Making Money Marketing

Scott Gerber is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, public speaker and author of Never Get a “Real” Job: How to Dump Your Boss, Build a Business and Not Go Broke. The content for this post was sourced from the Young Entrepreneur Council, a group of successful Gen Y business owners. You can submit your questions to this group on NeverGetaRealJob.com.

Today’s reality is that your business needs to be on social media, but the mere existence of your business on sites like Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook and Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter doesn’t guarantee a single sale, or even a single referral. In order for businesses to succeed in the social media space, they need to be properly educated on what works and what doesn’t. More importantly, business owners need to have realistic goals about what they’ll get out of social media.

When the right tools are used effectively with the right motives in mind, social media can have a huge impact on small business marketing and customer service efforts. You just have to understand how to properly determine and assess the return on investment you’re looking for.

I asked a panel of successful Gen Y entrepreneurs how small businesses can go about getting the most out of their social media marketing and how they can convert more of their existing social media followers into paying customers. Here are their responses.

1. Experiment With Social Networks

“Facebook and Twitter shouldn’t be used as marketing platforms, but rather one-to-one direct communications mediums with customers, potential customers, journalists, and other stakeholders. As the population of Twitter increases, and people start following thousands of other people, your message gets lost. Facebook’s news feed algorithm stops marketers from using their Fan Page as a loudspeaker because fans that aren’t engaged won’t see their content anyway.”

- Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding, LLC

2. Quality, Not Quantity

“Social media is first and foremost about building relationships. It takes time and consistent effort to see any meaningful results, but the time and effort you spend are worth it in the long run – if you do it right. While it’s great to have a large following on Twitter and Facebook, the value of your followers list is all about quality, not quantity. Think of it like this: if you had an ice cream shop and a thousand people a day walked through the door, but 950 of those were lactose intolerant, your high foot traffic wouldn’t be making you much money. To convert your social media followers into paying customers, remember ‘WIIFM’ (What’s In It For ME). In other words, you have to give your followers a reason to want to do business with you, and that reason has to be a benefit to them. Contests are one great way to engage followers, and if you tie them in with your business and give [a prize] that means something to your target audience, you can see results fairly quickly.”

- Adam Toren, co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com

3. Lead Your Followers Down the Purchasing Path

“Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale once you’ve developed trust and a relationship with a prospective customer. Use your Facebook Fan Page and Twitter account to ask people to take the next step, whether it’s calling you up for a quote or proposal, downloading a whitepaper, or signing up for a trial account. Repeat your call to action regularly, with lots of useful content, information and trust building in between your requests.”

- Matt Mickiewicz, founder of 99designs

4. Engagement = Consumers

“If I could talk to you right now, I’d ask, ‘What exactly are you selling?’ While the principles remain the same, social media is best leveraged by tweaking it slightly to suit the industry. There is also a misconception that social media leads to customers. It doesn’t. Social media is a great way to engage with your audience and turn them into consumers. Think about it this way – you have to attract and then convert. Social media is helping you attract the audience and build your community. But, there are two types of conversions. The first is the more common one where someone becomes your consumer. They sign up for your newsletter, subscribe to your blog, or just plain ‘Like’ your Facebook Fan Page. They’ve taken the first step! Over time, the right ones becomes paying customers. This is the second type of conversion — the paying customer. Use social media to attract consumers, and then turn them into customers over time. Remember, social media is an important but small part of overall online marketing.”

- Shama Kabani, president of The Marketing Zen Group

5. Use Social Media to Make Friends, Not Leads

“Next time someone friends you or replies to you, don’t just say ‘thanks for following,’ or worse, don’t just count them as just another number or dollar sign. Take two minutes and actually look at who this real person is on the other side of the computer and ask how you can help them in an authentic way. Provide them value and become a trusted friend and this relationship building will convert into sales and evangelism for your company.”

- Matt Wilson, co-founder of Under30CEO.com

6. Give Them Something To Talk About

“The key to converting followers to customers is offering them something that they need, or identifying a pain that they are having that you can solve. You’ve done the hard part by finding followers and fans. Once you have followers and fans, it’s just a matter of finding out what value you can provide to them. If they are unwilling to buy from you then it means they are either not truly fans or followers (just happened to accept your request), or that you have not uncovered their pain points to provide a solution. An example with our company is that we had tons of fans and followers of our brand, but not everyone needed junk removal. So we surveyed them to find out what services we could provide to them and learned that moving was one that they needed more often.”

- Nick Friedman, co-founder and president of College Hunks Hauling Junk

7. Numbers Aren’t Everything

“To gain paying customers you’ll need to focus on attracting the right followers, and not just on attracting the most. Communicate often with useful information to increase your value, and focus on pitching your product in a genuine way. Make sure you have a professional web presence, and with any luck, you should start noticing your efforts pay off.”

- David Rusenko, founder of Weebly

8. Monetize Other Channels

“The hype around social media doesn’t necessarily translate into sales — in fact, it rarely does. Unfortunately, few people will tell you this because they’re busy hyping the next big thing. For example, I get more than a thousand times the financial ROI from my boring old e-mail list than from my Twitter followers. Now, if your goal is engagement or long-term bonding, social media can be a good play. But if your goal is direct revenue, I would focus on other channels that you can track and measure, such as online advertising and e-mail marketing.”

