Rev Up announced today another great feature built into MyLocalLookup. We continue to lead the way in local search when it comes to developing new ways for our customers to get the most opportunity within Local Search.

My Local Lookup, a local search engine similar to a Yellow Pages on line has now incorportaed video players into their search results.

About 6 months ago, we announced how we’ve incorporated Twitter results into MyLocalLookup searches and now we’re the first to announce that we have videos within our search results for our paying clients. It works like this…

When a consumer is on one of our stations websites like WKBW.com. (This is one of our stations however someone can go directly to MyLocalLookup and get the same results.) they type in a keyword like Auto in Buffalo, NY and the search results appear. Pretty impressive as the first 6 listing are paid advertisers and their video results appear before any of the free results.

We are also building in video players to all our landing pages that consumers can access through our station partners. This gives the local business so much exposure and we are delighted to introduce the new players.

Keep coming back, we have more features and new partners we’re adding all the time!

Besides the hard work, commitment, sacrifice and long long days of first starting your company, it takes planning, strategy and a whole of mistakes and failure to build a profitable business.

That’s right… I said it, mistakes and failure! However, one can always learn from anothers misfortune. In other words, you will make mistakes along the way however you can learn from other people and not make the “same” mistakes others have made. Which brings me to the point – Profits. I have had the idea of writing about this for weeks but never had gotten around to it. Today, one of my fellow Twitter friends by the name of Steve Pohlit.

The following was written by Steve and can be found on his blog: Thanks Steve for writing this!

It is important to understand that in order to build profits, a profit must first be earned. If your business is a start-up or has been losing money, the main focus of all your activity is to make a profit.. not just any profit, but a cash profit. Cash profit is where your cash balance is growing after you cover all your expenses whether they be paid daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually.

If your business is not in a cash profit situation, you will not be able to stay in business indefinitely. There will be a point when you run out of cash and you have to close your door. In the Proof of Concept article I mentioned Twitter as an example of a company whose business model is exciting but whose excitement will eventually die if it does not turn profitable.

One of the best ways to begin making a cash profit and then make even higher cash profits, is to develop a financial performance picture twelve months in advance. This financial picture is how you want you business to look financially a year from now. I always advise clients when doing this work to look at what the business has been able to earn in the past and then increase it significantly.

Individuals use a technique know as vision boards to focus on things they want including lifestyle improvements. The financial model of what you want your business to look like is your business vision board. “If you can see it you can achieve it.”

There is more to it than creating a picture twelve months out but that is a key starting point. For purposes of building profits I do not advocate going beyond a twelve month horizon as there are two many variables. However, when doing strategic planning a more forward outlook is appropriate. For now we are focused on building profits near term.

Thinking about this and being inspired by what I read at TwitterTips, I decided to write what I think are good etiquette rules for using Twitter. Some of these aren’t my brainchild and others are. They are in no particular order yet all have the same significants.

1. Always be Polite & Nice - This one is self explanatory. It’s like when you meet someone for the first time, you typically would say hi,  nice to meet you, the pleasure is all mine, thank you, have a great day, you know, just like you would do normally. Its also very important to take the time to reply to all tweets that come to your Inbox. Some tweets are auto replies and of course there is no need to reply to that tweet.

2. Don’t Be a Useless ReTweeter – This is one of my pet peeves with Twitter and tweets. So many people retweet things that really have no significants at all. Actually most tweets really have no great meaning so there is no sense in retweeting. Retweet the ones that have great significance, otherwise, let the useless ones die in Twitterland.

4. Do Not Repeat Yourself - We all know repetitive messages are crucial for Branding however, you must be careful not to overstate your message. I have found Social Media to be more of what the title says, social. People are not neccessarily looking to buy your product in a social setting so be smart about what you tweet. Gain loyality first and give free stuff away… eventually if you have what they want, they’ll buy it from you.

5. People Have Names – Use Them! I have always appreciated this… when someone uses and remembers my name in business, I remember them too. The same applies in the social network arena. Either use their real name or screen name, they will appreciate it.

6. Give Credit and Share - If you find something you like, share it and tell your followers where it came from. If someone tweets something interesting that you want to retweet, thank them and mention him or her in your retweet. Again, I know this is hard to do every time, especially if you follow many people, but once in a while is nice.

