Martha Stewart is hitching her personal brand to the patriotic push behind Made in USA brands. This fall she's launching what she hopes will become the first annual American Made Awards, a celebration of American artists, artisans and entrepreneurs. Inaugural sponsors are Avery Dennison and The UPS Store. 

"Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia is the embodiment of my passion for food, design, crafts, gardening and so much more,” she commented in a press release.

“It is also the realization of an entrepreneurial dream. I am excited to recognize the work of other creative entrepreneurs and it is my hope that American Made will become an annual initiative for the brand that will continue to nurture honorees, support their passions and expand their businesses, setting an inspiring example for the MSLO audience and beyond."Continue reading...

Valentine’s Day was marred for many by failed or faulty delivery of bouquets to loved ones, as we covered here, last week – and many consumers and retailers had things to say.

A popular florist blogger commented in a Feb. 17th post titled “Valentine’s Day Flowers Adwords: Feasting on the Bones of Local Florists”:

“Vultures. It’s the only way I can think to describe Google’s Adwords ads this past Valentine’s Day holiday. ‘Don’t be evil’ flew out the window and Google opened it even wider for the birds of prey to strip consumers and local flower shops of their hard-earned dollars.

First, we had ProFlowers telling shoppers seeking local florists BY NAME in Google searches that the stores were sold out of flowers. It’s a completely despicable ad tactic that diverted consumers by lying about local flower shop inventories. Despite having plenty of beautiful blooms for Valentine’s Day, the drop-shipper tried to suck in late buyers by falsifying the flower availability at these shops. Shame on Liberty Media. Shame on ProFlowers. And shame on the Google staffers who approved those ads."

We asked Google to comment, and they replied by email.Continue reading...

American Express Cardmembers and merchants are getting exclusive access to Twitter’s new advertising solution for small businesses. The first 10,000 eligible businesses that register at http://ads.twitter.com/amex will get $100 in free Twitter ads as the self-serve automated system begins in March.

Similar to Google, advertisers will choose amount they’ll spend, the cities or regions for ads to appear, and write their own 140-character copy. According to AmEx’s press release, Twitter will charge only for ads that get a user response.

Twitter is already testing Promoted Tweets priced on a "cost-per-engagement" basis, where businesses only pay if a user interacts (retweets, replies to, clicks or favorites), but the AmEx partnership could exponentially increase the number of advertisers Twitter can work with.Continue reading...

Why Use Facebook For Business? Is the first in a series of videos from American Express geared to deconstruct the advantages of social media platforms for small business owners.

It’s part of the newly launched Business Knowledge Share enhanced Linkedin user group that already counts nearly 2,000 members, created to help members respond to negative online reviews, discuss topics like how much debt they should take on or whether to offer free shipping, how to leverage Google+, and engage with featured platform experts in Q and A.Continue reading...

In recent interview with USA Today, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg stated, “My dream is really simple. I think every small business should be using technology, they should be using all of the Web technologies, and they should be using Facebook. So we’re not going to stop until all of them are using it to grow their business.”

The latest addition to Facebook’s steady march towards digital dominance of all things social, recently advanced with the launch of Timeline and a slew of Open Graph social apps, plus a call-out to brands to leverage those apps, is Facebook Marketing Solutions, an offer to American small businesses of up to $10 million in free advertising beginning January 2012.

The drill down is $50 per business in ad credits to about 200,000 small businesses redeemable on a first-come, first-serve basis when purchasing ads that can be tailor-targeted.

In partnership with the National Federation of Independent Business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the initiative at first blush is to educate small business on social-networking site promotion, but the obvious collateral for FB, is engaging yet another cohort of customer consumers.

The launch on the Facebook page reads in part:

Dear American Small Business Owner,

You are the backbone of the largest economy in the world, and at Facebook, we’re excited about helping you grow…Get more customers. Build lasting connections. Reach your customers' friends…We want you to be the next success story.

If you’d like to get started today, create a free Facebook Page for your business and read about best practices for Pages.”

The road show begins in October as FB reps meet with state and local chambers of commerce and regional NFIB offices. “Our goal is to give small businesses a boost by helping them find customers the best way possible – through recommendations from friends,” said Sandberg.

Facebook revenue projections are $2.01 billion in U.S. display ad revenue in 2011, a 67% increase from 2010, according to eMarketer Inc., making it the leading seller in the category, pushing Yahoo to #2 and Google staying at #3.

This latest engagement program aims to engage 30 million small-to-medium sized business owners to use FB as a marketing platform.

“Only 9.2 million of them are using the social network to speak to their customers. An even smaller percentage of that number are spending money on Facebook ad campaigns. Facebook knows most small businesses are too busy to try its ad program; they are already happy with their free Facebook Page and don’t want to spend money. The point of the credit system is to get them to at least try it out,” writes ZDNet.

The only vulnerable corner for now in Facebook’s juggernaut is mobile; 550 million people globally are engaging in social networking by year’s end and projected to reach 1.7 billion by 2016, according to ABI Research. Google and Apple are both working on mobile integration in their competing operating systems.

While FB has a huge mobile presence, it hasn’t yet shown a monetization strategy. "A huge problem for Facebook is that while on the Web, it is a platform — on mobile, it's just another application," commented ABI analyst Aapo Markkanen.

American Express is offering its Facebook fans and merchant partners a deal — the first of many — they can't resist.

"Link, Like, Love" is not only a new tab on its FB page, but the cornerstone of new deals-based social initiatives that AmEx is unveiling today.

More than 100 participating merchants are on-board at launch, include H&M, Whole Foods Market, Lord & Taylor, Celebrity Cruises, 20th Century Fox, and Outback Steakhouse.Continue reading...

American Express points can get you a case of Bordeaux, a Sony camcorder, concert tickets, a food processor, and a slew of other things.

As a continuation of the brand's Social Currency campaign that launched in March, and its social marketing for AmEx OPEN, Amex cardholders now have a whole new area to choose when looking to redeem points: advertisements on Facebook.Continue reading...

American Express OPEN has been a godsend to small business, offering rich content and smart advice — even going so far as to help small businesses get smart about branding with Project RE:Brand last year.

This year AmEx is looking to share the love via Facebook. Through May 20th, small to medium-size business owners can apply for the chance to have their businesses made over. Just visit Facebook.com/Open and be prepared to answer three easy questions.Continue reading...