- Ramit Sethi, New York Times best-selling author, I Will Teach You To Be Rich

9. Show Followers What They’re Missing

“You have to show them what they are missing out on and how your business can be helpful and provide a sense of enjoyment to them as well. Truly engage with them, get to know them, show them your personality and make them want to be a part of what you’re doing. Show them why they can’t live without you and be creative with it.”

- Ashley Bodi, co-founder of Business Beware

10. Remember “Top-Of-Mind-Awareness”

“I would recommend giving limited-time, special opportunities that have a strong call to action to your social media community rather than just simply pointing them to your website. Another way we’ve gotten a return on our social media is posting video testimonials that our clients give us for our fan and personal pages. This builds credibility in prospects’ minds by showing that we’re busy and that we do good work. It also keeps us in top-of-mind awareness. We’ve had prospects call us often and mention that they just saw a post and thought of us.”

- Michael Simmons, co-founder of The Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour

11. Go Freemium to Build Premium

“Building up fans and followers isn’t enough — you need to engage with them in substantial ways and introduce them to your product in a way that gets them wanting more. As a thought exercise, you might want to ask yourself what aspect of your product you can offer to your social media community for free. If you provide real value, for free, then show them ways they can spend just a little bit of money to get an exponential boost in value — the next tier of your product offering — you may start seeing greater conversions (and return on the initial investment it took to build that community in the first place).”

- Jordan Goldman, founder of Unigo

12. Foster Genuine Interactions

“First, you may want to rethink how you are viewing social media. If you’re looking for an immediate pop in revenue, you’re likely to give up quickly on social media and completely miss the larger opportunity it provides. Of course the broader goal of all marketing is to generate sales; however, if you show up on Facebook and Twitter simply to promote your product or service it is likely you’ll be ignored. Social media is about genuine interaction and building relationships. By fostering relationships, social media becomes an incredibly powerful tool. Provide interesting content that will generate buzz, provide helpful hints and unique discounts that are only available on Facebook or Twitter. Customers will appreciate the ability to participate in a dialogue directly with your brand and these interactions will show up on customers’ news feeds. The resulting brand exposure and word-of-mouth will ultimately pay dividends in the form of new customers.”

- Anderson Schoenrock, co-founder of ScanDigital

What other advice would you give small business owners about getting their social media plans on track? Let us know your tips and advice in the comments section.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- What to Consider When Building an In-House Social Media Team/> - 5 Tips for Marketing Online to an International Audience/> - What’s the Value in a Brand Name?/> - 5 Big Brands That Are Rocking the Social Media Space/> - 9 iPhone Apps for Managing the Recruiting Process

Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, alexsl

For more Business coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Businessclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Business channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Group buying site Groupon is growing so fast that its “deals of the day” are attracting the attention of big brand names like the Gap. One small business owner believes this growth is making Groupon “greedy,” so much so that it chose not to honor a signed contract because the agreed upon margins were too small. This is his story.

In January, small business owner Gregroy Yonke used Groupon to run a Featured Deal that gave buyers half off his Phoenix, Arizona Entrees to Go guided cooking sessions. Yonke couldn’t have been more pleased with the results — Groupon delivered new customers who became repeat customers, he says.

After taking the summer to explore working with a bevy of new Groupon clones, Yonke got a call from Groupon indicating that the company was interested in having him run another Featured Deal. And so, Yonke put off his other marketing plans for another go-around with Groupon, because in his mind, “Groupon is bigger than all the others combined.”

Talks progressed and eventually the terms of the new deal were decided. On September 7, Groupon e-mailed Yonke a merchant agreement and asked him to reply to the e-mail with “agree” in the subject line. Yonke did so on September 14, believing this meant there was now a contract in place guaranteeing him another Featured Deal within four to six weeks’ time. That time frame had been discussed in the e-mail exchanges, but was not, in fact, included in the agreement.

Then, on October 11, Yonke was notified that his deal had passed through the “vetting” stage, meaning it had been approved for scheduling. Yonke was anxious to view and approve the deal copy, but his Groupon representative wrote to inform him that the deal would be prepared after it had been scheduled.

This is when things started to go awry. On October 19, Yonke e-mailed his rep to once again press to find out the date on which his deal would run. Here’s the response he received, with confidential information redacted:

“After further deliberation, we have decided that we are not going to be moving forward with the rate confirmation for Entrees to Go. After running the numbers, we don’t feel it is the right move for us at this time. I appreciate your interest in running again, and unfortunately, we were not able to make it work on our end for a second feature. I wish you the best moving forward.”

Astonished, Yonke e-mailed back asking, “On what basis are you making this decision?”

Groupon’s response was as follows:

“With the margin in place, we will be at a loss running this feature. It simply is not in the best interest of Groupon to run Entrees to Go at this time. Per the rate confirmation, Section 1.3, ‘Groupon will offer the Vouchers for sale on dates in its discretion.’ We are choosing, with all due respect, not to move forward at this time. I appreciate your patience and apologize that it doesn’t work at this time.”

In a conversation with class='blippr-nobr'>Mashableclass="blippr-nobr">Mashable, Yonke explained that he was quite taken aback by the response because he believed that there was a legal contract in place guaranteeing him a Featured Deal for Entrees to Go.

Yonke also shared that at one point Groupon pressured him to “sweeten the deal,” which he agreed to do, but only if Groupon agreed to take the same dollar amount — i.e. not the same percentage of sales — as agreed to in the initial deal. Groupon, however, wanted the same percentage, and that was just something “I couldn’t afford to do … I was already losing money on the other deal,” he said.