7. Don’t Be Pushy - When people try to promote their product, they usually take the wrong approach. I have seen tweets with a link to their product and the tweet contains no real information about what the link is. I usually ignore these tweets. Share a little about what your link is about. This is what people either say yes or no to and the headline is the most important part of any tweet.

8. Tweet & Tweet Often – I have been on Twitter for quite some time. The first few months I really didn’t do anything with tweeting. The next few months I dabbled in tweets. I have managed to steadily get better with tweeting. I have found that when I stop posting tweets, the traffic to my sites drop. THe bottom line is you have to tweet everyday, even multiply times a day to get anywhere with Social Media.

Written by Kevin Conway.

OK, I finally said it publicly, Social Media for business is Crap! .

Maybe because my feeling for the hyped-up benefits of social media was recently confirmed by a top millionaire online guru. If you follow the most successful gurus his name is always at the top of the list. As a matter of fact, he was the first online entrepreneur to make a MILLION $$ in a day. That said, recently he published a PDF where he said “I think social media Su-ks”. When I read that I felt a sigh of relief, “maybe I am not off the tracks after all”. You see when you don’t “follow the pack” you tend to sometimes feel like you are going down the wrong path or at least missing an opportunity. Now, I must admit I use all the major social media outlets including Twitter, Facebook, Squidoo, etc, etc. However, not for direct marketing. And, even though I publish new product releases on Twitter, analytics tells me no convertible traffic comes from that source or Facebook. My primary use of social sites is for building backlinks, but that is for SEO purposes. And, of course the added exposure. i.e. “branding” doesn’t hurt.

However, I never felt like any of the exposure or traffic was ever really serious “convertible traffic”. In other words social media is used for entertainment and communication, ahh, socializing. “Socializing” people are not in the “consumer mode” when they are cruising the social sites. They are looking for friends, maybe a date, etc. Proof of this observation is that these social sites still cannot monetize themselves via paid advertising to nearly the level of search engines like Google or Yahoo. Why? Because you really cannot target potential consumers when they are out at their “buying behavior mode”, i.e. when they are specifically looking to buy a product or service. To try and pull social surfers out of the “social mode” and into a “buying mode” requires many steps before a behavioral shift is realized. Sure, you can start a dialogue and maybe down the road they will recall your business, but the effort to generate business is much more ROI effective using PPC or SEO. The one bright spot for social media as a business tool may be list building, but my own results have been mixed (via measuring quality of opt ins).

And yes, I have read the eMarketer predictions that social ad spend will increase by about 400% by 2013. But, these same groups are also publishing reports like today’s “Does Social Media Work for Small Biz?” where 88% of all small business owners say social media is not helpful to their business. Proof that most of us are not yet seeing the tangible benefits, i..e., sales, leads, etc, from our social media profiles. Personally I am not even seeing much return on creating and maintaining groups within the social media outlets. And, one of the most raved about tools within social media is creating specialized groups.

So, at the moment using social sites for business generation, in my opinion is still highly overrated. As an owner of several e-commerce business I don’t see myself investing advertising dollars in social media any time soon. And, even though there are those that will disagree, I don’t think many of them can show you their own e-commerce business that has experienced any serious ROI using social media. If anyone can show me any REAL results otherwise, please I am all ears. But please Hold the HYPE.

The rest of this article comes to us from Mark Dolliver…

Here’s a bit of Internet Age heresy from small-business owners: 46 percent regard it as a “myth” that every company needs a Web site.

That’s one tidbit from a release this month of supplemental data from the ongoing Discover Small Business Watch polling. When small-business owners were asked in an August round of polling whether their company has a Web site, fewer than half (45 percent) said it does.

Among respondents whose business doesn’t have a Web site, the foremost reason (cited by 41 percent) was that “my business doesn’t need one.” Other reasons included “cost” (cited by 19 percent), “not enough time to monitor and manage” (16 percent) and “complexity” (9 percent).

