Announcing Red Pin Marketing: Social Media Solutions for Small Businesses

As we have traveled across the country over the past couple years we have met so many people especially small (to medium) business owners that are jumping up and down looking for help in generating more leads, increasing sales, getting more foot traffic, more reviews and more conversations about their products or services. When we’ve had the chance to sit down and chat with these people we’ve asked them where they needed help. Their answer? They need help with everything from developing a strategy to setting up and optimizing their social accounts to designing a new website that is search engine optimized, designing listening and monitoring portals, email marketing and how to measure all of it. This is not too dissimilar from the enterprise brands that we work with at New Marketing Labs however small businesses have some unique needs, concerns and it takes someone with experience in small businesses to fully understand it all.

Over the past several months our team has been working on how we could be more helpful to small businesses. During this time, I’ve done a lot of thinking on what I’ve done at Caminito Argentinean Steakhouse over the past few years and what my competitors and the other businesses in the town where our restaurant is aren’t doing. I’ve also been researching hundreds of small business websites, online communities and talking with people in my local community to understand what their knowledge base is of social media and what they think of their current marketing plans (or if they even have one, in many cases).

With all of that knowledge and experience in hand, I’m really happy to announce the launch of Red Pin Marketing. Red Pin Marketing is powered by the great team at New Marketing Labs and backed by CrossTech Ventures. Our goal is simple: to help small businesses with their social media and digital marketing efforts. We want to help you leverage these tools to level the playing field, increase sales and grow your business.

Before you start hyperventilating, don’t worry, New Marketing Labs isn’t going anywhere. We’re still busy helping our amazing clients, working with fantastic partners and working on the Inbound Marketing Summit 2011. I’ll still be around adding my assistance as the team needs it but I will be donning a new hat as the Executive Director of Red Pin Marketing. Chris Brogan will lend his advice, guidance and mentorship to Red Pin Marketing as an Entrepreneur In Residence advisor. There are a few other changes over at NML that you Chris talks about in this post.

There is so much more to come in the days and weeks ahead that we’re really excited to begin sharing with you (including our website!). But, since I’m like a 2 year old on Christmas morning, I couldn’t keep it a secret any longer and just had to share it with you.

If you’re the owner of or work in a small to medium business, I’d like to invite you to sign up for our free small business newsletter. We have some special projects and info that we’ll be sharing that won’t be available anywhere else except in the newsletters, including one that we’ll be launching in the next few days. Make sure you don’t miss out by signing up today.

It’s an exciting time around New Marketing Labs, Red Pin Marketing and The Pulse Network.

As always, thanks for your support and all that you do. My goal is to continually be helpful to you and hopefully this is another way that I can fulfill that goal.

Did I ask you yet to sign up for the new small business newsletter?

19 Marketing Experts Share Tips and Insights – Inbound Marketing Summit 2010 Preview

As we get closer to the Inbound Marketing Summit on October 6-7th (you can save 50% off using source code EBOOK50), Mike Volpe of HubSpot and I teamed up to conduct a survey of the speakers. We had a total of 19 speakers respond, including Chris Brogan, David Meerman Scott, Dharmesh Shah, Steve Garfield, Scott Stratten and more. We gathered all of the responses, analyzed all of the data, and have released a free ebook with the results of the research.

We were interested by some of the data including the prediction that social media will drive more business value than SEO by 2013 and that over the next 3 years Google and Facebook will decline in importance while something new (and currently unknown) will emerge as the most important website or service.

Want to see what else these experts had to say? Here is the complete ebook as a presentation. If you want your own copy, you can download it.


What currently drives the most business value for your company? How do you think that will change over the next 3 years?

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Being the Chief of Stuff

If you ever read this blog, follow me on Twitter or any of the other number of networks I’m on, you’ll quickly realize that I am fascinated by anything that’s behind-the-scenes.  For example, I love that with New Marketing Labs I get to hang out with really cool companies at their offices.  As I’ve said before, I try to look behind-the-scenes of other industries to learn from and apply to the way I do things with my businesses.  That’s why when I began reading about Reggie Love, the “body man” for President Obama, I became super interested.  A “body man” in politics is not a personal bodyguard, the Secret Service takes care of that.  Instead, a “body man”, according to Wikipedia, is:

a personal assistant to a politician or political candidate. A body man accompanies the politician or candidate virtually everywhere, often arranging lodging, transportation or meals, and providing companionship, snacks, a cellphone, and any other necessary assistance.

After learning about Reggie after watching a MSNBC special on an inside look at the working White House, I did some more research.  Reggie has become one of the most well-known body men in political history, due in part to his role as a basketball player with the championship Duke University team and his try-outs with two NFL teams.  There have been some very interesting articles on Reggie and surrounding him considering himself the “Chief of Stuff”.

