You hear so much about how the economy is down…

and sales are down…

and traffic, profits, life, work is down, that it’s almost a culture shock to see local small business not just making it, but kicking butt, in your area.

I mean, everyone is broke, but people I know for a fact aren’t well off have iPads.

There’s supposedly no money in circulation, right? But Starbucks is packed every time I go.

We’ll come back to all that in a minute. One thing I want to make clear – this isn’t an isolated incident. I’m not offering this as mockery to people who have lost their jobs or had to let people go, due to the rocky economic climate.

I’m offering this as hope that perhaps, the way we need to measure what’s successful in our country is changing. I’m offering this out as hope, hope that it’s not just one business that can do something like this to make a hard time a thriving time.

Hope that we can ALL make it.

In fact, I have four examples I’ll be focusing on this week in this and other blogs:

1. The Dominican Hair Salons
2. Cindy’s Karaoke
3. Annie’s Art Gallery, and
4. Fish Market Restaurant

Before you think “this isn’t for me” event marketing works whether your business operates online, offline or both.

In this audio I’ll be discussing:

• What Event Marketing Is
• Why It Works
• Examples of Successful Event Marketing Implementation

Can’t see the player? Download here.
Coming up soon:

• Examples of Event Marketing succeeding online
• Tips on How to Create a Must-Attend Event
• Marketing Your Event Offline
• Marketing Your Event Online

Here’s the gist of the audio, not even close to being a transcript – but this should give you enough information to decide if you want to take five minutes to listen to it.

In it, I discuss:

• the top reasons I started podcasting again
• why I’m using AudioBoo specifically
• how CoachIyabo inspired me to use AudioBoo
• why I would take 35 audio or video podcast subscribers over 10,000 people browsing my site, any day.

Download here if you can’t see the player.

It is with my most why-isn’t-this-on-TechCrunch-already enthusiasm that I present a behind the scenes look at the Customer Service via Twitter Toolkit that I’ve been raving about, most commonly known as Hy.Ly.

(That’s pronouced Highly, I was corrected, by none other than the CEO. Not HEE-lee, which is what I called it about half the time during the video.)

I actually use it as my main Twitter client now – it’s an incredible bundle of Twitter tools for the small business or solopreneur set.

More notes after the video, which you can view on Screencast if you’re getting this via syndication. The video is also embeddable if you want to share it with your audience.

A YouTube version is forthcoming- at 19 minutes, I’d have to cut off the introduction to make it short enough.

Important Notes;

• Intended use is for Customer Service via Twitter.

And works very well for that – I especially love that you can backchannel and plug it into your CRM software.

Works quite nicely as a Twitter Client, too.

• Eliminates the use for about five other sites I use for Twitter research

I’d name them but I don’t want to be a meanie.

• Has a database, and keeps a history of the things you want to save from Twitter going back to the time you registered.

(I think a neat paid feature would be to have it grab all the data from the time you registered for Twitter.

I imagine it would take some time to grab your timeline back that far but if it was possible, even through Google to organize and store all that information? Man.)

• Here’s the link to the Follow Friday Tweetshow I made

I’m making another that better showcases the people I want to suggest be followed.

• Here’s a link to the Free Traffic Chat Tweetshow @shashib of Network Solutions made

< brag > Yes, I was the featured guest. < /brag >

• Invite code to sign up: Tinu

Sign up now. I don’t know when it expires, or when it does, how much it will cost for you to sign up when that happens.

I’m specifically talking about branding right now. But this could be any aspect of small business – customer service, marketing, social media, newsletters, meetings…

And I believe the answer is, it only matters what you call it if what you’re doing doesn’t match what you’re saying that you’re doing. For example, you can’t call it customer service if you’re listening but not responding.

Actually let’s tangent onto that. I have an experience to share. One of my affiliates had over 257 sales over the 36 hours.

(That’s what I get for offering 100% commission on a page that converts at 17%. LOL, just kidding. Why I’m deliriously happy about paying out on that is a discussion for another day.)

Anyway, the point is, about 4 emails an hour came in with customer support questions or issues. They were mostly three issues – not getting one of the three confirmation emails with the download, not seeing that the videos were in one of the delivered files, or they had a compliment/question.

Now, when you’re handling an uptick in emails at that rate, you can certainly fall back on the excuse that you’re swamped, especially if you’re doing it yourself. Put it in an autoresponder and you’re covered for a little bit. Most people will be understanding.

Or you can deliver the best possible service you can, and give such a great customer service experience that will leave a memorable impression.

You can send three delivery confirmations instead of one.