Earlier today, Yonke was again contacted by Groupon, but this time offering him a Personalized Deal, and not a Featured Deal. Personalized Deals are only sent out to select, more targeted, audiences in the Groupon subscriber base, but Yonke was only interested in the Featured Deal, which would have gone out to all of Phoenix.

For Yonke, this Groupon Deal represented the entirety of his marketing strategy, and it was the only way in which he was planning to attract new business at the Entrees to Go store he co-owns with his wife Dorothy.

Yonke believes he was overlooked because of the small stature of his business. He points to the fact that the Featured Deal running in Phoenix today is for Coldwater Creek, a national retailer with a much more prominent brand name. He says, “I get it … they can do a Featured Deal for the Gap and make $11 million in one day.”

The jilted small business owner reached out to Mashable to share his experience primarily because his marketing plans for bringing in end-of-year business have been stymied. He’s currently offering the deal through the FAQ portion of his own website, but admittedly does not have reach to a large audience.

Given Groupon’s immense growth this year, it follows that the startup will have disgruntled customers from time to time — and we’ve seen this before. While Mashable has confirmed the legitimacy of the e-mail communications between Yonke and Groupon, we caution the reader to remember that this is just one small business owner’s story.

Still, we felt this story to be of particular interest because it suggests that Groupon is shifting the focus of the Featured Deals away from the small business owners they once catered to. The smaller businesses, instead, seem to be destined for relegation to its Personalized Deals product or the do-it-yourself Groupon Stores.

Prior to publishing, Mashable reached out to Groupon for comment, and we’re told the company is now looking into the matter. We’ll update this post when there’s an official statement from the company.

For more Social Media coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Social Mediaclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Social Media channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

eric seiger

Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee .. Horse Tracks!

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/13 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning everyone. NJ Chiefs Fan is having some internet troubles so Arrowheadlines is coming from me today. Enjoy (four hours late)....

CBS <b>News</b>: Obama&#39;s G-20 Performance an &#39;Embarrassing Disappointment <b>...</b>

The Blaze is a news, information and opinion site brought to you by Glenn Beck and a dedicated team of writers, journalists & video producers. Our goal is to post, report and analyze stories of interest on a wide range of topics from ...

eric seiger

Scott Gerber is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, public speaker and author of Never Get a “Real” Job: How to Dump Your Boss, Build a Business and Not Go Broke. The content for this post was sourced from the Young Entrepreneur Council, a group of successful Gen Y business owners. You can submit your questions to this group on NeverGetaRealJob.com.

Today’s reality is that your business needs to be on social media, but the mere existence of your business on sites like Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook and Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter doesn’t guarantee a single sale, or even a single referral. In order for businesses to succeed in the social media space, they need to be properly educated on what works and what doesn’t. More importantly, business owners need to have realistic goals about what they’ll get out of social media.

When the right tools are used effectively with the right motives in mind, social media can have a huge impact on small business marketing and customer service efforts. You just have to understand how to properly determine and assess the return on investment you’re looking for.

I asked a panel of successful Gen Y entrepreneurs how small businesses can go about getting the most out of their social media marketing and how they can convert more of their existing social media followers into paying customers. Here are their responses.

1. Experiment With Social Networks

“Facebook and Twitter shouldn’t be used as marketing platforms, but rather one-to-one direct communications mediums with customers, potential customers, journalists, and other stakeholders. As the population of Twitter increases, and people start following thousands of other people, your message gets lost. Facebook’s news feed algorithm stops marketers from using their Fan Page as a loudspeaker because fans that aren’t engaged won’t see their content anyway.”

- Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding, LLC

2. Quality, Not Quantity

“Social media is first and foremost about building relationships. It takes time and consistent effort to see any meaningful results, but the time and effort you spend are worth it in the long run – if you do it right. While it’s great to have a large following on Twitter and Facebook, the value of your followers list is all about quality, not quantity. Think of it like this: if you had an ice cream shop and a thousand people a day walked through the door, but 950 of those were lactose intolerant, your high foot traffic wouldn’t be making you much money. To convert your social media followers into paying customers, remember ‘WIIFM’ (What’s In It For ME). In other words, you have to give your followers a reason to want to do business with you, and that reason has to be a benefit to them. Contests are one great way to engage followers, and if you tie them in with your business and give [a prize] that means something to your target audience, you can see results fairly quickly.”

- Adam Toren, co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com

3. Lead Your Followers Down the Purchasing Path

“Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale once you’ve developed trust and a relationship with a prospective customer. Use your Facebook Fan Page and Twitter account to ask people to take the next step, whether it’s calling you up for a quote or proposal, downloading a whitepaper, or signing up for a trial account. Repeat your call to action regularly, with lots of useful content, information and trust building in between your requests.”

- Matt Mickiewicz, founder of 99designs

4. Engagement = Consumers

“If I could talk to you right now, I’d ask, ‘What exactly are you selling?’ While the principles remain the same, social media is best leveraged by tweaking it slightly to suit the industry. There is also a misconception that social media leads to customers. It doesn’t. Social media is a great way to engage with your audience and turn them into consumers. Think about it this way – you have to attract and then convert. Social media is helping you attract the audience and build your community. But, there are two types of conversions. The first is the more common one where someone becomes your consumer. They sign up for your newsletter, subscribe to your blog, or just plain ‘Like’ your Facebook Fan Page. They’ve taken the first step! Over time, the right ones becomes paying customers. This is the second type of conversion — the paying customer. Use social media to attract consumers, and then turn them into customers over time. Remember, social media is an important but small part of overall online marketing.”

