We are always keeping up on the social media industry, but the one thing that has stood out is how can you really make money with it? Interesting study out by social media management company Virtue, each Facebook fan is valued at $3.60. Those that are looking at utilizing social media need to be conscious of what the true value is of having these fans, and is it really worth the marketing effort to build your fans?

Here’s some interesting Facebook math:

So what this means is that the value of Facebook to companies can be enormous if built up correctly. Instead of thinking how many fans can I have on Facebook as just a competition thing, now maybe companies should start looking at the number of fans they have really equals revenue in their pockets.

One trend that I hope lasts and keeps catching on is “going green”! With more companies and people becoming aware of our plant earth and becoming eco-friendly reducing carbon footprints may be something everyone can participate in without making any additional effort.

The world’s 3rd largest sporting goods maker Puma (who is often recognized by there leaping cat/Puma logo) has announced that they will launch eco-friendly packaging next year. Taking the initiative into their own hands or feet in this case, they will be reducing their carbon footprint getting rid of the cardboard old fashioned shoe boxes. Puma’s shoes will be wrapped in reusable shoe bags with cardboard frames saving 8,500 tonnes of paper – weighing more than a combined total of 1,400 elephants!!! The change will also reduce water and energy used during the production process and transportation.

LeadPile does its part to reduce our carbon footprint by being a paperless company. Every little bit helps when saving the earth!

Twitter has exploded over the past few years, empowering news to travel at nearly lightening speed.  Over 50 million people post on Twitter per day right now!  But this big question has always been, what are their plans for a business model?  Well, the latest news is that companies will now be able to advertise on Twitter.  This plan for advertising will start with 10 companies including Starbucks, Virgin America and Best Buy.

The advertising program will be called Promoted Tweets.  The ad-matching and pricing formula for this advertising has not been announced yet, but preliminary discussions indicate a CPM pricing model.  As they continue, Twitter will likely seek other alternative ways to charge advertisers.

In the new Promoted Tweets program, when a company pays for a tweet, the promoted message will appear at the top of the results, regardless of the time it was written.  Promoted Tweets will also appear in the organic Twitter stream rather than on the side like other social networks promote.  Additionally, they will also be highlighted so that companies have the capability to respond if conversations turn negative.  It is still unclear how these promoted posts should appear, but it may be based on topics, geographic locations or shared interests.

Much more to come on the Twitter Promoted Tweets program, but affiliate marketers all over are likely “tweeting” about how to capture this audience even more with this new program!

Working in lead generation it is really important to know who your client is and who you are are trying to target. Unfortunately, what happens with many networks/agencies is that they are wrapped up in generating as many leads as they can, they are not focusing on who they are targeting. Knowing the consumer that you are targeting, does it really matter that you don’t know the ins and outs of what the consumer is you are marketing to? Many would say it is not totally important, but I feel knowing as much as you can about your target market/consumer can make or break the effectiveness of your marketing campaign.
APNews seems to agree. “The independent Marketing Tracking & Maximisation Specialist also found that Marketers around the world classify ad agencies into three groups: (1) the Result-Drivers who truly believe that the primary purpose of a campaign is to deliver the bottom line results of their clients, and do whatever they can for that (35%); (2) the Result-Pretenders who claim they believe in making campaigns that deliver results, but are internally not prepared to put in place the relevant systems and processes to do so (43%); and (3) the Dreamers who still live in old “Adland” (22%).” There were also 3 weaknesses identified in those that are not truly focusing on the actual result of their consumers:
1. The customer insight is not deep enough
2. Too award driven and not enough customer focused
3. Not effectively tracking to know what is working with each media campaign

Bottom line: know your customer and what advertising is working effectively. This applies to lead generation or any other marketing techniques where you are trying to target consumers.

For the first time in 18 months, the Dow Jones industrial average tipped the scale over 11,000 points on Friday and then closed at 10,997.35.  This is a 70 point improvement from yesterday’s trading and expectations are that it will close above 11,000 on Monday.

Housing prices seem to be stabilizing and mortgage rates are still low and with the Dow up nearly 68% since its closing low on March 9, 2009 and the NASDAQ up nearly 90%, it appears the fears of a double dip in the recession may be calming.

On the employment spectrum, unemployment is still at 9.7% and 33 states are out of money for unemployment insurance.  More than 200,000 Americans are waiting for the Senate to restore their extended unemployment insurance.  Approximately 11.2 million people are collecting unemployment insurance and the average length of collection time is 31.2 weeks.

A lot of things are still up in the air in regards to the economy, but overall, it seems things are looking up.  We’ll see how this 2nd quarter pans out with the stock markets, housing market and housing.

Have you ever been confused on how to pull your credit report or you thought it was going to be free and it turned out to have fees associated with it? Well if so, you were not alone.

