Last Sunday was by far one of the most exciting NFL conference championship game days any real football fan can ask for. Yes, it will take a while for Raven fans to get over the missed chip-shot field goal and the 49er's to wonder what if they didn't turn over the ball in overtime. We're now moving on to Super Bowl XLVI with a big rematch between the Patriots and the Giants. As I said in my last post, I'm betting on Eli Manning and the New York Giants to be this year's champions.

The Super Bowl has now become the most active topic of the millions of us who write blogs posts and updates on Facebook, Twitter and now, Google+. In 2011, the only Facebook status update topic in the world, amongst 800 million users at the time that beat out the Packers winning Super Bowl 45 was the death of Osama bin Laden. Since many of these tweets and Facebook updates come via a mobile phone, this year General Motors and Chevrolet is adding mobile to their mix to capitalize off this.

If you want to watch the Super Bowl on February 5th on your smartphone or tablet, Chevy's got an app for that. The Chevy Game Time app is now available in the Android Market, Apple's App Store and at chevy.com/gametime. The app will ask viewers trivia and poll questions on subjects including the game, teams and commercials. Participants who answer trivia correctly or choose the most-common poll answer will be entered into the Chevrolet Game Time Sweepstakes drawing. The sweepstakes is awarding thousands of prizes including some instant Win Prizes from Bridgestone, Motorola, the NFL and NFLShop.com, Papa John's Pizza and Sirius XM Radio.

Chevrolet will be running several ads during NBC's Super Bowl broadcast. When someone downloads the app, they receive a unique "license plate" number and if anyone's numbers match any plate in Chevy's Super Bowl spots, they will win one of 20 Chevy's. There is also an alternate means of entry in which someone that does not want to download the app can register for the sweepstakes by visiting chevy.com/gametime.

So I just downloaded the app and will try it out. I don't have a tablet yet, so I will be experiencing it off my Droid Incredible phone. Should be interesting. In the meantime we all now have to go a whole weekend with no football! Let the fun begin.

By Guest Blogger, Dave Thomas, Online Content Editor for business.com

While it’s no surprise that advertisements during the Super Bowl cost big dollars, that hasn’t stopped many companies from opening up their checkbooks to market their wares.

Recent reports note that NBC, this year’s host for the Feb. 5 event in Indianapolis, sold its entire allotment of commercial airtime for the game before Thanksgiving 2011, having a waiting list to boot.

According to the network, slots are still open during NBC's pregame show, and those on the waiting list for the Super Bowl will have an opportunity to advertise if other companies forfeit their slots.

So, how much does an ad cost when more than 100 million people tune in to watch the AFC and NFC battle next month?

The average cost for a 30-second spot in 2012 is $3.5 million, with some time slots leading advertisers to spend as much as $4 million. The bottom line is you better have a sizeable amount of cash to spend if you want to get noticed on Super Bowl Sunday during the year’s most watched sporting event.

When you break down the marketing efforts of advertisers and NBC for that matter, at a $3.5 million average, the 70 commercials that appear during the game would lead to $245 million in gross revenue. When you take away the ad agency commission, NBC would take in just over $208 million when all is said and done.

There are also six commercials scheduled for halftime, along with a plethora of them slated to run in the nauseating six hours of pregame hype.

As a spokesperson for the sales and marketing team with the NBC Sports Group noted, “We should shatter all prior records for that day.”

As many marketing and sales pros can attest to, it isn’t just the televisions sets where people will be exposed to advertisements. The network is also selling spots on its live streamed broadcast of the game and on Super Bowl-related programming to be broadcast on the NBC Sports Network.

Among the companies planning to market their products during the game next month are Volkswagen, General Motors, Toyota, Dannon, Century 21, GoDaddy.com, and Bridgestone.

While most small businesses will never get the chance to market their products during an event such as the Super Bowl, there are lessons to be learned from the experience. Among them are:

• Always be sure to reinforce your brand and/or business. While some Super Bowl messages are cute and funny, the brand sometimes gets lost in the message. Marketers want consumers to remember who they are whether it is a 30-second spot or a 60-second one. Make sure you don’t leave people guessing as to what your message is;
• Logos, web addresses, phone numbers, etc. are essential. It is important when marketing to make sure consumers have the ability to reach out to you. You can have the best product in the world, but without a way for people to reach you, what good is it? Don’t make consumers have to work to find you;
• Redefine the targeted audience – This is why surveys, reports, metrics etc. are important. Make sure you are marketing to the right demographics so that your money is well spent. If your primary market is young women, don’t spend your time marketing to middle age men in hopes that they will pass the details along to their younger offspring.