You can offer a second way to get the videos.

You can call people on the phone to make sure they got what they needed.

You can send an extra message wishing them a good day when they confirm that they were helped.

It just takes a little extra to make a big difference.

For another example, let’s look at branding. That’s what made me write this article today.

I was reading Do People Really Want a Relationship with a Brand?

Here’s a quote:

In human-land, we don’t have relationships with brands; we have expectations of them.

My Mazda is in the shop right now. And while I don’t think of having a “relationship” with Mazda – my car’s brand – I definitely have expectations of what Mazda as a whole brand should be doing for me.

And in a sense, the article is right.

I don’t want my roofer to spoon me. I expect my friggin roof fixed. Now. Properly the first time. Not cheaply but certainly at a good price.

But that’s still a relationship.

People want relationships with people, of course — and yet, the whole idea of relationships with brands is that these are subconscious connections. No one could care less about a company selling some stuff. But people have died for their passions and hobbies.

Who sells the equipment to enhance their passions? Who creates the material for their hobbies? Companies.

For evidence of brand relationships, watch the documentary “The Corporation” [ official site trailer | full movie on Hulu].

Now, I don’t believe corporations are evil, but skip forward to the part about branding. People describe companies like Coca-Cola with *personalities*. It’s scary that branding is that deeply entrenched, but it’s also interesting that it’s at that level.

I *do* believe smaller companies need to focus on  connecting human to human though – that’s our strength.

You can call it relationship marketing, branding, or hickory-dickory-dock but we need to do it if we want to distinguish ourselves from the next guy. Expectations come from relationships. So do being receptive, responsive and respectful.

Intriguing topic for an article and warrants a lot of discussion. Be sure to read the entire article. The larger topic of the site is talking about branding in human terms, which Is very important to businesses of all sizes.

I hope you had the greatest 4th of July ever, whether you celebrate Independence Day stateside, or if it was just another Sunday.

Yes, here in the USA, we celebrate Independence Day. People talk a lot about freedom and independence. It would take me a lot of detail and back story to tell you why the last time I truly felt free was so long ago. But why I feel independent?

That’s easy. I own my own company.

I don’t just “work for myself” – no dis to the self-employed, as I once counted myself among your ranks. But in many ways, my business is growing beyond that, slowly and steady as she goes. And while I’m personally far, far from being a millionaire, I do know that given full possession of my faculties, a way to communicate and basic survival needs taken care of, I could build another company tomorrow from scratch.

And whether you just enjoy my blog or have all my products, I have you to thank for that. So thank you.

That feeling of knowing I can shape my own destiny, win or fail, is what Independence means to me as an entrepreneur. I’d love to hear what it means to you.

Facebook may not have been built with marketing in mind, although the four choices under “looking for” on your Info tab are Friendship, Dating, A Relationship and Networking.

However, if you choose to take that invitation to network, you still have to be careful about the way you market yourself.

I could do a whole article on staying within Facebook’s terms and conditions alone. For now though, I’m going to focus on the subtleties of networking online, particularly Marketing in Facebook.

If you think about when you go to an event to network, you behave a certain way- even if the point of the gathering is networking, you don’t open with your business card.

People would think you were a lunatic if you came to the event dressed inappropriately, and ran in circles around the room, throwing a handful of your business cards at each person’s face.

Yet, somehow the perception is that this kind of behavoir is not just accepted, but welcomed online.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m no purist.

Far be it from me to say “don’t network” or “never try and make some money”, even on Facebook. I say take business where ever it comes.

It has just been my experience that in a networking environment, online or off, you get more of your products sold and services ordered, if you forego the hard sell.

The Age of the Hard Sell is over now, anyway. It’s the Age of the Educated Consumer, who has dozens, sometimes even hundreds of choices about where to shop, not to mention sources of information about you or your company.

We sell more by serving better.

To take the discussion back to networking, this is why we tend to be buy from the well-dressed person who cares and offered their help. We should be asking ourselves – what’s the equivalent online?

I’ll answer that question another time. In the next post, we’ll go over some common marketing mistakes here on Facebook.

In the previous post about Money Funnels, I connected lists and traffic.

In the preceding audio post, I showed one way that they work together – you can leverage targeted traffic to continue to bring you new people that will sign up to your list.

Now I want to go one level deeper and show you the connection between lists and traffic in your business.

Whether you own a bakery, an affiliate marketing business, or a high traffic blog that depends solely on advertising for revenue, your contact list is the lifeblood of your ongoing success. The reason? It is through your opt-in contact list that you are freed from the shackles of constantly generating new business to survive.

