I hope everyone has a great holiday.

I really like this article by Miriam Solas: The 3 Best Things You Can Do For America.

From the press release/blog:

To further increase local business exposure online, MerchantCircle also announces the first-ever local city coupon Twitter feed. Merchant-built coupons are now automatically fed to city-specific Twitter feeds, so that local consumers can find local coupons and events in real-time. MerchantCircle local business owners create more than 50,000 online coupons and events every month.  Merchant-created deals and events are automatically posted to the new Twitter feeds to expose local merchants to even more potential customers.

“I’m thrilled MerchantCircle is always coming up with ways that make it easier for customers to find us,” says Ken Mapel, owner of The Glass Guy in St. Paul, MN. “I can create coupons for free on MerchantCircle and they distribute them across the web. And now with the direct Twitter feed, they’re making it even easier to find more local customers. I currently receive around 80 calls per month from consumers who have found me on MerchantCircle; I’m looking forward to this bringing in even more.”

Are you on Merchant Circle, if you let me know how it is working for you.

The past few days,  I was attending Boy Scout camp with my 2 older sons. I am not a camper but I help run the troop and enjoy spending time with my boys. Must say I had a great time. Very relaxing, though extremely hot.

It was a great time because I was able to just put things down for a while and enjoy the outdoors. Growing up in NY, I never realized how many stars came out at night. LOL! I love looking at the stars.

I recommend everyone take some time out and enjoy life and appreciate all you have.

I am getting back into the swing of things so I will be posting more soon.  Thanks

Ben was also kind enough to provide all readers a 15% discount on any service ordered at Logoinn.com.  All you need to do is enter this code “MKT-01” while placing an order in promotion code section.  Thanks Ben for your post today.

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During these challenging economic times it is vital that you think outside of the box if you want your business to survive, let alone thrive.  You will need to come up with creative and high-impact solutions in order to keep your business ahead of the pack.

In this regard, you might want to consider the benefits that can be realized through the re-branding process.  Through this article you are provided some basic and essential information about re-branding, re-designing your firm logo and breathing new life into your business.

Re-branding:  An Overview
If you have a product or service that appears to have stalled on the market, that consumers no longer seem interested in purchasing no matter how much money you are spending on advertising and promotion, the time may have arrived for you to consider re-branding that product or service.

At its heart, re-branding can best be described as a strategy that is designed to reposition a product or service – or the entire business itself – to distance itself from an association with its previous brand identity.  Additionally, re-branding sometimes is used to move a product up-market – in a direction that will make it more appealing to consumers who have more money to spend.  This type of up-market re-branding is becoming particularly useful during these challenging and difficult economic times.

In many instances (indeed, in nearly every case) the re-branding process is undertaken with a radical alteration of the business’s logo, image, brand name, advertising themes and overall marketing strategy.  In the end re-branding is not so much a company or product face lift but entire, comprehensive overhaul.

Re-branding:  An Affordable Marketing Solution
Through the re-branding process you will be able to better focus the money that you have available in your budget for marketing and promotion.  The fact is that changing the design of logos and making other types of essential and yet not complex changes can effect a transformation of a business or product without the expenditure of significant amounts of money.

Marketing budgets are very tight in this day and age.  Therefore, the only prudent course a business really can take to alter its market position is to take the course of re-branding.

The Importance of Logo Design in the Re-Branding Processing
When all is said and done, the logo associated with a business enterprise really is the heart and soul of the identity of that venture.  The brand and the logo in some very significant and definitive ways are connected.

Therefore, if you are intended on undertaking a re-branding process, you definitely will have to focus a great deal of your attention on ensuring that the “new” logo will meet your ultimate goals and objectives.

Towards this end you need to understand that not “any old” logo designer will do.  Rather, you will need to engage the professional services of a logo design firm that has specific experience on business or product re-branding.  You must have a designer that understands how to get from Point A to Point B in the re-branding process.  Obviously, you do not want to engage the services of a logo designer that lacks this specific depth of experience.  If you did make that mistake, you may end up unsuccessfully re-branding your project in such a manner that your market share will nose dive and you will end up in an irreversible free fall.

Conclusion
Understanding the challenging economic climate in which you are running your business, the time really may have come for you to take a close look at initiating a re-branding process.  As has been enumerated in this article, you definitely need to make sure that you have a logo design pro who understands re-branding on your team in order to ensure maximum results.

When all is said and done, through an appropriately facilitated re-branding process (with a talented logo designer on board) you will be able to reposition your business in such a manner so that you will be able to maximize revenues and profits not only in the immediate but in the long term future as well.

Twitter has changed a lot regarding blogging. I find myself reviewing my Twitter account more than my Google Reader. I still do read my blogs but with Twitter you get information/links/comments very close to real time. I find this helps me keep up with what is important to me (local search and sports).

From the blogs I follow, it seems like there has been less postings, but no lack of tweets. In addition, to getting information as it happened, it also appears that Twitter can act as an instant messaging tool.  I know I have used it a few times to get a hold of someone so I could call them.

So I agree with Gib that Twitter has effected blogging and commenting on blogs.  How long will Twitter be around?  Not sure, but right now it is hot and to stay competitive online, you need to make sure you are int the middle of it. My retired father-in-law even asked me if he should get a Twitter account.

So what has your experience been with Twitter? Has it changed how you read, converse online? Are the bloggers you follow on Twitter more than their blogs?

Anyone out there? If no one responds, I will understand.

Thank goodness that my blog post get sent to Twitter also.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter.

This awesome sounding summit will take place in San Francisco on July 17, 2009. If you want more info, please head over to the website.

From what I have read, it sounds to be an action packed day and has a great headline of speakers/panel members such as:

Andrew Shotland
David Mihm
Greg Sterling
Will Scott

I am looking into going myself but need to check our vacation plans.  If you want to learn more about local search, here is a great opportunity.

The Definitive List of Local Search Directories You Need To List With from Keith Hagen at eMarketing Matador

Google Local - Out of Date, Riddled with Spam But Absolutely Worth It at SEOMoz

KML and sitemaps for SEO - The definitive guide by Martijn Beijk

Local Search Inclusion with David Mihm on SEOMoz Whiteboard Friday nice video that I found at Understanding Google Maps & Local Search blog by Mike Blumenthal

How To Handle Negative Reviews Of Your Business by David Ingram over at Search Engine Land

All Aboard the Twitter Train by David Mihm over at Search Engine Land