You may not be advertising during the biggest television spectacle of the year, but that doesn’t mean your marketing efforts are worthless.

Score a touchdown with the right marketing campaigns, which begin with kicking off in the right direction.

Dave Thomas, who covers among other items starting a small business and business proposals, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

Super Bowl XLVI will be played on February 5 in Indianapolis at Lucas Oil Stadium. That means it's that time of year again to be writing about one of the biggest marketing events of the year. Now that the Green Bay Packers and the New Orleans Saints have been eliminated, what teams do you think will win? I'm going with Eli Manning and the Giants. Here's a great article I read yesterday from the WSJ titled "Why Giants Really Could Win It All".

So the next question will be what marketing and advertising campaign will come out a winner? The team at Doritos is at it again with their sixth "Crash The Super Bowl" contest. This contest has become the grandfather of all user-generated contests. The contest finalists have now been posted and last week their submissions surged to the top of the viral video chart after generating over 1.7 million views. This year's contest received more than 6,100 entries from people hoping their video will become one of two Super Bowl ads to be televised during the game, with a possible $1 million prize if viewers rate their ad highly enough.

The 5 finalists will all receive $25,000 each and a trip to Indianapolis for a private Super Bowl XLVI party hosted by Doritos. Following the voting round, the two finalists with the most votes will be declared the Grand Prize winners and their spots will be aired during the Super Bowl XLVI broadcast. If either of these commercials is awarded one of the top 3 spots (including ties) according to the USA TODAY Ad Meter rankings, that Grand Prize Winner will receive a bonus of $1,000,000 for the #1 spot, $600,000 for the #2 spot OR $400,000 for the #3 spot. In addition, the Grand Prize winners will be offered a consulting contract with The Lonely Island, a comedic trio consisting of Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, and Andy Samberg, best known for a series of "digital shorts" aired on Saturday Night Live.

The voting period is going on now till January 29th. Doritos this year is offering an incentive just for voters with the “Vote For A Chance To Win” Sweepstakes. They have integrated various ways participants can register to vote this year that include mobile and social media. The entry methods include the CrashtheSuperbowl.com website itself, a mobile optimized version of the website at m.crashthesuperbowl.com or crashthesuperbowl.com/mobile, the Doritos Facebook page, via Buzzfeed, through an Xbox console, and by clicking any of the various online banner ads the brand is running.

For every 100,000 votes received, a random drawing will occur from among all entries received during that voting period for a chance to win $10,000. Currently the site meter says they have received close to 300,000 votes, so they must have pulled two winners already that each have won $10.000. Doritos will do up to 10 drawings for a total potential prize pool of $1 million.

I just reviewed the five finalist spots. Three out of the five include dogs. One is a guy who acts like a bird and the last stars a very cute baby. All quite silly. Here's my favorite, which one is yours?

Recently we helped launch a contest on Facebook for our client, Rail Europe, called Cultural Shock. The contest invites fans of their Facebook page to submit an entry that describes an experience that they may have had while in Europe which exemplifies cultural differences between the European and American lifestyle.

Rail Europe is asking people to share their experiences that may have been awkward, unexpected, inspiring or just plain interesting. An example Rail Europe offers is that you ordered steak tartar in France and you thought that you were going to receive regular steak; instead you received a plate of raw meat.

The objective of the contest is to get people to share their submissions with their friends and family on Facebook and invite them to vote for their submission. At the end of the two-week contest period the person with the most votes wins the grand prize for that round. A new contest round starts every two weeks. Currently we are on Round 4 which will be ending on Sunday, Jan. 15. Round 5 is scheduled to start on the following Monday, Jan. 16. We're hoping this is going to be a year-long contest. However, that will depend on if the level of interest and engagement continues to be strong. So far the results have been impressive.

