WHO WANTS A FREE $25 WAL-MART GIFT CARD, AND WHY AM I GIVING IT AWAY?

We all know that we’re in the midst of some pretty tough times right now. But tough times call for tough measures, and it forces us to get creative. I have had an idea brewing that I think will lighten the load for everyone during this so-called “recession”, and I think it will be a load of fun getting it started!

As we struggle during this stagnant downtrend, people are now looking for the best deals and breaks in the local market economy. At the same time, businesses are making an extra effort to connect with people in the local community on a grassroots level. I’ve got an idea that will help people find the best deals in our local area, which will also help business owners connect with and serve their local customers better. And all the while, if this works just right, we’ll be able to give away things like Wal-Mart gift cards and gas cards in a monthly or weekly drawing for all of the registered participants!

Here’s how it will work…

To get the attention of the local business owners, and to motivate them to give US better deals, we all need to stand together strong and united. When we speak as a group, we can get things done. I’ve created a private email list where people in the local community can register their names, addresses, and email addresses. It’s important to gather the address information to show the local businesses that these are really their local customers, and not just random people across the country. The email list will be owned and maintained by me, and will not be shared with anyone outside of the group for any reason whatsoever. The only people who will see the information will be the local member businesses, to verify that we are who we say we are.

Next, I will have a monthly or weekly drawing for free shopping cards. This will be done on my new web page. What will happen is that we will end up with a highly targeted amount of local traffic to our member web site, and this will attract local advertisers. Member businesses will be able to “sponsor” a spot on the giveaway page, which will fund the free cards. But they will also have to provide some special deal or discount to the members of the email list exclusively, that nobody else has access to. That will be our sole advantage!

On a monthly or weekly basis, a name (or names) will be drawn from a hat from numbers assigned to each member when they get on the membership email list. That person will receive a giveaway card! As long as people remain on our special email list, they will be in the drawing for the free cards. All they have to do is check in every week to see who has won. And the winners will be displayed on the webpage in a picture or short video!

This will be a load of fun, and thus far I’ve had a lot of people who have said they’d be interested in getting free Wal-Mart gift cards or gas cards. I did a survey, and the Wal-Mart card idea edged out the gas cards by 60% to 40%, but I still think it will be a good idea to try a gas card every now-and-then.

What will make this work the best will depend on people telling their friends and family in the local community. The more people are on this list, the more businesses will take us seriously and offer us better deals. My goal is to get 50 people on the list the first day it goes live, and then build it to several thousand people. So when the site goes live, pass the word and increase your chances of winning a free gift card! The more participants, the hotter the site will be. The hotter the site, the more the local advertisers will want to sponsor a spot on the page. The more businesses sponsorships we get, the more free cards will go to the members in the drawings!

So that’s the long and short of it. I don’t know what the official site name will be, but for now I’m hosting the signup page on one of my own domains. If you want to get a head-start and get on the list, go to the Local Jefferson City Giveaway Page by clicking the link right now!

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I wanted to lern y’ins how to dig a garden. This instruckshunal video should teech ya cleerly how to do so.

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Part 2 of the “Wood Chopin” special, this video teaches the proper fire litin’ techniques as presented by Carlton Flowers, expert wood cutter and fire starter.

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Here’s another short family video (more coming soon) of me and my son Scott. He’s the oldest of the 4. We were out in Holts Summit at the farm I grew up on, cutting wood for the outdoor furnace that heats my parents’ house. You can see the old farm house in the background that we first lived in before we built the house I grew up in. But anyhow, this is how you take care of business… “Country Style!”

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I’ve got to share this little family video with you. It was my wife’s 42nd birthday today, and we celebrated by going out to eat at her favorite dining spot in town, “Ria’s”. About a week ago, while she was busy with Parent-Teacher Conference time, me and the little ones (Christian & Sydney) kidnapped one of her many pigs from the mantle (also known as the “Pig Shrine”) to take it into town for a little project. We visited my cake artist friend Kelly, so she could take pictures and study the pig to make a Piggy cake!

As you can see in the video, the Piggy cake turned out exceptionally well. I didn’t expect it to look as much like the porcelain version as it did. Kelly did a spectacular job on it, as she usually does, and it was a big hit with the family. We enjoyed the dinner, and had “pork chops” for dessert! It was a great birthday for my wife, and I just had to share it with you!

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This year, I made a resolution to get back into shape. I had a few people ask me how the fitness trek was coming along. I will admit that it has been slow, and I am sorely out of shape. But I am at least doing a minimal amount of exercise each and every day. This video is my update for all who wanted to know how I am doing and how much weight I have lost. Enjoy the video, and post your comments about your favorite healthy weightloss tips and ideas!

