FORGET RSS, THIS MIGHT BE A SIMPLER SOLUTION

If you're not quite sure what an RSS feed is, you might not have to learn thanks to Alltop. Alltop is an online magazine rack of popular topics. They update stories every hour. Pick a topic by searching news, name, etc. and they'll deliver it to you 24/7. Check it out and let me know what you think.

INTERESTING TWIST TO DIRECT MAIL...MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE TOO...

So, imagine sending your direct snail-mail piece but rather than using a stamp, you use Zumbox. Zumbox delivers paperless mail online – from street address to street address. What used to only be sent as paper mail can now be sent without the paper. How? Zumbox has created a nationwide paperless postal system with a Zumbox for every street address in the U.S., including yours.

THERE ARE TIMES WHEN YOU DON'T WANT TO LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS

This is an interesting article on why Facebook doesn't listen to its customers, and it won't start now. The article has some good lessons for all businesses. Click here to read about it.

GREAT NEW ASP TO PROMOTE YOURSELF IN E-MAIL

Glooq is an interesting new product that allows you to create banner ads and place them into your e-mail in order to promote yourself or product.

GREAT SOCIAL MEDIA BUSINESS SUCCESS STORY

Take a traditional taco truck, make a unique recipe and add a dose of social media marketing and, voila! you have a successful business.

Launched last fall, Kogi Korean BBQ takes the taste of Korean barbecue and melds it with the portability of Mexican tacos and burritos for a whole new category of delectable food.

PLENTY OF GOOD MARKETING IDEAS FOR DOWN ECONOMY...

FedEx came up with a great P/R idea...help the unemployed by offering free resume printing. What a great idea...it shows good will, it gets press coverage, and it's low cost. From a marketing perspective, what's not to love!

If you're interested, click here to see some of the coverage.

"RETARGETING..."WHAT IS IT?

Have you ever noticed during your daily peruse through the Internet that you often see the same company's banner ads over and over again? Well I have, and it was freaking me out—in a good way...from a marketing perspective that is. It's called, "Retargeting" and it's a way of maximising your online ad dollars by targeting individuals who've already visited your site.

Look at it this way...you're in the market for a new pair of hiking boots and you hit the REI website, but then you get distracted and move onto something else. If REI is using a "retargeting" service like, "Fetchback" then for the next week or more you will start seeing advertisements from REI on many of the sites (with ad serving) you visit...some of the ads will be very targeted like promoting "hiking boots," which will prompt your memory that you were in need of a new pair and forgot to finish your purchase.

DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE BY INCREASING BLOG VISIBILITY

From an online marketing perspective, your job is to drive traffic to your site...how do you do this? Well, there are many ways, however we're only going to talk about one here. If you don't currently have a blog, I encourage you to create one and link it up to your site...having extra relevant content about your product or service is very helpful in driving traffic. Blogger and WordPress are the two most popular blog services, both have simple and advanced applications. WordPress has more options and is more scalable than Blogger, but Blogger is very user-friendly for the beginner and they're owned by Google, so your content is indexed quickly. Check out both and decide which is best for your needs.

Once you set up your blog, it's important to get people to read it. Beyond telling all of your friends, colleagues and customers, here are 20 good ways to increase your visibility that I came across.

FACEBOOK HAS 53 MILLION USERS, ARE YOU TAPPING THEM?

Facebook is adding 250k users every day and have over 53m active users. Have you been sitting on the sidelines with respect to social media? Well, here is a great link that will walk you through setting up a Facebook business page step-by-step. Click here.

LINK TO SPECIFIC PART OF A YOUTUBE VIDEO

Ever want to show someone something specific in a YouTube video—and so you tell them exactly what Min./Sec. into the video the information is? Well, if you include the following information at the end of any YouTube link you can make it very simple for them. Here is an example...this is a video with Eric Schmidt (Googgle) at a conference, here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjDw3azfZWI#t. Now, if I wanted to send you to a specific spot in the video I would add: "=31m08s" (without the "quotes") to the end of the url, which would take the viewer 31 min. and 8 seconds into the clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjDw3azfZWI#t=31m08s

CREATIVE BILLBOARD IDEA

Here is a creative billboard idea for Crowne Plaza in Tokyo.

HOW-TO: GROW YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORK

We've all heard the expression "it's not what you know, but who you know." In social media, who you know or who knows you, can certainly make all the difference. That's why figuring out who to connect with and taking the time to build relationships with these people is key to leveraging the power of social media. Read this great "how-to" guide by Interactive Insights group to learn more.