Rail Europe USA is the leading authority of European rail in the United States, representing more than 35 European railroads. They currently assist more than one million visitors each year experience Europe by train. Therefore, the grand prize that is offered for each contest round is a 3-country Eurail Select Pass. Winners have up to six months to claim their pass which can then be used over a two month period.

You can visit Rail Europe's blog were the team has posted some of their European cultural shock experiences to help inspire people to submit their own stories. Submissions may include up to 1,000 characters of text and an optional photo. Currently when I click on the View and Vote tab I see 26 entries for this round that I can vote on. Here's a submission from Erin Clark that I thought was funny:

"When I was 17 and fresh off the farm, I was on a concert band tour of Europe. Toward the end of the tour we were exploring London. Our tour guide took us to The Old Curiosity Shop. I had made my purchases and decided to stand outside. A lady approached me and asked me "By chance do you have a fag?" I was mortified until a chaperone explained that she meant a cigarette."

The winner of the Round 3 contest was Mike Richard from New Hampshire. Mike's submission was an account of his experience last year of taking part in the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. He received 65 votes! Mike came away without a bruise and stated "The event is unlike anything I have experienced in the United States and would strongly recommend the event to others."

This is the first Facebook contest I have set-up and help manage using the ShortStack Application. I've been very happy with the flexibility the app offers and the support that I have gotten from the ShortStack team. For example, when we first launched Round 1, we had one tab that included both the entry form and all the submission. We moved to a two tab set-up which we have now on the page that allows those who are visiting just to vote to find the entries much easier. When someone submits an entry, they then have the option to post on their wall as well as send out personal invites to some of their friends asking them for their vote. When the friend clicks on the link that takes them to the contest their friend's submission will be the first once shown in the gallery.

So I invite you to become a Facebook fan of Rail Europe and check out the contest. Yes, you have to Like the page in order to view or enter the contest. That's one of the benefits of running a contest like this and using an application that allows for both fan and no-fan content to display. Rail Europe currently has gained over 4,000 fans since we launched the contest back in November.

If you have an European Cultural Shock experience to share, please feel free to submit it in the contest. People can resubmit their entry in another round. However, they can only win once! Congrats to all the current winners. Let's see who's next.

I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays and had some time to relax. For my last blog post of 2011 I did a review of the year and featured a post from every month. It is a tradition I have done for the past few years and its a way for me, and I hope you as well, to reflect back on the year dominate

As always with a new year we read about what many predictions and forecasts. With today being just the fourth day of the new year, and the morning after the Iowa Caucus, we already know that it is going to be a heavy political season which has just begun.

This MediaPost article is interesting which states that if we take a look at some of the recent engagement on social media we may be able to predict who will be our next President. Similar to search engine stats which have predicted what items were going to be the big holiday sellers, social media can give us a glimpse into the future as well. This company called Socialbakers has created metrics based on Facebook Likes, sentiments in comments, and interactions to identify the candidates most likely to win at the polls.

As of yesterday, their metrics suggested that Ron Paul held the highest overall "Viral Reach" with 59,554 comments this past week. Rick Perry had the most engaging single-post among candidates, followed by Jon Huntsman and Newt Gingrich. So Mitt Romney wasn't even mentioned and he just won the Iowa Caucuses by 8 votes!

Another very popular topic and prediction that I've been reading centers around mobile and the need for marketers and publishers to ramp up their efforts here. This also goes for those seeking to become the next President. While social media played a very important role in the 2008 presidential election, the explosive growth in smartphone usage and the introduction of tablets could make or break the candidates for president in 2012.

This article on Network World goes on to say that while some of the GOP campaigns have special links on their websites for getting updates via SMS, they don't appear to have candidate-specific downloadable mobile apps on Apple's App Store or the Android Market so far. I would agree with this writer that this will most likely change and we move forward with the race. However, it is odd when you think about how you can now follow the NFL playoffs with an app, but you can't follow the race for the White House.

It is definitely going to be a very exciting year and it will be interesting to see the expanded role both social media and mobile play in the campaigns along with how marketers continue to utilize these resources. I'm glad to be able to bring to my readers updates and unique examples of how social media and mobile will be utilized as the year moves on.

For now I just want to end my first post of the year by featuring one more holiday promotion that I "Liked". Cox Communications launched its first social giving campaign on their Facebook page in support of Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) by spreading social media cheer with their Holiday Snow Globe.