Do consumers penalize small businesses that choose not to have an online presence? Not as much as you might expect. Polling in September among consumers asked, “Are you more likely or less likely to use a small business that has a Web site?” While a plurality (47 percent) said they’d be more likely to do so, half said either that they’d be less likely (17 percent) or that “it would have no impact” (34 percent).

Nor is there a consensus among consumers that it’s odd if a company doesn’t have a Web site. Asked whether they “expect every business, large or small, to eventually have a Web site,” those saying “yes” (46 percent) were outnumbered by the sum of those saying “no” (37 percent) or “not sure” (17 percent).

The same poll also asked consumers whether they would “consider using a service or small business that you heard about on a social or business networking site.” Forty-three percent said they would consider it, but 32 percent said they wouldn’t and 26 percent weren’t sure.

If you have been keeping up with the news recently you will be aware that social media tools like Facebook and Twitter are the talk of the town. Not only are they great for connecting on a personal level but they can be extremely valuable for your multimedia and storytelling projects. By utilising your social network effectively you can direct significant traffic towards your projects. You can, if you know how, make your projects viral and ones which are talked about all over the Internet. But with so many different social media websites around it can be difficult to know how best to approach social media.

There are many resources online which can help you learn the best methods for using social media, and many tools to make your life easier. I have put together a very brief list of four sites which I think will really help you become a social media pro.

1. Twitip
Darren Rowse runs this great site (www.twitip.com) which focuses on teaching you how to make the most of Twitter. There is a lot of really helpful and useful information on this site and it is a must read for anyone looking seriously at using Twitter to drive traffic to their website. No matter what you want to find out about, there is probably an article on Twitip for you.

2. Hootsuite
This is one of my favorite applications. Hootsuite (www.hootsuite.com) lets you manage several different social networks, Twitter, Facebook, etc.. all at once. There is also a great iPhone application and a bookmark button which allows you to post links directly one or all of your social networks. You also get fantastic statistics on who clicks on the links you share which can help you decide what suite your audience better.

3. Chris Brogan
Chris Brogan is one of the leading social networking experts. His website, www.chrisbrogan.com, is a wealth of great information that will help you not only build a large social networking presence but will help you grow a community of interested people. Not only does he have the website but Brogan also co-wrote a book, Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust, which has received many good reviews. I guarantee that you will get some great information from him.

4. TweetDeck
TweetDeck is another great social networking tool which allows you to manage and connect to multiple social networking websites. Unlike Hootsuite which runs in your Internet browser, TweetDeck is a desktop application which runs on Adobe Air. Many of the top social networkers have often commented about using TweetDeck as their main social networking client. If you would like to do all your networking from one easy desktop tool then head to www.tweetdeck.com.

No matter what resource or application you find best for you, the important thing to remember with social media is to stick with it. Eventually the hard work will pay off and you will have a great list of followers who are interested in you and your projects. You will then be able to leverage this audience to make your projects more successful.

Stay tuned for our next article, when we discuss how many small firms don’t have a website today.

I have always wondered how most people feel about loud TV commercials. I find them to be one of the most annoying things and always have different reactions to this scenerio. Recently, Harris Corp.

Did a survey about this very topic – loud TV commercials. The remainder of this article comes to us from Television Broadcast.com.

Harris Corp. reminds that it stands ready to sell volume-mitigation gear in the wake of federal legislation aimed at quelling loud TV commercials. The broadcast equipment vendor published the results of a telephone survey of 1,000 people, asking them how they dealt with loud commercials.

Not too shockingly, 41 percent turned the volume down. Another 22 percent hit “mute,” and 17 percent changed the channel. Harris further asked how they responded to those ads that blow them out of the room. Sixty-one percent overly loud commercials left them with a negative perception of the product being advertised. Thirty-eight percent said they’d be less likely to pay attention or consider buying the product. Another 23 percent said they switch channels (as opposed to the 17 percent considering volume only, not content). Only 5 percent said louder volume is more likely to make them pay attention.

Congress just passed a bill to compel the FCC to regulate commercial audio volumes. A companion bill is pending in the Senate. Harris’s pollsters said 29 percent of the folks in its sample considered legislation unnecessary, though 33 percent favored it.

The survey was conducted between Nov. 15 and Nov. 22.

