Inbound Marketing and Technology Blog

This past Saturday was Small Business Saturday, a day created two years ago to accompany Black Friday and Cyber Monday urging Christmas shoppers to shop locally at Mom and Pop stores to bolster the local economies.

The weekend is only hours away and you know that means? That’s right, it’s time for The Friday 5: Five Headlines from Social Media, Inbound Marketing, SEO, and Web Design, keeping those who work for and with Lynton up to date with the latest news, trends and tips that affect us all.  You can get silly about the weekend after reading what’s in edition #6… 

Lady Gaga may rule on Twitter, but President Barack Obama earlier this week officially became Foursquare's most renowned user yet. Now, the rest of us will get to see where the most powerful man in the world visits with foreign leaders, speaks at town hall events, and, who knows, maybe he'll tell us where he goes on vacation. The White House has stated that it will utilize President Obama's Foursquare page to promote a current economic bus tour as well as future events. And with the 2012 Presidential election just over a year away, the White House will undoubtedly push campaign-related stops and get the President's message out. It's never too early to start campaigning, right?

HubSpot has always been great about helping its customers make the most of their online marketing experiences. Last week's free HubSpot webinar covered a topic vitally important to most small businesses out there: local marketing. Here are some of the takeaway points from that presentation and some tips on getting your own local marketing campaign up and running:

Year after year people vow to start their Christmas shopping early in order to avoid the chaos at the malls and more importantly, to avoid over spending on expensive, last minute gifts. To those that have already finished their shopping, congratulations! However, to all those that are still shopping, I have great news for you: you no longer have to let procrastination get the best of you.

Hundreds of businesses now offer discounts to consumers just for checking in on location-based services like Foursquare…and the deals have gotten hotter for the holidays. What do businesses get from it? Well, the idea is that users’ friends see that they’re checking in, giving the stores some exposure. That’s social promotion and advertising that you can’t buy!

If you are still unfamiliar with Foursquare, check out this intro from aboutfoursquare.com. Just make sure you don’t spend too much time reading because Christmas is right around the corner and there is plenty of shopping to do!

Everyone knows Walmart has been a powerful force in the retail industry. They were one of the first to adopt the UPC code, ultimately sparking global adoption. Today, you’d be surprised if you found something without a barcode of some sort. I am sure it is because of this clout that Walmart has been invited to lead several other initiatives including replacing UPCs with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and going organic.