Cox Facebook fans were invited to place one of their photos into a holiday-themed snow globe that offered a variety of different designs, such as Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Wonderland and more. They then were allowed to share their personalized snow globe on Facebook as well as through email. I shared mine with a photo of my husband, Kevin and I in the globe. But unfortunately when I went to look for it today, it's been deleted.

Anyhow, Cox will donate one dollar to the organization for each snow globe created this holiday season, up to $10,000.They have not yet announced how much they raised since it just ended yesterday. They also were running a Holiday Sweepstakes as part of the campaign in which they are giving away a trip to attend a holiday concert in NYC along with a selection of prizes including an iPod Touch, PlayStation 3 and a Dell Streak Tablet.

Today will be my last post of 2011. Where did 2011 go? The stats on this blog tells me that this will be my 530 post since I launched Promo Talk and the 73 post of 2011.

At the end of 2010 I wrote this post, Promo Talk's Top Stories of 2010: from social media, to check-in's to promotions. These were what I felt were my top posts that helped to define 2010. I decided to continue the tradition so I went back and read through some of the posts that I wrote during 2011. Here are my 12 top picks, one per month, that I felt reflected the pop culture of the month or that defined a major milestone or shift in marketing.

January - See who's winning on Facebook in 2011 with this new Social Media Monitoring Tool

I started off 2011 with one of my first posts about Facebook and it's continued to be one of my most popular topics all year. I state here that 2010 was definitely the year of Facebook. The social network dominated the media towards the end of the year and this has continued throughout 2011. If you recall, Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg was named Time Magazine's 2010 Person of the Year. We were speculating a year ago on when Facebook would file for their IPO and now it's apparent that will happen sometime in second quarter of 2012. So if you haven't yet, check out this Social Media Monitor that was developed by Wildfire. It continues to be one on the resources I turn to when assisting my clients with their Facebook marketing.

February - Did Super Bowl XLV live up to be the Social Super Bowl?

As with tradition, every year I write about promotions and advertising associated with the Super Bowl. This post was written after the game, and yes the Packers won, but overall I felt we were all let down by the overall marketing experience. Today most of us still will say that the Chrysler Detroit ad was one of the best of the year and we still seem to love the Volkswagen Darth Vader spot. But where was the conversation? On Twitter? Perhaps, but were the brands really listening? We'll soon see what this year brings.

March - Memphis Car Audio launches the Fast Five Movie Premiere Sweepstakes utilizing a new cross channel platform.

One of our new clients, the Fulmer Company, partnered with Universal Studios on the theatrical release of The Fast Five, the fifth film in the Fast and Furious film series. We launched for them our first cross-platform promotion which enabled entries into the Sweepstakes and Instant Win Game via Facebook, a mobile-enable web page and through SMS, text messages. It was very successful which this post here provides some updates.

April - Study Shows that Moms Love their Smartphones and to them mobile is mainstream

This “21st Century Mobile Mom Report” revealed that most women purchased a smartphone as a result of having a child and 51% of them admitted that they are “addicted’ to their smartphone. Their favorite feature is the phone camera of course. This report was one of many this past year that drove marketers to get on with their mobile strategies quickly and figure out the best way to market to these women. Mobile has now become mainstream and marketers need to understand now how to build meaningful relationships and connect through this channel.

May - Facebook updates its Promotion Guidelines and stresses importance of professional legal counsel

Facebook's Promotions Guidelines govern all promotions run on Facebook and outline what Page owners can and can not do when running promotions on Facebook. They clearly stated in this update that compliance with these Guidelines does not constitute the lawfulness of a promotion. Therefore, marketers should seek professional advice on what is legal and what is not.

June - And so begins the Google+ Project, the new social network from Google

The introduction of Google+ was one of the most talked and written about topics of the year. Many people said it would not stand a chance to compete against Facebook. Others said how brilliant it was and would change the way we search. We're still in a wait and see mode, but my recommendation for all businesses is to get on board one way or another. The lines between social and search are merging more and more. That is a trend for 2012 we'll see continuing.