- Shama Kabani, president of The Marketing Zen Group

5. Use Social Media to Make Friends, Not Leads

“Next time someone friends you or replies to you, don’t just say ‘thanks for following,’ or worse, don’t just count them as just another number or dollar sign. Take two minutes and actually look at who this real person is on the other side of the computer and ask how you can help them in an authentic way. Provide them value and become a trusted friend and this relationship building will convert into sales and evangelism for your company.”

- Matt Wilson, co-founder of Under30CEO.com

6. Give Them Something To Talk About

“The key to converting followers to customers is offering them something that they need, or identifying a pain that they are having that you can solve. You’ve done the hard part by finding followers and fans. Once you have followers and fans, it’s just a matter of finding out what value you can provide to them. If they are unwilling to buy from you then it means they are either not truly fans or followers (just happened to accept your request), or that you have not uncovered their pain points to provide a solution. An example with our company is that we had tons of fans and followers of our brand, but not everyone needed junk removal. So we surveyed them to find out what services we could provide to them and learned that moving was one that they needed more often.”

- Nick Friedman, co-founder and president of College Hunks Hauling Junk

7. Numbers Aren’t Everything

“To gain paying customers you’ll need to focus on attracting the right followers, and not just on attracting the most. Communicate often with useful information to increase your value, and focus on pitching your product in a genuine way. Make sure you have a professional web presence, and with any luck, you should start noticing your efforts pay off.”

- David Rusenko, founder of Weebly

8. Monetize Other Channels

“The hype around social media doesn’t necessarily translate into sales — in fact, it rarely does. Unfortunately, few people will tell you this because they’re busy hyping the next big thing. For example, I get more than a thousand times the financial ROI from my boring old e-mail list than from my Twitter followers. Now, if your goal is engagement or long-term bonding, social media can be a good play. But if your goal is direct revenue, I would focus on other channels that you can track and measure, such as online advertising and e-mail marketing.”

- Ramit Sethi, New York Times best-selling author, I Will Teach You To Be Rich

9. Show Followers What They’re Missing

“You have to show them what they are missing out on and how your business can be helpful and provide a sense of enjoyment to them as well. Truly engage with them, get to know them, show them your personality and make them want to be a part of what you’re doing. Show them why they can’t live without you and be creative with it.”

- Ashley Bodi, co-founder of Business Beware

10. Remember “Top-Of-Mind-Awareness”

“I would recommend giving limited-time, special opportunities that have a strong call to action to your social media community rather than just simply pointing them to your website. Another way we’ve gotten a return on our social media is posting video testimonials that our clients give us for our fan and personal pages. This builds credibility in prospects’ minds by showing that we’re busy and that we do good work. It also keeps us in top-of-mind awareness. We’ve had prospects call us often and mention that they just saw a post and thought of us.”

- Michael Simmons, co-founder of The Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour

11. Go Freemium to Build Premium

“Building up fans and followers isn’t enough — you need to engage with them in substantial ways and introduce them to your product in a way that gets them wanting more. As a thought exercise, you might want to ask yourself what aspect of your product you can offer to your social media community for free. If you provide real value, for free, then show them ways they can spend just a little bit of money to get an exponential boost in value — the next tier of your product offering — you may start seeing greater conversions (and return on the initial investment it took to build that community in the first place).”

- Jordan Goldman, founder of Unigo

12. Foster Genuine Interactions

“First, you may want to rethink how you are viewing social media. If you’re looking for an immediate pop in revenue, you’re likely to give up quickly on social media and completely miss the larger opportunity it provides. Of course the broader goal of all marketing is to generate sales; however, if you show up on Facebook and Twitter simply to promote your product or service it is likely you’ll be ignored. Social media is about genuine interaction and building relationships. By fostering relationships, social media becomes an incredibly powerful tool. Provide interesting content that will generate buzz, provide helpful hints and unique discounts that are only available on Facebook or Twitter. Customers will appreciate the ability to participate in a dialogue directly with your brand and these interactions will show up on customers’ news feeds. The resulting brand exposure and word-of-mouth will ultimately pay dividends in the form of new customers.”

- Anderson Schoenrock, co-founder of ScanDigital

What other advice would you give small business owners about getting their social media plans on track? Let us know your tips and advice in the comments section.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- What to Consider When Building an In-House Social Media Team/> - 5 Tips for Marketing Online to an International Audience/> - What’s the Value in a Brand Name?/> - 5 Big Brands That Are Rocking the Social Media Space/> - 9 iPhone Apps for Managing the Recruiting Process

Image courtesy of iStockphotoclass="blippr-nobr">iStockphoto, alexsl

For more Business coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Businessclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Business channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Group buying site Groupon is growing so fast that its “deals of the day” are attracting the attention of big brand names like the Gap. One small business owner believes this growth is making Groupon “greedy,” so much so that it chose not to honor a signed contract because the agreed upon margins were too small. This is his story.