The reason that so many marketers and successful business owners will tell you that your money is in your list is that once you have a list of contacts, especially past buyers, you can market to them again and again, as long as you have their permission. Since previous buyers are much more likely to buy again, and they are 90% cheaper to market to, you have a low cost audience that you can make sales from again and again.

This doesn’t mean you can get your list to a certain size and stop looking for new visitors. Indeed, the key to having a flourishing business is to have a balance between new business and old business.

You see, as your present contact list ages, the people on it will change. They will have different experiences, be at different places in their lives, financially or otherwise, and their needs change as well. For example, let’s say you make and sell boxes to businesses.

Over the next year, some of the new businesses will fail and close, which will affect your business. Other older businesses will expand or be acquired, leading to more business. Still others may change their packaging from boxes to bags. Then there are the new businesses being formed every day which need your services.

For all those reasons and more, your list has to continue to grow and evolve.

How does that happen? New traffic.

The job of your new traffic is to generate new leads that will hopefully sign up to be contacted repeatedly, make an initial purchase, then become repeat clients. New business should be where your growth comes from, not your foundation.

Why not?

Well, let’s say you had the same small business. But instead of creating a list of people who need to place new orders for boxes each month, every time you needed a new lead, you used 9 times the resources to create new business. Of course, that money has to come from somewhere. No matter what kind of profit you are turning, if you have to spend nine times as much on generating new leads, you’re spending a lot more money, more than you have to, indeed.

Not only that, you have less money for staff, to take home, for other expenses like computer equipment and office space. The fewer resources and higher the expenses, the slower your growth.

And since you don’t have the revenue stream of repeat business here, you’re also attempting to run your business with no idea of how much you’ll make the following month.

That’s not a business. That’s a really expensive hobby.

You need both lists and traffic to run a successful business, online or off.

As we’ve discussed recently, there’s a lot of confusion around the issue of social media and getting a return on one’s time and social investment, to the point that some people think social media for business is ineffective.

If you’ve been thinking that lately, think about how happy you’d be if social media helped you get into your target market’s path through Google. According to a recent announcement by Google, social media may now be able to help you in ways you hadn’t ever dared to dream.

Everyone knows that social media can already help you with search in 3 ways, the first being the own 1, lease 9 method of making your mark on all of the top ten results, which I discussed in Traffic Reality about 4 years ago in great detail. The second, of course, is in getting links to your site from social media profiles or voting submissions, the third that popular submissions get rapid link boosts from multiple sources.

In October, Google started an experiment called Google Social Search, which you could opt in to, in order to see information from what Google is calling your social circle, in your search results.  Last Wednesday, they also rolled out Google Social Search Results to anyone who is logged into a Google account when they search.

What could that mean to you?

Well, if you’ve been cultivating a social presence in Twitter, for example, and become connected to 1000 people, all those people, and  their connections, will be added to your social circle, from which Google will pull extra search listings to be integrated into the current set when a user is logged in.

Of course, when you start to think that even though Google has a dominant market share, even if a full 25% of them have a Google account and are logged in, you might think that doesn’t give you much of a boost.

That’s not necessarily true. You have to look at three factors: first, are you the only person in your niche that the person searching is connected to?

If you’ve been building your social network for quality from potential clients and customers rather than only quantity, where you just follow peers, auto-follow friends and existing friends so they’ll follow you back, the answer is, probably.

Second, personal suggestions are stronger than what any search engine says. Being found in search helps dramatically. But when it comes down to the tie-breaker, folks buy from folks they know.

Third, it’s not just the people you’re connected to, it’s the people THEY are connected to as well. If you look at the video below,  it says towards the end that the people your friends are connected to are included in your extended social circle.

Well, that means you’re included in the friends of your friends as well.

How many people could that be if you have 1000 Twitter friends who have 1000 Twitter friends?

Add in the recent changes to Google Reader, the move to Google Caffeine, even Google Friend connect starts to look extremely relevant, as Chris Lang alluded to this past summer.

Of course, this can be blown out of proportion – social media is important, as is search, to traffic generation. But they are each one tool in a well rounded strategy. It’s folly to lean on any singular method to get traffic to a site to the exclusion of all others, because if your strategy fails or its effectiveness changes over time, you’re putting your entire business at risk.

So keep in mind as you strategize that you still have regular search engine optimization to contend with – your primary Google traffic focus ought to be the people who are not logged into Google, as they are the majority.