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WHILE THE ECONOMY IS STUCK IN THE DITCHES, THE NICHES BRING ON THE RICHES

We are now in the throwes of an all-out recession. Just a year ago today, most of the prognosticators wouldn’t dare make mention of the “R” word, as they so skittishly named it. A few months later, they said “a recession is possible”. By summer of 2008, there were still a handful of mixed nuts denying the existence of the downturn, but by now, we can all finally agree that this is the worst recession since the Great Depression.

While all of our attention is focused on the latest unemployment reports, the most recent multi-gagillion-dollar corporation that is on the brink of total implosion, or the impossible size of the “bail-out” bill, there are niches thriving right under our noses.

Imagine if you would a vast plain, with flat lands as far as the eyes can see. Your eyes can see all the way to the horizon of what appears to be a solid, undisturbed topography of dirt and tumbleweed. But imagine that hiding within this vast flat expanse are great faults, or cracks in the earth’s crust. Picture in your mind that you are travelling across this flat plane and then you come upon a crevass that is 50′ wide that you did not see while you were a significant distance away from it. But now, you come upon this great crevass, and you look down, and observe that it goes one mile deep into the ground.

Well, the stale economy, or recession, is represented by the flat plains. The abundant niche markets that the majority of the population doesn’t know about are represented by the deep crevass within the plain. These very niche markets are hidden amongst us, and are tremendously deep with opportunity. When you discover one of these market niches, you are just as shocked and awed as if you had walked upon that great crevass in the middle of the plane.

I have discovered a handful of niches that are like endless springs of “black gold”, pumping out millions of dollars right smack in the middle of the sour economy. I have also discovered that people actually have somewhat of a scientific approach to researching and digging up these hot, hidden niche markets. There is definitely something to be said about it all.

As I learn more and uncover new fertile niche markets, I will be reporting about them on the blog site. I would also encourage others to share their knowledge of new niche markets that they may discover in the coming months. If all goes well, I would like to publish a guide that gives a step-by-step process of not only researching and exposing niche markets, but exploiting them for monetary gain.

For now, I’ll share with you a few common traits that seem to be standard with some of the best hidden niche markets.

1. Niche markets are fueled by people that are over-emotional about a good, service, or subject matter. Their emotion drives their desire so high, that spending money to satisfy their desire is not an issue.

2. Some niche markets exist due to chronic health issues, where traditional medicine does not offer clear answers or remedies.

3. Aging seems to be fueling the “nostalgia” niches. People will do whatever they can to re-invoke the feelings they had of being young.

4. Some niche markets are perpetuated by people who want to feel “part of” something, which is fueled by the human desire to fit in.

On part 2 of this blog post, I will expose 3 actual niche markets that have rigorous spending activities right this very moment. Until then, you better stay tuned and start researching niche markets!

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INTERNET SALES SET TO GROW 14% IN 2009

With the recession looming and financial institutions nursing their wounds, can you believe that internet sales will actually GROW by 14% in 2009? Yes, it is true. Right smack dab in the middle of the worst recession our country has ever seen, spending will increase on the web.

Experts (other than myself) are predicting a total market share of $141 billion for web-based retail sales & service this coming year. This is mind-numbing. I tend to believe the prognosticators who are making this rather bold prediction. As people tighten their wallets, the general tendency is to find bargains any way possible. What better way is there to find the lowest prices and highest value other than the internet?

I’ve been saying for quite some time that we will be seeing two major shifts in the local business world. The first will be the impact upon traditional media advertising due to the meteoric rise in social media site usage. The second will be the stampede of local business owners and professionals rushing to get connected to the majority of local residents who are using the social media sites on a daily basis. Critical mass will occur once the first local business owner reports tangible gains utilizing social media for marketing purposes.

This brings me to the question in the title of this post. Local business owners and professionals, when it comes to advertising and marketing investment, where’s YOUR wallet? (forgive me, Capital One, I had to use your snappy catch phrase to make this point!)

Right now, the overwhelming majority of local business owners are keeping their advertising bucks in stonehenge media (my pet name for the age-old media venues). However, while the status quo continues pouding their hard-earned dollars into stonehegne media, a select few are going to flank their business sectors on the battlefield for customers and launch a surprise attack with social media marketing. Smart business owners will start to balance their advertising dollars between stonehenge media and online social media. If you don’t believe it, just watch what happens in 2009 and call me in a few months so I can tell you “I TOLD YOU SO!”

There will be a large percentage of local business owners and professionals in due time who will wise up and want to make the investment in social media, but many will be completely clueless on how to go about doing so. When the time comes, Mr. & Mrs. Local Entrepreneur, you better be looking up Carlton Flowers in the Yellow Pages and making a fast phone call for help.