In January, small business owner Gregroy Yonke used Groupon to run a Featured Deal that gave buyers half off his Phoenix, Arizona Entrees to Go guided cooking sessions. Yonke couldn’t have been more pleased with the results — Groupon delivered new customers who became repeat customers, he says.

After taking the summer to explore working with a bevy of new Groupon clones, Yonke got a call from Groupon indicating that the company was interested in having him run another Featured Deal. And so, Yonke put off his other marketing plans for another go-around with Groupon, because in his mind, “Groupon is bigger than all the others combined.”

Talks progressed and eventually the terms of the new deal were decided. On September 7, Groupon e-mailed Yonke a merchant agreement and asked him to reply to the e-mail with “agree” in the subject line. Yonke did so on September 14, believing this meant there was now a contract in place guaranteeing him another Featured Deal within four to six weeks’ time. That time frame had been discussed in the e-mail exchanges, but was not, in fact, included in the agreement.

Then, on October 11, Yonke was notified that his deal had passed through the “vetting” stage, meaning it had been approved for scheduling. Yonke was anxious to view and approve the deal copy, but his Groupon representative wrote to inform him that the deal would be prepared after it had been scheduled.

This is when things started to go awry. On October 19, Yonke e-mailed his rep to once again press to find out the date on which his deal would run. Here’s the response he received, with confidential information redacted:

“After further deliberation, we have decided that we are not going to be moving forward with the rate confirmation for Entrees to Go. After running the numbers, we don’t feel it is the right move for us at this time. I appreciate your interest in running again, and unfortunately, we were not able to make it work on our end for a second feature. I wish you the best moving forward.”

Astonished, Yonke e-mailed back asking, “On what basis are you making this decision?”

Groupon’s response was as follows:

“With the margin in place, we will be at a loss running this feature. It simply is not in the best interest of Groupon to run Entrees to Go at this time. Per the rate confirmation, Section 1.3, ‘Groupon will offer the Vouchers for sale on dates in its discretion.’ We are choosing, with all due respect, not to move forward at this time. I appreciate your patience and apologize that it doesn’t work at this time.”

In a conversation with class='blippr-nobr'>Mashableclass="blippr-nobr">Mashable, Yonke explained that he was quite taken aback by the response because he believed that there was a legal contract in place guaranteeing him a Featured Deal for Entrees to Go.

Yonke also shared that at one point Groupon pressured him to “sweeten the deal,” which he agreed to do, but only if Groupon agreed to take the same dollar amount — i.e. not the same percentage of sales — as agreed to in the initial deal. Groupon, however, wanted the same percentage, and that was just something “I couldn’t afford to do … I was already losing money on the other deal,” he said.

Earlier today, Yonke was again contacted by Groupon, but this time offering him a Personalized Deal, and not a Featured Deal. Personalized Deals are only sent out to select, more targeted, audiences in the Groupon subscriber base, but Yonke was only interested in the Featured Deal, which would have gone out to all of Phoenix.

For Yonke, this Groupon Deal represented the entirety of his marketing strategy, and it was the only way in which he was planning to attract new business at the Entrees to Go store he co-owns with his wife Dorothy.

Yonke believes he was overlooked because of the small stature of his business. He points to the fact that the Featured Deal running in Phoenix today is for Coldwater Creek, a national retailer with a much more prominent brand name. He says, “I get it … they can do a Featured Deal for the Gap and make $11 million in one day.”

The jilted small business owner reached out to Mashable to share his experience primarily because his marketing plans for bringing in end-of-year business have been stymied. He’s currently offering the deal through the FAQ portion of his own website, but admittedly does not have reach to a large audience.

Given Groupon’s immense growth this year, it follows that the startup will have disgruntled customers from time to time — and we’ve seen this before. While Mashable has confirmed the legitimacy of the e-mail communications between Yonke and Groupon, we caution the reader to remember that this is just one small business owner’s story.

Still, we felt this story to be of particular interest because it suggests that Groupon is shifting the focus of the Featured Deals away from the small business owners they once catered to. The smaller businesses, instead, seem to be destined for relegation to its Personalized Deals product or the do-it-yourself Groupon Stores.

Prior to publishing, Mashable reached out to Groupon for comment, and we’re told the company is now looking into the matter. We’ll update this post when there’s an official statement from the company.

For more Social Media coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Social Mediaclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Social Media channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

eric seiger

Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee .. Horse Tracks!

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/13 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning everyone. NJ Chiefs Fan is having some internet troubles so Arrowheadlines is coming from me today. Enjoy (four hours late)....

CBS <b>News</b>: Obama&#39;s G-20 Performance an &#39;Embarrassing Disappointment <b>...</b>

The Blaze is a news, information and opinion site brought to you by Glenn Beck and a dedicated team of writers, journalists & video producers. Our goal is to post, report and analyze stories of interest on a wide range of topics from ...

eric seiger

eric seiger

eric seiger

Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

Your Daily Cup of Orange and Blue Coffee .. Horse Tracks!

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/13 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning everyone. NJ Chiefs Fan is having some internet troubles so Arrowheadlines is coming from me today. Enjoy (four hours late)....

CBS <b>News</b>: Obama&#39;s G-20 Performance an &#39;Embarrassing Disappointment <b>...</b>

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Scott Gerber is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, public speaker and author of Never Get a “Real” Job: How to Dump Your Boss, Build a Business and Not Go Broke. The content for this post was sourced from the Young Entrepreneur Council, a group of successful Gen Y business owners. You can submit your questions to this group on NeverGetaRealJob.com.

