trust a yellowpages database feed more than the apparent business owner.  In some cases the Maps visibility was restored by simply removing the new duplicate listing after first going through the steps to claim it.

But watch out – the correct way to remove it is NOT to remove it actually – that led us to more discovery – just to remove a duplicate Maps LBC listing is not the simple straightforward procedure of say removing a dupe MC site.  On the contrary – because multiple listings on GMaps may ‘conflate' (ie, parts of the listing data, fed from multiple sources and residing on multiple Google computers as well are mere parts of the whole) and to remove one may further undermine another, after a short renewed visibility.  

The key in this instance is to compare both and look for tell-tale signs as to which listing (if either) has the ‘authority'.  For example, is one of them receiving citations or data feed from third party sites like CitySearch or Angie's List or Superpages.com?  If so, THAT is the one you want.  And whatever you do… DON'T REMOVE THE OTHER ONE …

… this will be a continued thread discussion / Q&A for the Google Maps  &  LBC

See also -

Local Search Marketing Sea Change for Small Businesses w/ Mary Bowling

New Google Maps Dashboard w/ Analytics

Local Search Marketing for Small Businesses is Essential! w/ Randy Kirk

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Small Business Internet Marketing Tips

From Lynnea Bylund | Catalyst House

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Let Your Customers Know about MC Neighbors!

MerchantCircle Neighbors - MC's more recent launch of consumer social media - is proving to be very effective for reaching customers in "real time' as Kevin Leu explains.  LB

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Source: Kevin Leu | MerchantCircle

Benefits of Letting Your Customers Know About MerchantCircle Neighbors

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Local Search Marketing Sea Change for Small Businesses

From D. Marcus Keith | ADMAX Local Search Media

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Source:  Mary Bowling | ClickZ

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Maia Internet Consulting's Mary Bowling has written about the coming sea change for local search - precipitated by Google's Local Listing Maps.  Google Maps for local small businesses is very synergistic with MerchantCircle - get them both right and you will dominate the desired search results, like this one, for example (note the GMaps and the organic placement below the map) -  quickbooks bookkeeping dana point - below the classic 'one-box' position you will find bothe the Catalyst client's main website and two spots for the MerchantCircle listing... in a city that has 26 competing accounting firms, the client is in an enviable position.

There are 22+ factors that affect your Google Maps visibility.  

Do you know the most important half-dozen?

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What's the Future of Google's Local Search?

By Mary Bowling, ClickZ, Dec 17, 2009

Google is making a powerful push to become the undeniable leader in providing local business information to online searchers. In the past year, Google has made the greatest concentration of changes and testing regarding Google Maps since it first made its appearance in 2004 as Google Local, and the rate of change has accelerated greatly over the past three months.
I have absolutely no inside information from Google Maps. This is simply speculation based on five years of watching and listening to what goes on at Maps. Here are the highlights:

In February 2009, Google began testing what has since been dubbed as the K Pack, where the maps that appeared next to the 10 pack in the Web results began showing additional markers -- not just those for the businesses listed in the 10 pack but also for other nearby businesses that didn't make it into that enviable position. This is useful for searchers who may be more interested in a business' location than anything else. It's also good for all businesses listed in Google Maps, except for those that already appear in the local pack.

In April 2009, Google began showing the Local 10 Pack for searches that didn't include geo-modifiers. This sweeping change rattled the world of local search and clearly signaled Google's confidence in its ability to interpret local search intent.

In June 2009, Google instituted new Local Business Listing reports. These reports appeared only to those who claimed their listing and showed rudimentary data regarding impressions, Web site visits, requests for driving directions, and the terms used in searches for which their listing was seen. Tracking Local Search is a fractious puzzle and this addition allows Google to better show the value of a Maps listing to business owners, whether they have a Web site or not.

>>> CONTINUE READING AT CLICK-Z

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Small Business Internet Marketing Tips

From Lynnea Bylund | Catalyst House

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Small Business and Internet Marketing

Source: Art Gib | Internet Ezine

Many small businesses have been affected in a particularly hard way by the hard economy over the last year. Most small business do not have a large reserve in place that they can draw on when things get slow for long periods of time.  Because that is the case, they need to be even smarter about their marketing dollars so that they can get the largest return for the money spent. Small business online marketing is one of the areas that a lot of small business owners are just becoming aware of the possibilities.