July - Social Media Grows Up along with Harry Potter

I've been writing about this magical film and book series since I started blogging back in 2007. This was the last movie in the series to be released and it broke all box office records. But what's special about this post is that reflects on how my daughters grew up with Harry Potter, being the same age as Harry growing up in the story. It also reflects on how much the social media utilized to market Harry Potter changed from the first post I wrote about this series.

August - Social Sweepstakes and Contest Rules & Regs Session from BlogPaws 2011

This was the second year, and the third conference, that BlogPaws has hosted and that I also got to speak at. Both a hurricane and an earthquake where part of the main topics of conversation which was held in Tysons Corner just outside of D.C. on August 25-27. There was approximately 400 people in attendance and I was one of three women who spoke in a session titled Copyright Basics, FTC Updates & Contests Rules & Regulations. I also was the contest administer for this year's BlogPaws Photo/Caption Contest which awarded some trips to the conference. I'm already looking forward to BlogPaws 2012 which will be held in Salt Lake City, June 21-23.

September - Contest from Henkel Helps Kids Get Fit Program Offers Schools a chance to win $30,000

Henkel is the parent company of some famous brands we've all used which include Dial®, Purex®, Renuzit®, Right Guard®, Soft Scrub®, and Loctite®. I had the opportunity to work with their marketing team along with their digital agency on their largest promotion of 2011. Part of my roles was the opportunity to contact all the finalists to deliver the good news that their submission made it as one of top five in one of the three school categories. The winning schools are posted online here along with their videos and essays.

October - Supporting Pink in Honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month

As the calendar turns to October, another one of my traditions is to write about pink promotions, those that support Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This year I wrote this post along with this other later in the month. It's a very personal topic me, as unfortunately it is with many others who have lost a loved one to breast cancer. I lost my mom in April of 2011 to what this one program focuses on, metastatic breast cancer. Now just this year two young women in my golf league both had a double mastectomy. Thankfully, they are both doing well.

November - Live from Day 1 of PMA's 33rd Annual Marketing Law Conference

It was that time of year again for PMA's Annual Marketing and Law Conference which was being held back at the Marriott Hotel on Michigan Ave in Chicago. Social media was again a dominate topic of the sessions. We reviewed both Facebook and Twitter's Promotional Guidelines. However, mobile marketing was another topic that people had a huge interest. This is "Future" as the conference theme suggested. Foursquare location based marketing, QR codes, applications and SMS were all areas discussed. However the laws are still not quite up to speed with the technology.

December - Home for the Holidays T-Mobile Campaign goes Viral

Ending the year on another tradition is my review of some of the best and most unique holiday promotions. This one by T-Mobile is a great example of how to successfully market to women, integrate video with a promotional sweepstakes and engage fans on Facebook. I still can't get that song out of my head. YouTube has recently made some changes to its site to make it more social and therefore is a platform that more and more of us should be integrating into our marketing mix in 2012.

Hope you enjoyed the review. I wish you a very Happy New Year and here's to a wonderful and prosperous 2012. Thanks again for reading!

Christmas Day is now only four days away and the time I have left to write about the holiday promotions of 2011 is dwindling down. So have you finished your shopping yet? From the sounds of it we have all been helping out the economy quite a bit this year, both online and in the stores. I just have one small thing left to get!

Here's another one of my favorite brands, Grand Marnier, that launched an interesting holiday promotion on their Facebook page. In the spirit of giving, Grand Marnier will be donating up to $10,000 to a deserving charity this holiday season. The "Grand Giving Tree" holiday promotion not only benefits charities, but it also giving participants a chance to win $1,000.

Users can decorate a tree by selecting a holiday ornament that represents one of three charities: the World Wildlife Fund, WaterAid America (dedicated to improving access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene in the world's poorest countries), or Cool Earth (helps indigenous communities halt deforestation one village at a time).

The charity that has the most ornaments by Dec. 31 will receive the $10,000 donation from Grand Marnier. The other two charities will each receive donations of $2,500.

The promotion gives people the option to enter the sweepstakes. All U.S. residents are eligible to enter except for California. This is because of the state regulations that prohibit any alcohol spirit brand from giving away a prize of $5.00 or more in any sweepstakes. So most of the time they just leave California out, such as the case here. Participants don't have to like the Grand Marnier Facebook page, but it does require them to accept the application which gives permission for the brand to access profile data and to send email from the Giving Tree program.