Today’s reality is that your business needs to be on social media, but the mere existence of your business on sites like Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook and Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter doesn’t guarantee a single sale, or even a single referral. In order for businesses to succeed in the social media space, they need to be properly educated on what works and what doesn’t. More importantly, business owners need to have realistic goals about what they’ll get out of social media.

When the right tools are used effectively with the right motives in mind, social media can have a huge impact on small business marketing and customer service efforts. You just have to understand how to properly determine and assess the return on investment you’re looking for.

I asked a panel of successful Gen Y entrepreneurs how small businesses can go about getting the most out of their social media marketing and how they can convert more of their existing social media followers into paying customers. Here are their responses.

1. Experiment With Social Networks

“Facebook and Twitter shouldn’t be used as marketing platforms, but rather one-to-one direct communications mediums with customers, potential customers, journalists, and other stakeholders. As the population of Twitter increases, and people start following thousands of other people, your message gets lost. Facebook’s news feed algorithm stops marketers from using their Fan Page as a loudspeaker because fans that aren’t engaged won’t see their content anyway.”

- Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding, LLC

2. Quality, Not Quantity

“Social media is first and foremost about building relationships. It takes time and consistent effort to see any meaningful results, but the time and effort you spend are worth it in the long run – if you do it right. While it’s great to have a large following on Twitter and Facebook, the value of your followers list is all about quality, not quantity. Think of it like this: if you had an ice cream shop and a thousand people a day walked through the door, but 950 of those were lactose intolerant, your high foot traffic wouldn’t be making you much money. To convert your social media followers into paying customers, remember ‘WIIFM’ (What’s In It For ME). In other words, you have to give your followers a reason to want to do business with you, and that reason has to be a benefit to them. Contests are one great way to engage followers, and if you tie them in with your business and give [a prize] that means something to your target audience, you can see results fairly quickly.”

- Adam Toren, co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com

3. Lead Your Followers Down the Purchasing Path

“Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale once you’ve developed trust and a relationship with a prospective customer. Use your Facebook Fan Page and Twitter account to ask people to take the next step, whether it’s calling you up for a quote or proposal, downloading a whitepaper, or signing up for a trial account. Repeat your call to action regularly, with lots of useful content, information and trust building in between your requests.”

- Matt Mickiewicz, founder of 99designs

4. Engagement = Consumers

“If I could talk to you right now, I’d ask, ‘What exactly are you selling?’ While the principles remain the same, social media is best leveraged by tweaking it slightly to suit the industry. There is also a misconception that social media leads to customers. It doesn’t. Social media is a great way to engage with your audience and turn them into consumers. Think about it this way – you have to attract and then convert. Social media is helping you attract the audience and build your community. But, there are two types of conversions. The first is the more common one where someone becomes your consumer. They sign up for your newsletter, subscribe to your blog, or just plain ‘Like’ your Facebook Fan Page. They’ve taken the first step! Over time, the right ones becomes paying customers. This is the second type of conversion — the paying customer. Use social media to attract consumers, and then turn them into customers over time. Remember, social media is an important but small part of overall online marketing.”

- Shama Kabani, president of The Marketing Zen Group

5. Use Social Media to Make Friends, Not Leads

“Next time someone friends you or replies to you, don’t just say ‘thanks for following,’ or worse, don’t just count them as just another number or dollar sign. Take two minutes and actually look at who this real person is on the other side of the computer and ask how you can help them in an authentic way. Provide them value and become a trusted friend and this relationship building will convert into sales and evangelism for your company.”

- Matt Wilson, co-founder of Under30CEO.com

6. Give Them Something To Talk About

“The key to converting followers to customers is offering them something that they need, or identifying a pain that they are having that you can solve. You’ve done the hard part by finding followers and fans. Once you have followers and fans, it’s just a matter of finding out what value you can provide to them. If they are unwilling to buy from you then it means they are either not truly fans or followers (just happened to accept your request), or that you have not uncovered their pain points to provide a solution. An example with our company is that we had tons of fans and followers of our brand, but not everyone needed junk removal. So we surveyed them to find out what services we could provide to them and learned that moving was one that they needed more often.”

- Nick Friedman, co-founder and president of College Hunks Hauling Junk

7. Numbers Aren’t Everything

“To gain paying customers you’ll need to focus on attracting the right followers, and not just on attracting the most. Communicate often with useful information to increase your value, and focus on pitching your product in a genuine way. Make sure you have a professional web presence, and with any luck, you should start noticing your efforts pay off.”

- David Rusenko, founder of Weebly

8. Monetize Other Channels

“The hype around social media doesn’t necessarily translate into sales — in fact, it rarely does. Unfortunately, few people will tell you this because they’re busy hyping the next big thing. For example, I get more than a thousand times the financial ROI from my boring old e-mail list than from my Twitter followers. Now, if your goal is engagement or long-term bonding, social media can be a good play. But if your goal is direct revenue, I would focus on other channels that you can track and measure, such as online advertising and e-mail marketing.”

- Ramit Sethi, New York Times best-selling author, I Will Teach You To Be Rich

9. Show Followers What They’re Missing

“You have to show them what they are missing out on and how your business can be helpful and provide a sense of enjoyment to them as well. Truly engage with them, get to know them, show them your personality and make them want to be a part of what you’re doing. Show them why they can’t live without you and be creative with it.”