Remember also though that even they have live updates from social sites like Twitter, streamed into results.  So, like it or not, ignoring social media or denying its influence is to do so at the peril of your own business. And hyper-targeted traffic to a smaller audience is still more money in your pocket at the end of the day. Keep it all in perspective is my only warning.

If you’re not already seeing a return on your investment in social media through better links, higher traffic, and viral spread of your messages, now is the time to fix whatever is wrong with your social media traffic strategy.

In upcoming posts, we’ll be discussing more about Google’s Social Moves and what you need to do in order for your business to maximize your social media returns across the board.

A sound social media strategy is already critical for you to gain or keep your edge over competition. Now it’s factoring into search strategy as well. Search is now social. Get ready.

There are several basic low-budget and no-budget ways that websites and web publications can get reasonably expect to more exposure in 2010.

While the objective remains the same – get in your prospects email, search, news or related favorite online hangouts – the methods by which you’ll be achieving those objectives shift from year to year.

1. Leverage Business Relationships
2. Create Affiliate-Powered or Referral-Powered Promotions with Incentives
3. Get Ranked Well in Google and Yahoo/Bing
4. Leverage Other minor Google/Yahoo properties for better search and direct traffic
5. Get Regular Exposure in Google News
6. Build Great Blogger Relationships (whether or not you’re presently a blogger)
7. Get Click Traffic from Twitter, Ping.Fm, and other more topical status update tools, or more audience-focused  micro-blogging applications
8. Get Click Traffic, Article Views and Build Relationships Both Within and Around Facebook and other Social Networking Applications
9. Get Publicity in Other Major Publications and Mid-Level Industry Publications
10. Create a Video Following
11. Create a Podcast Following
12. Shift Towards Bizstreaming (without dropping Blogging)
13. Integrate document sharing, slidecasting, and other multi-media social sharing tools
14. Find or Found Appropriate Community Networks that integrate online tools with offline life
15. Tighten-up In-house interest lists, follow-up, intro offers and backend sale
16. Value-exchanges for attention, based in social currency on the social media sites that are built for content exposure, such as StumbleUpon
17. Economically-sound Advertising

Throughout January we’ll be dedicating anywhere from a couple of days to an  entire week on all of these topics, then we’ll come back and re-cap with a round-up and links to more resources.

Until then, the one thing you need to remember about traffic is the same thing as before: the game hasn’t changed – the tools are just getting better.

Maybe you’re not an “online person”.

Perhaps the only time you use your computer is to read your email, search for something on the Web, read the news, or see pictures and other updates from friends and family.

It would make sense then, if you don’t really “get” how the web is supposed to help you sell more of your products and services.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter if you are a vitamin wholesaler, provide language translation services, sell timeshare resales, or write books, your clients and customers are online. If you can intercept them while they’re there, in a way that adds to the quality of their lives, rather than intruding upon it, you’ll be light years ahead of your competition.

Because there’s another truth. Most companies either go from quick fix to quick fix, never really getting anywhere or find leads and customers haphazardly, with no real system, hoping for the best. And it’s sad because the resolution is pretty simple.

Pinpoint what your target market is doing online. Then get in their path. Instead of fighting the uphill battle of getting visitors to come to you in some kind of vacuum, go to them.

You’re probably thinking, well whoop-de-doo for you, Ms. Has-it-figured-out. How exactly do I do that?

Of course I can’t provide all the answers to that in one day, but let’s think about it for a minute. Where are your customers online? Better yet, how do I get to them, or get them to come to me? We’re going to come back and answer that more specifically momentarily.

First, let’s look at the question in general terms.

According to the US Census Bureau, three out of five households are online, now that’s just in the United States, and translates to 110 million households. About half of those have high speed internet access. Think about how your business would suffer if you turned away business from 60% of your clients. If you’re not making your presence felt online, that may be what you’re doing.

Or think of it this way – what if 60% of your customers referred you one more paying customer this month? What is the math on that for you?

If you count wireless, the market is even bigger than that. Half of Americans have accessed the web using a wireless device such as their cell phone. And if you’re talking about awareness and occasional use, 77% of US Adults have used the internet. There’s no way you can say your customers aren’t online anymore. Somewhere in that 77% is someone who would like to do business with you.

Let’s go beyond that a little. What are people doing online, and how often are they doing this? This is important because this will illuminate how exactly we can come across your specific customers and clients.

If you think that most people are not “online people” get ready to be shocked. 73% of Americans use the internet on a daily basis. The same study tell us:

* 58% of internet users are reading or sending email,
* 50% are using search,
* 38% are getting news,
* 38% are online just to pass the time or for fun, and,
* 27% are using social networking sites.