Once I picked my charity and decorated the tree I was taken to a new page where I first had to wait a minute for the tree to be trimmed. Then I was able to see the ornament that I put on the tree which also populated with my profile photo, my city and state and my charity. It also gave me the opportunity to share this on my Facebook wall, all the while listening to the music from the Nutcracker.

I'm pretty impressed with this promotion and the way the application works. Check it out before the end of the year.

Now I think I'm just going to have to pick up a bottle and sip some Grand Marnier by our tree with my hubby on Christmas Eve. Enjoy and have a wonderful and blessed Christmas.

You may have already seen and heard about this holiday campaign from T-Mobile: There's no Place Like Home for the Holidays. You know the saying and the song, right? 

T-Mobile hired 100 women who joined their corporate spokeswoman, Carly Foulkes, back on December 1 and staged a surprise performance of this song in the Woodfield Mall outside of Chicago. We all know Carly, that striking brunette that appears in T-Mobile ads wearing that signature color, magenta dress. T-Mobile selected 100 women from different races and ethnic background, shapes and sizes, who all got to wear that same magenta dress and surprise shoppers by prancing around the mall singing that song and encouraging all to join in.

The performance was filmed by director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, who has directed several episodes of Glee. It was then edited down into a three-minute video that has now been going viral on YouTube and on the T-Mobile Facebook page. You just can't help but smile when you watch this video which is the same feeling for those that are hooked on Glee.

Trish Cox, senior director of advertising and brand at T-Mobile had stated that women consumers really had a fascination with Carly and her magenta dress. “One of the things that has taken hold [with the campaign] were the magenta dresses she’s wearing,” Cox says. “Over the course of time, we’ve asked ourselves what we could do to capitalize on this idea.”

Since the video was posted on YouTube last week it already has nearly 2 million views. So it has definitely gone viral. T-mobile is also promoting it through rich-media banner advertising and some paid search ads. They also are planning to send it to their customers and employees as a “special holiday greeting”.

To further engage their customers, T-Mobile has also launched the Home for the Holidays Sweepstakes on their Facebook page which invites fans to write, in 100 words or less, why they want to go home to visit their families for the holidays. Three lucky winners will be selected from all the entries who will receive round trip travel to anywhere in the United States so they can spend the holidays with the ones they love. The sweepstakes ends today, so if you're what to enter you need to check it out now.

The campaign is all intended to reinforce the company’s position as one that is “all about connecting and sharing and providing connections and relationships among people,” Cox says. In my opinion it's also another great example of how to successfully market to women, integrate video with a promotional sweepstakes and engage fans on Facebook. I am not a T-Mobile customer, and won't be switching from Verizon anytime soon, but I am enjoying this video and hope you do as well. I am also really looking forward to my daughters coming home for the holidays.

This holiday season many brands are turning to Facebook to promote their marketing campaigns while trying to grow and engage their fan base. Utilizing applications to run a sweepstakes or contest, give away coupons, administer a brief survey, or to promote a charitable cause are all great ways to get people involved beyond just clicking the "Like" button.

ShortStack is one of the newer applications that I have been trying out this past year. They recently announced their new Holiday Reveal Calendar template which enables you to run a campaign where users can unlock new content on your tab each day. It's idea for a 12 days of Christmas countdown type promotion.

Once a user has opened a day they will be able to see the prize, deal, gift, or whatever that has been placed within! If the day is still locked, the user will be served a message asking them to come back later to see the hidden content. The Calendar template is completely customizable, so you can use whatever graphics and photos you wish. Here's a video you can view that gives a quick review..

One company currently utilizing this ShortStack template for a holiday promotion on their Facebook page is AMD, a computing and graphics solutions technology company.

Now through January 2 the AMD Holiday Sweepstakes will be offering chances to win prizes ranging from products by HP to Marc by Marc Jacobs. Participants must Like the page first and then are invited to come back each day and enter for a chance to win that day's prize. The grand prize will be offered on the last day of the Holiday Sweepstakes, January 2, which includes an AMD Eyefinity setup and an HP TouchSmart 320-1050 All-in-One-PC.