- Ashley Bodi, co-founder of Business Beware

10. Remember “Top-Of-Mind-Awareness”

“I would recommend giving limited-time, special opportunities that have a strong call to action to your social media community rather than just simply pointing them to your website. Another way we’ve gotten a return on our social media is posting video testimonials that our clients give us for our fan and personal pages. This builds credibility in prospects’ minds by showing that we’re busy and that we do good work. It also keeps us in top-of-mind awareness. We’ve had prospects call us often and mention that they just saw a post and thought of us.”

- Michael Simmons, co-founder of The Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour

11. Go Freemium to Build Premium

“Building up fans and followers isn’t enough — you need to engage with them in substantial ways and introduce them to your product in a way that gets them wanting more. As a thought exercise, you might want to ask yourself what aspect of your product you can offer to your social media community for free. If you provide real value, for free, then show them ways they can spend just a little bit of money to get an exponential boost in value — the next tier of your product offering — you may start seeing greater conversions (and return on the initial investment it took to build that community in the first place).”

- Jordan Goldman, founder of Unigo

12. Foster Genuine Interactions

“First, you may want to rethink how you are viewing social media. If you’re looking for an immediate pop in revenue, you’re likely to give up quickly on social media and completely miss the larger opportunity it provides. Of course the broader goal of all marketing is to generate sales; however, if you show up on Facebook and Twitter simply to promote your product or service it is likely you’ll be ignored. Social media is about genuine interaction and building relationships. By fostering relationships, social media becomes an incredibly powerful tool. Provide interesting content that will generate buzz, provide helpful hints and unique discounts that are only available on Facebook or Twitter. Customers will appreciate the ability to participate in a dialogue directly with your brand and these interactions will show up on customers’ news feeds. The resulting brand exposure and word-of-mouth will ultimately pay dividends in the form of new customers.”

- Anderson Schoenrock, co-founder of ScanDigital

What other advice would you give small business owners about getting their social media plans on track? Let us know your tips and advice in the comments section.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- What to Consider When Building an In-House Social Media Team/> - 5 Tips for Marketing Online to an International Audience/> - What’s the Value in a Brand Name?/> - 5 Big Brands That Are Rocking the Social Media Space/> - 9 iPhone Apps for Managing the Recruiting Process

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Group buying site Groupon is growing so fast that its “deals of the day” are attracting the attention of big brand names like the Gap. One small business owner believes this growth is making Groupon “greedy,” so much so that it chose not to honor a signed contract because the agreed upon margins were too small. This is his story.

In January, small business owner Gregroy Yonke used Groupon to run a Featured Deal that gave buyers half off his Phoenix, Arizona Entrees to Go guided cooking sessions. Yonke couldn’t have been more pleased with the results — Groupon delivered new customers who became repeat customers, he says.

After taking the summer to explore working with a bevy of new Groupon clones, Yonke got a call from Groupon indicating that the company was interested in having him run another Featured Deal. And so, Yonke put off his other marketing plans for another go-around with Groupon, because in his mind, “Groupon is bigger than all the others combined.”

Talks progressed and eventually the terms of the new deal were decided. On September 7, Groupon e-mailed Yonke a merchant agreement and asked him to reply to the e-mail with “agree” in the subject line. Yonke did so on September 14, believing this meant there was now a contract in place guaranteeing him another Featured Deal within four to six weeks’ time. That time frame had been discussed in the e-mail exchanges, but was not, in fact, included in the agreement.

Then, on October 11, Yonke was notified that his deal had passed through the “vetting” stage, meaning it had been approved for scheduling. Yonke was anxious to view and approve the deal copy, but his Groupon representative wrote to inform him that the deal would be prepared after it had been scheduled.

This is when things started to go awry. On October 19, Yonke e-mailed his rep to once again press to find out the date on which his deal would run. Here’s the response he received, with confidential information redacted:

“After further deliberation, we have decided that we are not going to be moving forward with the rate confirmation for Entrees to Go. After running the numbers, we don’t feel it is the right move for us at this time. I appreciate your interest in running again, and unfortunately, we were not able to make it work on our end for a second feature. I wish you the best moving forward.”

Astonished, Yonke e-mailed back asking, “On what basis are you making this decision?”

Groupon’s response was as follows:

“With the margin in place, we will be at a loss running this feature. It simply is not in the best interest of Groupon to run Entrees to Go at this time. Per the rate confirmation, Section 1.3, ‘Groupon will offer the Vouchers for sale on dates in its discretion.’ We are choosing, with all due respect, not to move forward at this time. I appreciate your patience and apologize that it doesn’t work at this time.”

In a conversation with class='blippr-nobr'>Mashableclass="blippr-nobr">Mashable, Yonke explained that he was quite taken aback by the response because he believed that there was a legal contract in place guaranteeing him a Featured Deal for Entrees to Go.

Yonke also shared that at one point Groupon pressured him to “sweeten the deal,” which he agreed to do, but only if Groupon agreed to take the same dollar amount — i.e. not the same percentage of sales — as agreed to in the initial deal. Groupon, however, wanted the same percentage, and that was just something “I couldn’t afford to do … I was already losing money on the other deal,” he said.

Earlier today, Yonke was again contacted by Groupon, but this time offering him a Personalized Deal, and not a Featured Deal. Personalized Deals are only sent out to select, more targeted, audiences in the Groupon subscriber base, but Yonke was only interested in the Featured Deal, which would have gone out to all of Phoenix.

