Cultural Learnings Make Benefit Glorious Company MerchantCircle

There's low-tech and then there's me; here at work they call me No-Tech. So if I get something, which isn't often - that means we're doing something right. We realize at MerchantCircle that the overwhelming majority of you did not grow up with the internet. In fact, this year's graduating high school class is the first generation of kids who can't remember being without the internet. (Don't ask me for my sources, I read it somewhere. Either that, or I dreamt it and it made a lot sense to me when I woke up.)

We're not trying to insult anyone, (unless it's me), we just realize that we have to make things easier to understand. We want you to build content on your pages so that you can appeal to customers. For that reason, we now have a getting started guide behind your Merchant Dashboard and just completed a video web tutorial that will teach you how to blog, upload pictures, build ads and coupons, and create a newsletter. I think we're pretty darn easy to use.

I was reading this article in Newsweek about a program called Y Combinator. One of the companies mentioned in the article was called Weebly. They bill themselves as the 'easiest way to create and publish a website online.' I was super stoked because I've always wanted my own website. The other thing that I took notice to, was they received funding from Ron Conway, a guy who also invested in us. For that, he's a visionary! But really, his early investments included Google and Ask Jeeves.

So I check out this site, and it took me nearly two hours to build my website. You can check out my site by clicking here. I probably could have finished quicker but the pages were slow to load and I still didn't figure out how to keep my profile picture from disappearing - which should explain the lack of a picture on my home page. I think Weebly is really cool though, just slow and definitely hard to navigate. I can't imagine what it would be like for someone new to the web. Even though they call me No-Tech, I'm still immersed somewhat in web navigation.

Websites that let you build a website are cool, but my learnings on the web still show that built-in networks, such as MySpace (friends, family), Facebook (high school and college students), LinkedIn (business professionals) or even MerchantCircle (business owners, entrepreneurs), are easier to use and much more engaging and relevant.

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations

The Mystery of the Top 6

If you go to our MerchantCircle home page, you can find a list of our Top 6 merchants under 'most popular'. As you may already know, we've essentially built a web page for every business in the U.S. Over 120,000 of you have already claimed your page, but keep in mind, we have over 15 million businesses on MerchantCircle. Still, even at 120,000 we are the fastest growing and largest network of SMBs on the web.

Back to the Top 6 - the interesting thing about that list is that two of the merchants have not claimed their business listing. Both Kimpa Sport Fishing (with nearly 12,000 visitors to their page) and Fina Oil & Chemical (more than 7,000 in the last 30 days) are the lone hold-outs. Far more interesting is the MerchantCircle algorithm that spells out higher search engine rankings for merchants who create content (coupons, blogs, ads) and link to other pages on the web. Obviously Kimpa and Fina have not done that since they haven't even claimed their page.

So why are people going to their MerchantCircle pages? Normally a business may get a huge spike like that if a major crime or controversial news story took place at the business. Or if a huge celebrity like me shows up one day......

For now, the mystery has partially been solved - they're coming up high in search engine results. In the meantime, keep creating content and linking to other web pages, because we all can't be as fortunate as Kimpa and Fina. Take a look at Small Wonders Imaging, LLC and Wedding Supplies Unlimited - they are doing a great job interacting with their customers and coming up high in search engines. As a busines owner, that's what being on the web should be about - if you're not found on that first page of results you're only hurting yourself.

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations

Gidget Mania!..... or was it Widget?

I am constantly amazed at the savvy of small business owners across the country. I'm also constantly amazed at my lack of web understanding. Since we added our new features, I now have an increased vocabulary for web terms. For instance, Widget - not to be confused with Gidget, is a web code that you can use to put something on a web page, for instance a logo, or reviews from MerchantCircle for that matter.

Take for instance Urban Sports in San Jose, CA. Their website can be found at www.urbansports.info. Check out their page and take a look at how they included reviews they got on their MerchantCircle page. That's a widget! The reviews link to their MerchantCircle page, which search engines love....

Urban Sports isn't the only one to join the Widget bandwagon.

- www.thewildbird.net
- http://christinasensualsecrets.com/ (although you may have to get parental permission to visit this site)
- www.firesidebbqpit.com

Go to your Merchant Dashboard where we've included the code you need to post your MerchantCircle Widgets anywhere.

Go Widgets! (Did that sound as dorky as it reads?)

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations

The MerchantCircle Club for Men, Women and Sanjaya

The high-tech, internet field is almost a world upon its own. Filled with three letter acronyms, fancy degrees that seem unfathomable, and dorks galore! MerchantCircle is a part of that world, well, except for me of course - I'm really cool.

For the majority of tech-nerds, they can walk around talking widgets, html (which isn't short for hotmail), or C++ (which I can only relate to because it closely mirrors my letter grades in school - actually if the programming language was D-- that would probably be more accurate). Here at MerchantCircle, while we may be a part of that world, we stay deeply rooted in the world that affects you, our merchants.