According to Art Gib: While internet marketing can be a costly, it can also carry with it much better returns on investment after the initial efforts are made to have a presence on the web. It is a hard decision for small businesses to jump into online marketing, but that is a decision that has paid off for many small businesses when they do it right.

One of the ways that a small business online marketing campaign can be done correctly is to make sure that you a reputable firm that can demonstrate their successes with many other clients. It is also a good idea to ask for references and then to follow up on them and ask some tough questions. Make sure that they are getting positive results, not just that they are happy.

The approach to small business online marketing is a little different than that of a large business, but many things are the same. One of the first things that you will encounter in online marketing is keywords. Many internet marketing firms will do the keyword research for you, but they often will check with you to make sure that you are okay with the keywords. When this happens, make sure that you distinguish the keywords that will bring you traffic and the ones that will bring you a sell. You need both, but higher volume traffic keywords bring more traffic but a lot lower conversion rate while the longer keyword phrases that do not bring near as much traffic will bring you a much better conversion rate.

Another thing that you will need to do when working with a small business online marketing company is to be open to make the necessary changes. Demand that they find the most reasonable way to get all of the changes made. When asked to make changes, ask them if you will get a high return on your investment to make the changes. Some changes are good to make, but not make sense when you consider the money and time spent versus the return that change will bring versus leaving it the way it is.

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Organic SEO Rank Positively Impacts PPC Performance

From D. Marcus Keith | ADMAX Local Search Media

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Source:  NYU Stern | BusinessWire

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NEW YORK - (Business Wire) The presence of organic listings on a search engine positively impacts the click-through rates of paid search advertisements, and vice-versa, according to a new study by NYU Stern Professors Anindya Ghose and Sha Yang. This is the first empirical study to assess the impact of search engine advertising on all three entities involved in the process – consumers, advertisers and search engines – in the presence of both organic listings and paid advertisements.

Using a unique panel dataset of consumer responses to keyword ads on Google, Professors Ghose and Yang found:

• On average, the impact of organic listings on paid advertising is 3.5 times stronger than vice-versa, possibly because of the tendency of consumers to trust organic listings more than paid ads.  
• The positive association between paid and organic listings increases advertisers' profits by at least 6.15% when compared to profits in the absence of either of them. The positive association is strongest when advertiser-specific keywords are used and weakest when brand-specific and generic keywords are used.  
• Click-through rates, conversion rates and total revenues are higher when both paid and organic listings are present simultaneously than when paid search ads are absent.  
  
• The combined click-through rates are 5.1% higher when paid and organic listings are present simultaneously than when only the organic listings are present.  
  
• The combined conversion rate increases 11.7% when paid and organic listings are present simultaneously than when organic listings alone are present.  

Paid search advertising drives up to 54% of total revenue growth.

"These findings have important implications for the incentives of search engines to strategically modify the rankings of their organic search listings in order to boost their revenues from paid search advertisements," explained Professor Ghose.

The paper, "Analyzing the Relationship between Organic and Sponsored Search Advertising: Positive, Negative or Zero Interdependence?" is forthcoming in Marketing Science.

Professor Ghose is an expert in Web 2.0, user-generated content, online advertising and e-commerce, and Professor Yang's research focuses on understanding household purchase behavior and market competition.

To speak with Professor Ghose, contact him directly at 212-998-0807, aghose@stern.nyu.edu (e-mail is best); or contact Jenny Owen in NYU Stern's Office of Public Affairs at 212-998-0561, jenny.owen@stern.nyu.edu.

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BEYOND PPC - PAY-PER-CALL

From D. Marcus Keith | ADMAX Local Search Media

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Source:  Rich Rosen | searchengineland.com

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ADMAX is trying out the MerchantCircle LEADS program.  We've been assigned a reasonable amount of time and caller credits and we've assigned the delivery to one of our best clients.  This is sort of an acid test for the MC Leads program, as we've had prior successful and unsuccessful pay-per-call campaigns under management, so we know what metrics we are looking for.  We will keep you posted.