(Of course some people are doing more than one of those things, so the numbers aren’t going to add up to 100%)

Those first four activities are the top four actions people take online, email, search, news and leisure. And although social networking is fairly new as a mainstream activity online, more than one in four people are using them. Now, if 73% of Americans use the internet, and most of them do one of the top three activities, then obviously, you need to be where that’s happening.

Your customers should be getting periodic emails from you. Your site should be showing up in search. Your company should be making news, online and off. And if your newsletter or website can help them pass the time when they are bored, in a way that’s related to your products and services all the better. If it can’t, it can certainly contribute content to the social networking sites where they might be spending those idle moments.

Let’s get back to your specific site now. How do you narrow those people down to folks who are interested in what you specifically have to offer?

The initial step here would be making sure there’s a market for what you have to offer. Search for the problem your product is the solution to, and find out if people care enough to pay for that solution, then that they can afford to do so. There’s a lot of people who are looking for jobs at any given time, recession or not.

All of those people aren’t willing or able to pay for resume services or for job seeking advice. If your solution has a price tag on it, target the people who see the value in paying for information they may find freely online. Make sure you remind them what that benefit is.

Can an expert give them more precise advice? Do you have a track record of matching jobs to people? Would the time wasted looking for the information possibly cost them the open position?

Now, once you find where the pain in your market is, even if you aren’t planning on relying on search engine traffic, the insight you can gain from doing simple keyword research is invaluable. keyword research can tell you who is searching, what context people are discussing products like yours in, who your top competitors are, and most importantly, give you an intelligent estimate of how large the market is for your solution.

Many is the entrepreneur who is shocked to find that upon discovering the perfect solution, and marketing to the perfect market, that there just aren’t enough of those people in the niche they’ve chosen to make a living from month to month. Armed with this information, it’s easy enough to expand a product line into nearby niches, but if you don’t know this, you might spend months attempting to gain traffic that just isn’t available.

Once this research is over, it’s time to attack on all fronts. Make sure you are reaching them in all the ways discussed. Start with one primary way to gain customers, like advertising, then add ways to make money from existing customers, like a new product. It’s simple enough to find your customers online if you know what they’re doing and where you need to be to be connected to them. Then all you need is a system for keeping the visitors coming to you consistently.

Each week, we’re going to start having a round-up post that explores some of the best-of  information from other sites our team reads. This week,  we’re putting the spotlight on conversations about what to look forward to in 2010.

Many different predictions for the future are made but how many will actually come to fruition? Who knows.

We have had several highs and lows in the current year. It’s time to look forward to next year.

Social Media Experts Make Their Predictions for Trends in 2010

“Businesses finally integrating social media and seeing an actual ROI, and a shrinking/customization of the online world…Some businesses already have a social media policy… but according to the Internet luminaries consulted for the report, we can expect a lot more engagement with online communities in the coming year.”

While the Iron is Hot

“People are slowing down to turn their thoughts to family and to their own development, and to what worked and what didn’t in 2009…The choice I’ve made is to strike while the iron is hot. I’m working now because we’re seeing results. I’m working now because I’m at the top of my game, and so I have a lot to share with companies who want to use social media tools as part of their business communications and marketing efforts.”

Predictions for the Groundswell in 2010 — Twitter gets serious or gets bought

“If there is one overarching theme, it’s that social technology is now a mainstream part of what marketers do…Either Twitter will have a business generating $100 million at an annualized rate by the end of 2010, or it’s going to get bought by the likes of Google, Facebook, or Microsoft.”

The Ghost of Christmas Future

“While social media is helping shoppers avoid in person holiday sales and still get a great deal, it’s not all about buying the gifts, which is on a strong surge. With the true spirit of the giving season, the act of giving, social media is making an appearance to make giving front and center.”

Ten trends that will matter to every company in 2010

“I don’t know what it is about the final work weeks of the year but it’s the time when people throw 50 weeks’ worth of caution to the wind and make predictions.”

12 Social Media New Year’s Resolutions For 2010

“As you may know, there is no right answer in social media; each company is different, but each of these points can be adjusted for any company. Hopefully this will work as a guide on how to create a better social media presence in 2010!

SocialMedia.com: What We Learned in Social Advertising in 2009

“Right now the SocialMedia.com team is chugging full-steam ahead on developing the first social-advertising platform for publishers. But to continue to make killer social ads in the future, it was important for us to reflect on what happened in social advertising in 2009 and identify the most important lessons that we learned.”