Take a look at the picture to your left. That's a picture of our co-founder, Ben Smith's grandmother, in front of the Bar-B-Q restaurant his grandfather founded in Alabama. Over to the right, is a picture of the local pharmacy where Ben had his first job. (The pharmacy has since gone out of business, while Ben's Bar-B-Q continues to thrive.) While Ben has accomplished a lot in high-tech, his soul is rooted in blue-collar work ethic and the plight of small business owners.

The struggles and success of business today go into every feature we add for you on MerchantCircle. Our mindset hasn't changed since we launched last June. And there's good reason, over to the left is a picture of my dad and I in front of his burger joint. It's the place I worked at throughout high school and for weekends as long as I can remember. MerchantCircle not only understands internet, it understand business owners and their customers, because, hey, we've lived it.

I'm not only a MerchantCircle 'Executive', I'm also a client!


Sincerely,
Kevin Leu
Community Relations

Bonfire of the MerchantCircle Vanities

The web is the most vain place on earth. You're defined by a URL, what you do, and how you look. It's a good thing I look good! (2.3 on HotorNot baby!!!!) Since the release of our new features, parades of merchants have taken the torch. In just a few days, more than 500 merchants have customized their URL. Here's a sample:

• http://member.merchantcircle.com/boatrepair
  
• http://member.merchantcircle.com/dance
  
• http://member.merchantcircle.com/borderexpress

We pushed hard for this new feature because we realized that a large percentage of our merchants were either, new to the web, using us as their main web presence, and/or finding that their MerchantCircle listing was coming up higher in search engines than their own.

Sorry - guilty as charged!

Don't worry; you can still link to your website if you've already created one. Just don't be mad at us, if you paid someone thousands of dollars, only to find out your MerchantCircle listing comes up higher in search engines! (And it cost you nothing!)

So we may not be torching our vanities just yet,( in fact, just the opposite), but hey, why fight it when it feels sooooo good to be me? (Or you, for your purposes. Although I can be bought for the right price!)

Sincerely,

Kevin L.

The Good, The Bad and The Very Bad of Red Herring

While I can't speak much about the pinnacle of Red Herring power, I'm almost certain it's not what it use to be. I attended the Red Herring Monterey conference last week because we were chosen to speak on a panel about Search Marketing 2.0. The panel addressed concerns about businesses marketing themselves on the web and those businesses missing out, simply because they lack a website. (You can read more about the subject discussion here.)

While it's always a pleasure meeting executives from a broad range of companies, spanning bio-tech to media - the true joy of this conference was chuckling at Red Herring's CEO and Publisher, Alex Vieux. Not only did he give one of the cheesiest, cliched speeches I've heard in a long time, I also question if he's got a hole in his marble sack.

Vieux made the rounds throughout the conference, toasting everyone several times personally, patting everyone on their backs, and shaking hands, as if everyone was his best friend. The worst part was when he did this DURING keynote speeches, walking in front of the podium, in front of people, walking back and forth smiling as if you were sitting there naked.

You know it's bad, when seemingly professional professionals stare at each other in mock glazes as if to say, 'what the heck is he doing?!?!' Don't get me wrong, I'm not a hater, but after reading about all of Red Herring's possible troubles, I can put together a very biased assumption of what went wrong. It's a shame too, because Red Herring has some of the classiest employees I've met.

On another note, my glass of wine at dinner never hit the bottom - so with that said, the conference was a success!!!

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations

Red Herring Juice

While Red Herring may or may not be in default. There's still a lot of quality folks who work within the organization. They may have received some knocks on their previous conferences - particularly in Cannes, but I'm still looking forward to attending the conference starting today in Monterey, CA. (BTW, I believe everything ValleyWag writes).

Our Co-Founder Wayne Yamamoto was invited to join a panel speaking on "Search Marketing 2.0"

Here's the panel summary:

There is no question about it; search is the hottest topic in marketing. Even hotter is local search, with over 14 million SMBs missing out on the revolution, simply because they do not have a website. Even with this enormous opportunity, many brands are not taking advantage of this opportunity. What is the biggest mistake paid search marketers are making today? Will pay-per-call every truly catch on? How problematic is click fraud? Search has transformed the world of marketing and new technologies are changing the world of search. How can your company best take advantage of this transforming communication strategy? On this roundtable, a group of industry experts will analyze this ever changing landscape and help us make sense of what to expect for the future.

I think we've solved that first part of the equation. We're speaking on Thurday, here's the agenda. Stop by if you've got an extra $2,000 lying around! If not, we'll let you know how it goes from our MerchantCircle blog for free.

Sincerely,

Kevin