Some say we are on the road to Recovery. Some say otherwise so it depends on which side you believe. I will say this…

Productivity grew by an annual rate of 8.1% in third quarter of 2009, the biggest increase since 2003, according to the Commerce Department. This followed a 6.9% rise in productivity in the second quarter of 2009. As productivity increased, labor costs fell at a 2.5% annual rate, indicating that inflation remains under control. But, this also signals that workers’ wages are decreasing, experts say, raising a cause for concern on the durability of the nation’s economic recovery.

What does this all mean? It means that we still have some tough time ahead of us. But I like to pose the question… is your glass half full or half empty? Me personally, mine is always half full, no matter what. I will say that the month of December has been my best billing month in 10 months… I feel it getting better!

As people of the Greatest Nation on earth, we need to always be “Half Full”!

As Social Media continues to be a huge part of what Businesses need to do in order to help build their brands, I wanted to put together a list of websites that can help you get even more “social” with your business.

 I have compiled a list of 8 websites to help you get started. Facebook and Myspace are crucial however there is a plethora of other site out there too. Here is 8 to get started.

 Xing: Search this global site for business partners, contacts and professional opportunities.

APSense: Tap into an affiliate marketing revenue stream by promoting products and sites on your business profile, and get paid for the friends you refer.

Biznik: Join your local business community to connect and collaborate with nearby entrepreneurs, and find out about local seminars and events.

Entrepreneur Connect: Share ideas, join groups, publish content and promote your business on Entrepreneur’s own network.

FastPitchNetworking: Create a profile, product listings and blog, and take advantage of e-mail marketing and virtual trade shows.

GoBigNetwork: Get serious about fast growth in this startup community focused on finding funding, talent and expert advice.

Konnects: Build a network among other startup entrepreneurs and launch your own branded network when you’re ready.

Marzar: Connect with other business owners while promoting products and services in the marketplace.

Of course there is Facebook and Myspace so now is the time People – The year is ending and if you’re anything like my business, now is the perfect time to get out there with your social marketing.

From our friends at Online Media Daily

Most marketers “suck” at building out long-tail keyword campaigns, Avinash Kaushik told Search Insider Summit conference attendees in Park City, Utah, Thursday. During the keynote Thursday, Google’s analytics evangelist described how the long tail can pull in what he calls “impression virgins,” but most marketers don’t know how to take advantage of the opportunity.

The way to grow a company’s business is to have an effective long-tail strategy because it allows marketers to capture potential customers first.

The only way to find eBay in a search engine, organically, is to include one of the three keywords: “auctions,” “onlinesale” and eBay, said Kaushik. The problem with the strategy is that eBay’s growth has been flat for the past three years. Search aims to capture consumers who don’t know exactly what they want, but they don’t necessarily know the brand.

As people continue to change their search habits, the terms and words searched on, companies, such as eBay continue to slip in organic search rankings. People who searched on the branded company term “grow old and die.” Rhetorically, he asks, after they die, what are you left with and how do you create a new strategy?

A search engine query for the “best car for teens” doesn’t deliver organic results for Toyota, for example. That’s a problem, he says. Typically, a search for a brand requires the company’s name, but Kaushik believes marketers need to remain open to the long tail.

Companies could have a keyword strategy with hundred of thousands of keywords and still fail. Companies need a head and tail strategy. Marketers need to analyze the keyword and do the analysis before spending the money.

Google offers tools, such as the Search-Based Keyword Tool, that gives marketers insight into long-tail words. Not just for paid search, but for organic search, too. The application tells marketers the keywords to use, the competition for each keyword and what you can expect to pay for specific words. The tool also displays the current impression share for the campaign from organic and paid search. It gives marketers the ammunition to support a budget for paid and organic search.

The most sophisticated search marketers tend to be at small- to-medium-sized businesses because they don’t have roadblocks to success and are more likely to experiment. When asked about the larger companies that do online marketing well, Kaushik pointed to Macy’s and Target. “I’m very impressed with Target’s online and search strategy,” he says. “I have some insight into their analysis and bidding systems. They have a ways to go, but they are embracing experimentation. Macy’s also has become very sophisticated in the last six months for their online and attribution strategy.”