A new law being put into place this week will require all web sites listing or advertising “free reports” direct consumers to the government approved site www.annualcreditreport.com – all TV and radio ads must comply with this as well beginning September 1, 2010.

Everyone is entitled to 1 free copy of their credit report each year from each of the credit reporting agencies ( Equifax, Experian and TransUnion )… So with no cost involved you can receive 3 copies per year! If you have been a victim of identity fraud you are eligible to receive additional copies.

Banks, debt collectors, landlords or those with “valid” interest are the only ones who may pull your credit report. Prospective employers wanting to pull credit must obtain written consent prior to pulling a report. Credit reports sent to employers do not include a date of birth or name of spouses on joint account – this is to restrict discrimination based on age or marital status.

Your credit is your own responsibility to maintain and watch! Take advantage of pulling your 3 reports a year and be aware of you credit background.

We all know that there are a lot of states in our nation that have some sort of payday legislation, however how many of the laws that have been implemented in these states really created a better situation for the consumers? Consumers have limited resources on getting short term loans, so why does this industry continue to be put under a microscope?
To make matters worse (or better), many critics in the payday loan industry are now focusing their efforts on our nation’s banks. For example, The Minnesota Independent is reporting that many banks are offering advancements on their paychecks. In normal circumstances this sort of “advance” would not be in question, however banks are being able to avoid the scrutiny AND payday legislation that the payday lenders are unfortunately having to face.
So should our nations banks be able to provide “temporary” loans based on a consumer’s paycheck without the same regulations as payday lenders? These loans are very much needed by the consumers, so if the banks are even providing them, why should they not be treated the same just because they “sugar coat” what they call them?

The United States Appeals Court presiding over the District of Columbia has dealt a serious blow to the F.C.C. and small- and medium-sized Internet businesses this morning by vacating the Commission’s sanction against Comcast with regards to Network Neutrality regulations.

Network Neutrality regulations stipulated that carriers were forbidden from discriminating between certain types of traffic and customers, effectively requiring service providers to treat all traffic equally. Now that the Court has ruled that the F.C.C. lacks authority to impose such regulations, the market for Internet services could change dramatically over the course of the next several years barring congressional action.

Many analysts had feared that, were the Court to reach this decision, customers both on the business and consumer side may be forced to pay extra if they want to access certain websites or services much like current tiered cable plans. This could bode poorly for many businesses that rely on fast and cheap access so that they may provide customers with a positive end-user experience. Businesses that serve streaming video and audio content as well as those who host large files are likely to see impending changes should the ruling stand.

Starbucks is revamping it’s image to something other than your morning or afternoon stop for a caffeine fix. In Seattle, the Starbucks Corporation has opened a Roy’s Street Coffee & Tea & 15th Avenue Coffee & Tea. The new cafés were created as a challenge to break away from the mold.

According to msnbc.com it is speculated that the two new cafés were designed to separate Starbucks apart from others and back to the top of the market with so much competition facing its lattes and frappuccinos. The company also debuted a small number of test cafés last summer with a new store design focusing on energy savings and being “green”.

It is not predicted that Starbucks will convert it’s other stores to this atmosphere or start serving alcohol any time soon….However, this might be a good thing – walking downstairs to get your caffeine in the afternoon, it might be just a little to tempting to replace that triple shot frappuccino with a nice glass of red wine!!

For many of you that work in the debt vertical, you probably struggle with it like we do with being able to convert the leads. Consumers have debt, and submit requests online to get the help, but for some reason after they submit the request for help, they do not answer their phone. Knowing this, Leadpile has teamed up with a company to provide live transfer debt leads to our buyers.
How it works:
Inbound call from the consumer – looking for a debt solution
We pre-qualify the consumer by asking them about their unsecured
debt amount, and state location
We take the calls and ask their name, unsecured debt amount & if
they would like to be transferred immediately to a debt specialist
Once the consumer has confirmed all of the information, they are
transfered to you

Note: Leads are all pre-qualified by US based call centers.

If this is something that you would be interested in, please let us know and we can begin testing immediately.

April 1st is known as a great day for practical jokes, and it’s not just for friends and family anymore! When you go to “Google” something today, you might be surprised to see the name “Topeka” in place of normally seen Google name.

Topeka, a city in Kansas nick named the “top city” has recently announced that it will be changing its name to Google – to recognize this, Google decided to change its name to Topeka. According to Google Topeka, the word Topeka is derived from a term used by the Kansa and Ioway tribes to refer to “a good place to dig for potatoes”. Google Topeka is one of the web’s top places to dig for information.

To be clear that everyone understands how to speak “Topeka” the following proper usage guide has been provide:

Happy April Fool’s Day! If you have to think twice about something today… Be careful, it might be a trick!