In the interim, Rich Rosen of FastCall411 explored the pay-per call issues, writing on Search Engine Land:  Although it's been around for years, pay-per-call advertising may be finally hitting its stride. Greg Sterling, a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land, recently wrote: "We've long known that calls are much more valuable than clicks to small businesses in particular, but also to many larger entities with call-center sales operations. However… it's taken PPCall much longer to get going than I originally anticipated."

Sterling sees pay-per-call growth in traditional media and mobile. He also notes that pay-per-call programs are now increasingly being used in print Yellow Page directories such as AT&T; which just announced pay-per-call programs via the YPmobile App for iPhone and iTouch . Merchant Circle also recently announced pay-per-acquisition pricing – including pay-per-call.

Five rules for every local merchant interested in pay-per-call pricing

Make a good first impression. If the first calls received from your campaign are wrong numbers look out. Despite best intentions, assigned numbers (necessary of course for pay-per-call), are never entirely clean. Before a number is assigned, your provider should be monitoring for wrong number calls.

Be selective. Pay-per-call can succeed for local advertisers focused on phone lead generation, but it may not be right for your business. Your business should not rely on walk-in traffic (retail); the cost of sale cannot be too low, or too high; and sales generally need to be closed every few calls (high sales to call ratio). You are an ideal pay-per-call advertising candidate if you have advertised in the yellow pages, newspapers, FSIs, Valpak or other mailers, radio or local TV. Business-to-business (B2B) advertisers or niche merchants are not typically good candidates for pay-per-call.

Be prepared to serve your callers. I founded my company on the premise that pay-per-call must benefit the consumer, merchant and publisher. Ten dollars per call may be a great deal for you, but your business needs to be properly staffed and trained to answer the phone. Without a connection to your helpful, available staff, the consumer is not served. If your business does not have the infrastructure to serve clients by phone, pay-per-call may not be for you.

Be able to close a sale or make an appointment by phone. I had a client—a direct mail publisher—whose advertiser complained that they did not make any sales as a result of the pay-per-call leads. We were recording the calls (with permission) for the client and discovered that the leads from the publisher were good, but the advertiser's staff couldn't sell.Calls prove return on advertising investment (ROI) even without pay-per-call pricing. If pay-per-call isn't right for your business, don't give up on the numerous benefits of tracking and routing calls.

>>>READ THE COMPLETE POST AT SEARCH ENGINE LAND


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U of Mass Study: Social Media in the Inc. 500

From Lynnea Bylund | Catalyst House

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Social Media in the Inc. 500: The First Longitudinal Study

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research recently conducted one of the first statistically significant, longitudinal studies on the usage of social media in corporations. 

The new study compares corporate adoption of social media between 2007 and 2008 by the Inc. 500, a list of the fastest-growing private U.S. companies compiled annually by Inc. Magazine. For details about the 2007 Inc. 500 and the complete directory of the included companies, please visit Inc. Magazine's website at www.Inc.com. 

In 2007 (using the 2006 Inc. 500 list), the first study of this group and their use of social media was released and revealed that the Inc. 500 was outpacing the more traditional Fortune 500 in their use of social media. For example, at that time, 8% of the Fortune 500 companies were blogging compared to 19% of the Inc. 500.

This study revisits the Inc. 500 approximately one year later (using the 2007 list) in the first longitudinal study on corporate use of these new technologies.   Given that previous research now shows that just 11.6% of the Fortune 500 currently having a public blog, it is astounding to see that 39% of the Inc. 500 are blogging. The addition of 3.6% more Fortune 500 companies to the blogosphere pales in comparison to the addition of 20% more of the Inc. 500 companies after the same time period.

Like the original, the new study is the result of a nationwide telephone survey of those companies named by Inc. Magazine to the Inc. 500 list under the direction of researchers Nora Ganim Barnes and Eric Mattson. All interviews took place in March and April of 2008.  Forty-two percent (209) of the Inc. 500 participated, making this research statistically valid at +/- 5%. 

Given this statistical significance, this research proves conclusively that social media has penetrated parts of the business world at a tremendous speed. It also indicates that corporate familiarity with and usage of social media within the Inc. 500 has nearly doubled in the past 12 months.
 