Carlton Flowers, Social Media Expert

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Blogging for SERP Results & SEO

If you are blogging or writing articles to gain SERP rankings (that stands for “search engine page” ranking), there are some great sites that I have been using that will get you maximum results. I would recommend using a combination of 2 or 3 of these sites at a time for each new article that you post to your blog. You will notice a jump in your page rankings if you use these sites, and you will also gain exposure. It’s an all-around good idea to start posting your relevant articles
on sites like these.

Here are my three favorite sites to post articles on, and a brief description and web address to get you started on your way:

1. Hubpages (www.hubpages.com)

This site is made up of articles submitted by participants which are called “hubs”. When you post an article on your area of expertise, Hubpages will actually score your submission based on how unique and relevant it is. It will later adjust the score based on how much traffic you pull on that particular hub.

You can add things to your article to increase the effectiveness like pictures, keywords, and links. You are allowed to link to your blog site or professional web page for further information.

I have been testing Hubpages for about 2 months now. About 5 articles that I have written have an average number of “hits” or page views of about 10 to 15. However, one article that I wrote has nearly 500 hits within the shortest period of time. Since then, I have updated the article with additional information, and this has increase both the traffic and the overall Hub score.

Hubpages will generate humongous traffic on Google if you dig up the right hot topic. Try to find topics of general relevant information that relates to your business or service that you provide. If you keep the articles interesting and chock-full of good content, you will drive more traffic to your site and build trust among your readers. Be careful not to post pure affiliate offers as your hub will be removed.

2. Squidoo (www.squidoo.com)

Squidoo is very similar to Hubpages. But instead of a “hub”, you post a “lens”. The same rules basically apply. Like Hubpages, Squidoo is apparently hot when it comes to Google ranking. Articles get indexed rapidly, and will generate traffic just about overnight. Squidoo has more advertisements and distracting stuff than most of the article submission sites, but due to the power of their Google ranking, it is worth using.

3. Utterli (www.utterli.com)

Utterli is a social network. It is similar to Twitter, but far more robust. You have no limit on the number of characters you write on a post. Also, you can upload a picture, a graphic, or a video with each post. Something else that is quite unique is the ability to either call in to the Utterli phone number and record an utter, or use a microphone to record an utter and upload to the site. I haven’t found a site with an easier ability to add multimedia. Lastly, you can tag your posts with good keywords.

I use Utterli just to test out the strength of certain keywords, and the effectiveness of certain graphics. Utterli includes a page counter for all posts. I think it is based on page views and not unique visitors, but it is still useful (this means that each time you refresh the page, you will increase the page counter one time on all of your posts). I generally will divide the number by ten to get a more realistic number of hits to that post. Plus, you can compare how many hits one post gets over another when you change up the keywords. It is very useful for that reason alone.

Many people don’t realize this, but Utterli is one of the hottest Google-ranking social media sites on the web. They don’t “no-follow” their links. That basically means that whatever you type in your posts and the keywords that you add to each post can be found by search engines outside of the site. I have had the most rapid results from using certain keywords with Utterli than any other site. One night, I was able to hit page 1 on Google for two keywords and the name of my local city within 2 hours flat. That is fast!

Give these three sites a try and let me know what kind of results you get. I think you will be as amazed as I have been when you use them correctly.  Next week, I will write another article on three more hot social media article submission sites that are smashing up the search engines!

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THE MID-MISSOURI SOCIAL MEDIA WATCH TURNS FOCUS TO COLUMBIA

I’ve been writing about the impending social media tsunami that is about to hit local businesses. As many of my fellow experts predict, it will be 6 to 18 months before we see the changing of the guard of local business advertising strategy. But while we wait, let’s turn our focus to the college town of Columbia, Missouri. Does anyone realize the huge untapped goldmine sitting before us for this special town?

The City of Columbia is special. It’s a college town. We have Mizzou, Columbia College, and Stephens College that make up a large portion of the population and culture of the area. Take into consideration the fact that the students of these institutions make up the largest participating percentage in social media websites of any generation, and then think about the enormous size of the pot of gold left untouched by local businesses as such. There is a huge open door of opportunity for all the local businesses in Columbia to dominate and capitalize on the social media route to connecting with its potential young customers.

Until today, I had not thought about the special mix of people in Columbia, and the obvious opportunity it presents for social media marketing. I really think that the impending marketing shift is going to be stronger in Columbia than anywhere else in the state of Missouri, largely due to the student population.

It will be interesting to see which law firms, clubs, restaurants, clothing retailers, or grocery stores make it to the “top-of-mind” pinnacle before their competitors wake up and realize what is happening. In the meantime, the social media prognosticators and consultants like myself will be quietly standing by waiting for the first clients to come by screaming for help!

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