For Yonke, this Groupon Deal represented the entirety of his marketing strategy, and it was the only way in which he was planning to attract new business at the Entrees to Go store he co-owns with his wife Dorothy.

Yonke believes he was overlooked because of the small stature of his business. He points to the fact that the Featured Deal running in Phoenix today is for Coldwater Creek, a national retailer with a much more prominent brand name. He says, “I get it … they can do a Featured Deal for the Gap and make $11 million in one day.”

The jilted small business owner reached out to Mashable to share his experience primarily because his marketing plans for bringing in end-of-year business have been stymied. He’s currently offering the deal through the FAQ portion of his own website, but admittedly does not have reach to a large audience.

Given Groupon’s immense growth this year, it follows that the startup will have disgruntled customers from time to time — and we’ve seen this before. While Mashable has confirmed the legitimacy of the e-mail communications between Yonke and Groupon, we caution the reader to remember that this is just one small business owner’s story.

Still, we felt this story to be of particular interest because it suggests that Groupon is shifting the focus of the Featured Deals away from the small business owners they once catered to. The smaller businesses, instead, seem to be destined for relegation to its Personalized Deals product or the do-it-yourself Groupon Stores.

Prior to publishing, Mashable reached out to Groupon for comment, and we’re told the company is now looking into the matter. We’ll update this post when there’s an official statement from the company.

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It's dangerous out there. If you are thinking of starting an Internet business there are some things that you should know about the animals that are on the prowl looking for your money. The Internet is a marvelous tool for making money. Some people make fabulous amounts of money. Others spend their hard-earned money on all kinds of foolish ideas and quit in disgust. It doesn't have to be that way. Use some common sense and read and investigate moneymaking ideas before you part with your hard-earned money.

The first animal waiting out there for you is the skunk. This character makes the uninitiated reader think that they can make money without doing any work. Making money on the Internet is far from easy. It's hard to begin with. It does involve work. Do you honestly believe that you can type letters at home, or watch TV and get paid, or simply fill in a quick survey and make $40 an hour? Keep dreaming. These skunks out there wait for the lazy stupid people. Advertisements for these types of make money at home products abound. Save your money.

Weasels are out there promising to set up websites for you that will bring in all kinds of traffic and wheel barrels full of money. Buy this product and make thousands a month. Well, months go by, and the only ones making wheel barrels full of money are the sellers of these programs. Don't fall for it. Let the buyer beware.

Keep an eagle eye open for this type of Internet animal, the Multi-level Marketing (MLM) vulture. The pitch goes something like this, "get in now on the hottest product sweeping the country". You wind up buying a "starter kit" and that is the only investment you will ever need. If you buy the "distributors kit" they claim that you will make even more money. All that you get is a garage full of junk. Look elsewhere.

Watch out for the software snake. This critter will try and sell you an expensive piece of software to automate your business. Usually, the programs are full of bugs and seldom fulfill their claims. If you look around there are many sources of free programs that you can download. Just type in free programs on your favorite search engine. Again, read and study topics related to making money on the Internet. Don't spend any money until you have learned about the free resources available on the net.

The wise old owl is what you are looking for to get started making money on the Internet. Owls will teach you what really works on the Internet. One free way to get started is to use Blogs and Google Adsense. Blogging involves writing interesting articles that people want more information on. Advertisers pay for small ads that are placed on your blog. When someone clicks on the ad you get paid.

Another trick that the wise owl uses is putting links on their blog or website that the reader will click on and hopefully buy from that merchant. This is called Affiliate Marketing. When you see ads on websites and you click on them you are taken to the merchant's website. If you buy something, the owner of the web site gets paid a small commission for referring you.

You can also make money by creating your own product or e-book and sell it. There are numerous e-books on all sorts of topics from finding air travel bargains, gardening, violin playing and so on. These e-books are great sellers. Many people make a nice living selling the information contained in these e-books. The customer gets instant information. The seller has no inventory to mail out. Everything is done electronically.

There are people making great money selling all kinds of products on eBay. Some people buy things on eBay and turn around and resell them. Others sell e-books. Still others sell physical products ranging from CDs to automobiles.

The best advice for making money on the Internet is to study what works for others. Look on Internet marketing forums. You can also look for the hottest trends and sell those products. Blogging with Adsense is a good tool. Affiliate marketing selling other's products works also. Selling your own e-books or those of others is a good moneymaker.

Beware of the Internet predators out there. Investigate thoroughly before you buy anything. Look for free information and software on your favorite search engine. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't. Use your head, put in the time, and you too can be a money maker on the internet.


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Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

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Good morning everyone. NJ Chiefs Fan is having some internet troubles so Arrowheadlines is coming from me today. Enjoy (four hours late)....

CBS <b>News</b>: Obama&#39;s G-20 Performance an &#39;Embarrassing Disappointment <b>...</b>

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Denver Broncos <b>News</b>: Horse Tracks - 11/13/10 - Mile High Report

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Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 11/13 - Arrowhead Pride

Good morning everyone. NJ Chiefs Fan is having some internet troubles so Arrowheadlines is coming from me today. Enjoy (four hours late)....

CBS <b>News</b>: Obama&#39;s G-20 Performance an &#39;Embarrassing Disappointment <b>...</b>

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