When President Obama was on the campaign trail, ESPN caught up with, then, Senator Obama and Reggie to profile the Chief of Stuff.  It’s a fun video to watch, in my opinion, since it’s another look behind-the-scenes.

If you can’t view this video in your browser, you can also find it here

Not only do I find motivation watching people like Reggie Love do whatever it takes, working 18-20 hours or more per day, when I first heard Reggie describe himself as the “Chief of Stuff” it resonated with me.  As General Manager at both New Marketing Labs and at my steakhouse, I tend to focus on operations, processes, and doing my best to ensure everything runs smoothly.  Along the way there are tons of “stuff” that needs to be dealt with on a daily basis.

Also, there a lot of things that I help Chris Brogan with throughout the course of the week.  Now, Chris never asked me to take on a role as his personal aide, though I am his right-hand man with a lot of things.  He does after all have a personal assistant in Kathryn Jennex.  However, I’m always concerned with ensuring that Chris is taken care of and that his other obligations outside of NML are taken care of.

So, why do I do this?  Because first, foremost and most importantly, Chris is a close friend of mine who I want to see continue to succeed.  He doesn’t like doing paperwork, organizing or worry about the detail stuff.  That’s not what he’s best at.  I, on the other hand, enjoy doing that and actually need to be organized to function properly.  So, as much as I can, I work with Chris to make sure he doesn’t have to worry about all that “stuff” that would slow him down.  I also work with our internal team to ensure that we’re aligned on processes, staying organized and always moving things like side projects along.  With how busy everything gets, it is very easy to let certain things go astray.  I try my best to ensure that doesn’t happen.

That role doesn’t stop with NML or Chris though.  I function in this role at the steakhouse and at home too.  Joe, my best friend and business partner at Caminito, is just like Chris in how he feels about “stuff”.  Joe is best at being our Executive Chef, not at organizing, planning, logistics (except as it relates directly to the functioning of service).  At home, I naturally fall into this role because of how much I do it by day.  I handle the bills, the scheduling of maintenance, logistics, and anything else that will help Laura and I out.  That’s not to say that Laura doesn’t do a ton of “stuff” that keeps us functioning.  Things like laundry, dirty dishes and tons more seem to always escape me.  She keeps me in line with that stuff.

I guess that makes me a “Chief of Stuff” kinda too, huh?  I’m okay with that and actually enjoy it.  So, my official title may be “General Manager” but I thing “Chief of Stuff” is a little more fun :)

What are you the Chief of?  How do you handle all of the “stuff” that needs to be taken care of on a daily, weekly or monthly basis?

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Are You a Web Commuter

Do you spend most (or all) of your time working from coffee shops, airports, bookstores, cars, trains or anywhere elseworkshifting that’s not a typical office?  There is now a new place for you to hang out.  Today I’m super excited to announce the launch of workshifting.com.  workshifting.com is a New Marketing Labs project on behalf of Citrix Online (you know, the folks that make GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar).  The design was done by our good friends, Eric and Justin Rasmussen of CoffeeHouse Ideas.

As Chris Brogan explains in the introductory post:

workshifting exists to swap stories with others (like me) who make their office in some pretty interesting places when not back at the mother ship. Sure, I’ve got a cubicle-style office like lots of folks (thanks, Herman Miller), but I also shift my work to several dozen other places, like coffeeshops, airports, hotel desks, and pretty much anywhere I can sneak some power (we’ll talk about that a lot).

We hope that you’ll stop by and hang out with us.  Over the coming weeks you’ll see more announcements about workshifting.  Are you a workshifter who’s interested in being a contributor?  Shoot me an email (jlevy [at] newmarketinglabs [dot] com) or fill out the short form over on the Contact page.

passportAlso being launched alongside workshifting.com is a report that Citrix Online put together properly entitled “Worldwide Workplace: The Web Commuting Imperative”.  You can download the free report here.  It’s really an excellent document with all sort of pretty charts and whatnot for us stat geeks (you know who you are, don’t hide!).

You can also join the workshifting crew over on Twitter: @workshifting

What say you about the concept of workshifting?

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NMTV Interview: Aaron Strout, Powered, Inc

Over on the pirate ship, we kicked off the 2009 New Marketing TV (NMTV) schedule with Colin Browning interviewing Aaron Strout of Powered, Inc.  We will be filming regular interviews for NMTV and also have something else really cool that we’re cooking up below deck.  Make sure you subscribe to the NMTV feed.

The video is below in 2 parts.  If you can’t see this video in your feed reader, you can access it here: Part 1 & Part 2

YouTube Preview Image YouTube Preview Image

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