Executive Summary

In early 2007 the results of a groundbreaking study into the adoption of social media within the Inc. 500, an elite group of the fastest-growing companies within the United States, were released. As one of, if not the first studies of corporate social media adoption with statistical significance, it proved conclusively that social media was coming to the business world and sooner than many anticipated.  Now, approximately one year later, that same group was studied again in an effort to look at longitudinal change in the adoption of these digital communication tools.

The companies who responded were asked the same detailed questions concerning their familiarity with, usage of and measurement of social media. The survey used in the both the 2007 study and the 2008 study asks a range of questions with regard to six prominent social media (blogging, podcasting, online video, social networking&wikis;). Given the frequently uncertain definitions of these media, common understanding of each form was achieved by providing definitions from Wikipedia. 

Forty-two percent (209) of the Inc. 500 participated, making the new research statistically valid at +/- 5%. The original study was also statistically valid.

To begin, respondents were asked to rank their familiarity with each technology from "very familiar" to "very unfamiliar." The social media that was most familiar to the Inc. 500 in both studies is social networking with 42% of respondents claiming to be "very familiar with it" in 2007 and 57% in 2008.   However, as the graph below shows, across the board a significant percentage of the companies are "very familiar" with each of these technologies. In the 2007 study wikis were the least familiar to the Inc. 500, but in 2008 wikis jumped ahead of podcasting in familiarity. The bottom line is that the Inc. 500 continues to learn about social media at a very quick pace (see graph below).




From familiarity, the survey moved into the companies' actual usage of social media. The companies were asked in 2007 and again in 2008 if they were using the six social media discussed above and, if yes, for how long they had been using them. Again, the results are surprising.  While familiarity is related to adoption, even the least familiar media has 21% adoption (podcasting). All six forms of social media have enjoyed growth in the adoption of these tools with an amazing 77% of the Inc. 500 reporting use of at least some social media tool (see graph below).  




Not only is this widespread adoption being driven by strong familiarity but also from the recognized critical role of social media to a company's future success in today's online world. When queried on the importance of social media, 26% of respondents in 2007 felt that social media is "very important" to their business and marketing strategy.  That figure rose to 44% in approximately one year.  It is clear that this group of fast-growing companies considers the use of social media as a central part of its strategic plan. (see graph below).




From familiarity to usage to importance, social media is expanding rapidly within the Inc. 500. For the first time, growth in familiarity, adoption and importance to mission has been documented in a statistically significant, longitudinal study. If the Inc. 500 is embracing social media at this record pace, can the rest of corporate America be far behind?

A more thorough analysis of our research into social media adoption by the Inc. 500 will be published in several journals throughout 2008. To be added to our email distribution list so that you can stay abreast of our most recent research and writings, please email eric@ericmattson.com or nbarnes@umassd.edu.

About the Authors

Eric Mattson
Eric Mattson is the CEO of Financial Insite Inc., a Seattle-based boutique research firm focusing on technology innovation in finance and banking. He's also an independent social media scholar whose research has appeared in BusinessWeek, Inc. Magazine and a number of other publications. 

Prior to his current endeavors, Eric ran direct marketing, market research and marketing analytics for SanMar, one of the largest generic clothing wholesalers in the United States. Eric is a proud graduate of the University of Washington where he earned dual degrees in business administration and mathematics as a Washington Scholar.  He can be reached at eric@ericmattson.com.

Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph. D.  
Nora Ganim Barnes earned a Ph.D. in Consumer Behavior from the University of Connecticut and is a Chancellor Professor of Marketing and Director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.    

Nora has worked as a consultant for many national and international firms including the National Pharmaceutical Council, the National Court Reporters Association, and the Board of Inquiry of the British Parliament, Scotts Lawn Care Co, Distilled Spirits Council of the US and others. Working closely with businesses in the Northeast US, Nora and her students have provided marketing research assistance to over 200 small businesses.   Business Week, Inc. Magazine, Computer World and other business media as well as the Providence Journal, Boston Globe, Washington Post and NY Daily News have covered her work.

She has published over 125 articles in academic and professional journals and proceedings, has contributed chapters to books, and has been awarded numerous research grants. Her areas of expertise include Consumer Behavior (both online and offline) and Marketing Research. Her most recent work covers the use of social media by businesses, charities and higher education.  She has been named a Senior Research Fellow by the Society for New Communications Research.  Nora can be reached at nbarnes@umassd.edu.  


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