Wildfire is another application that I have utilized for many clients and have written about before. Last month they launched their Advent Calendar template that also allows for the opportunity to create a calendar with up to 31 days that can reveal a special treat, message, gift, or prize each day.

Wildfire is offering these “advent-like” templates through their new Social Marketing Suite. To help promote the new templates Wildfire launched the 31-Days of Social Media advent calendar on their own fan page that offered daily social media advice throughout the month of November.

These are just a few of the ways you can add some fun content on your Facebook page to help get into the holiday spirit and engage your audience.

I have always had Advent calendars in the house since I was a child and then continued the tradition by giving them to my daughters, so I especially love these ideas. However, our calendars always revealed a different piece of chocolate each day. Now an app that could deliver that would be high on my list!

By Guest Blogger, Dave Thomas, Online Content Editor for business.com

A company’s blog will only go so far as the time and effort placed into it. For companies who take the time and effort to craft a winning blog, the rewards can be endless.

Not only does the company blog serve as a great marketing tool, but the company’s return on investment (ROI) will typically prosper from a well-designed blog.

On the other side of the coin, not putting enough time and effort into the blog increases the chances your business will miss out on obtaining new customers, something no smart business head is going to stand for. This also means that you have one less viable marketing tool with which to present your case with to potential clients.

See Where Your Blog Needs Some TLC

While some of these details may seem rather simplistic, they are well-worth reviewing as 2011 winds down and you think about the coming year and what it will mean to your business and its marketing efforts going forward in the New Year.

The company blog can and should play a key role in helping you to promote the business, with the blog serving as a form of public relations and marketing to the outside world.

If your company’s blog design needs some tinkering to better position itself in the New Year, keep these ideas in mind:

• The look and feel of it. The success of any company blog starts and finishes with its look. If your company has a blog that is not viewer-friendly, has numerous broken links, and is hard to search and navigate, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Plain and simple, the blog needs to have a call to action to customers to make them land on your page. Make sure your blog headers, fonts (see more below), links etc. are precise and lure the customer in ;
• Don’t let your content expire – Just as you would not want to eat something that expired, nor should you be providing readers with outdated content. When you first put your company’s blog together, one of the most important facets to consider was would you have enough time to blog regularly? If the answer was no, then you were already setting your company’s blog up for failure. It is important to have updated and relevant content that visitors will want to read and dissect. At the end of the day, you want them coming to your company’s blog as the relevant source of information, deals and more in that respective industry;
• Scratch their back and they will scratch your back – In the world of blogs, networking plays a key role, whether you’re a small company or a large one. For the smaller business owner, promoting other blogs on your site that are not in direct competition with you is a great way to network. In turn, many of those blogs will likely due the same for you, giving your company added exposure it did not previously enjoy;
• Drive the search to more visitors – Any successful company blog is going to be one that pulls in a lot of traffic via search engines, the largest being Google. In order for this to happen, review and make sure your company’s site is fully optimized for keywords that your customers and potential customers are likely to utilize. Be sure to target your keywords, including in your blog posts, so that readers find it easier to locate you. When writing blog copy, insert several keywords/links that are beneficial to you, flow well in the copy, and point to your company blog as being authoritative;
• Don’t go haywire with fonts, colors and more – While you want some attention to detail on your company blog, make sure it doesn’t use endless colors and fonts that come across as a mish-mash of styles. Consistency is important when wanting your blog to attract customers and retain them;
• Feed your blog – As most experts will tell you, RSS feeds are a great way for your company blog to gain a steady viewership, allowing you to not only discuss industry pertinent information, but also promote deals, specials, coupons etc. Make sure your RSS subscribe icon is in a noticeable area so it will draw viewer’s attention;
• Consistency is vital – Lastly, consistency with your company blog is paramount to its success. As mentioned earlier, stale content, constant changes, a site with multiple problems, etc. is just an open invitation to disaster. You may already have some customers in tow without your blog, but there are countless potential customers out there that you stand to possibly gain if your blog attracts them. Do your part to make sure the blog is inviting enough that it will lead them back for more.

With a blog that makes potential customers want to give you a look, you’ve already accomplished half the battle.

Now, however, keep them coming back for more.

Dave Thomas writes extensively for B2b lead generation online resource Resource Nation that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs. He is an expert writer on items like credit card processing companies and is based in San Diego, California.