The busiest shopping season of the year is upon us. Many of you have finally completed your holiday shopping and others are just beginning. Heck, if you’re like me, you haven’t even started yet. No matter your current holiday shopping status, there is no denying that companies are going to make a boatload of money this month.

What’s stopping you from getting in on some of that cash?

Sure, this article is a little sudden; it gives you no planning time and forces you to be quick on your feet. However, in the end, YOU are responsible for YOUR business and its revenue. If you decide to embrace the holiday madness, you might see that it works out well for you, even at the last minute.

So, let’s make you some cold hard cash in four easy steps.

Customer Targeting

Not every customer is going to buy from you this year, but some will and we have to target those “some.” Is that going to be one person or 900 people, I don’t know, but I’m sure that there is a least one person who will be interested in your products or services as we wrap up the year. We need to focus on getting that person/those people. Let’s call them the “targeted crowd.”

What does the targeted crowd look like?

There are two kinds of people who do shopping and deal hunting during the month of December, those who are interested in getting the best gifts at the lowest prices for others and the individuals who want to find the coolest things for themselves. Your marketing strategy needs to appeal to one or both of these motivations.

Even still, not every person in that target crowd is going to spend money with your company but they’re willing to listen. When they ask questions, you MUST answer; when they are on the fence about buying new gutters at a ridiculously low price, you NEED to sell them on it.

The spenders will be the people in the targeted crowd that really want it but need a little extra convincing.

Your Proposal

Now that you know the group of people you’re targeting, how are you going to get them to buy your stuff?

Just like in The Godfather, you need to make him an offer he can’t refuse.

The company with the best offers win on Black Friday and beyond. Period. Do you see hundreds of people lining up at the store which offers the hottest new toy at regular price? No, and that’s because holiday bargainers want the lowest prices around or their trip is a bust.

Go low and stay low…but don’t go into the hole.

Obviously, you have certain prices you need to match in order to come out in the black, so don’t sell yourself, or your customers, too short.

Make reasonable offers that catch the attention of your targeted crowd. Marketing concrete services? Run and all-day special advertising that your normal $1,000 consultation fee will be waived for all contracts beginning today or the next week. Selling organic fruit and veggies? Make all of your products buy one, get two free AND at a reduced rate.

If a customer is on the fence about it, make an exception that won’t be too unreasonable. Obviously, you can’t give too much away for free or you’ll go broke. Make offers that customers can’t, or wouldn’t be sane to, refuse.

Tying In Social Media

Everything up to this point may have been basic but here’s the real question: how do you use social media to do all of this? Easy!

Check out a few ways you can utilize Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and your blog to make out like a bandit this holiday season:

• Facebook – Post PDFs or pictures of your sales and ads.
• Facebook – Give Facebook only customers an additional discount on your products.
• Facebook – Tell customers that if they buy a product and then write a review on the “Review” tab on Facebook, they get a special mail in rebate form.
• Twitter – Send various tweets throughout the weeks with short specials (only and hour or two long) so customers are kept wondering what great deals are coming.
• Twitter – Solicit your followers to send you Direct Messages with the price they’re willing to pay for an item and give that price to the first five followers who Direct Message.
• Twitter – If your followers answer a certain question or do a certain task, they’ll get a certain amount off of your already low prices.
• YouTube – Post videos of your products with a narration of how much you’re selling it for during the month of December.
• YouTube – Post a video detailing that if someone subscribes to your channel, they’ll get a special free gift.
• Blog – If a person subscribes to your email list today or throughout this next week, they’ll be entered to win a free product or service.
• Blog – Whoever comments on your blog on that day will get a certain amount of money off of your products or will get something for free.

Honestly, the possibilities are endless. You can offer SO MUCH to your customers through social media.

If you implement the information given in this article, you’re practically guaranteeing some success on during the holiday season and beyond. Remember–customers want deals that are ridiculously appealing so give them. If you don’t, you will never have the opportunity to build rapport and nab future sales and recommended clients.

Happy holidays to you!

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Eric Alpin is the Associate Editor of Folk Media and works for a telecommunications company in Baltimore, Md. He is a social media enthusiast, blogger, writer, and student with a passion for leadership and self-development strategies and techniques. Find out more about Eric on Twitter.

*Photo by chrisschoenbohm

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To capture the main happenings in the social media world, let’s take a look at some quick blurbs of need-to-know information. We aim to give you as much information as possible in one shot so here it goes…

A new study finds that while social media use is increasing, content creation has reached a plateau.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, is getting a lot of publicity these days, including his own comic book later this year.

You can kiss blogging service Windows Live Spaces good-bye; it’s being replaced by Wordpress.com via a recent deal between Microsoft and Automattic.

Trying to find a job via social networking can be tough but here are ten tips to help you land a new gig using Facebook and LinkedIn.

If you have a brick-and-mortar storefront, it is possible to use social media to boost your influence and customers.

The new version of the Twitter web interface has a lot of people talking; find out the changes.

Celebrities on Twitter have little influence over their followers, finds a new study conducted by Northwestern University.

If you’re looking for a way to gain Facebook fans, read how one band gained over 3,000 fans by spending only $250.

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Eric Alpin is the Associate Editor of Folk Media and works for a telecommunications company in Baltimore, Md. He is a social media enthusiast, blogger, writer, and student with a passion for leadership and self-development strategies and techniques. Find out more about Eric on Twitter.

*Photo by Rosaura Ochoa

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There may have been a lot you missed in the social media world in the course of the last week. To catch you up on the latest happenings, here are some quick one-liners.

“F**ck Cancer,” a non-profit organization determined to help others learn about the disease, has increased cancer awareness through donated Facebook status updates and tweets.

Although Facebook is about you, don’t make yourself look like fool with your wall posts.

An abducted journalist held in Afghanistan was able to tweet his location using his captor’s cell phone.

Reggie Bush and Activ8Social have kicked off a scavenger hunt through New Orleans that runs off of Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare posts.

It’s important to educate yourself on Facebook Places, Facebook’s location-based check-in service.

If you’re having trouble thinking of things to share on Twitter, run through this exhaustive list to see what you may be missing.

Using social media to retain customers can be a tricky process so you must know how to measure your results.

Three new studies have been released that detail Facebook marketing trends and habits of users.

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Eric Alpin is the Associate Editor of Folk Media and works for a telecommunications company in Baltimore, Md. He is a social media enthusiast, blogger, writer, and student with a passion for leadership and self-development strategies and techniques. Find out more about Eric on Twitter.

*Photo by lilinhah

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In order to save you some time and effort today, here are some quick hits from around the world of social media…

Facebook has just announced that it will be rolling out a location-based feature called Places, which is similar to Foursquare and Gowalla.

Frank Ryan, former celebrity plastic surgeon, was tweeting from his cell phone when he accidentally ran his car over a cliff in Malibu, CA.

In an increasingly technological society, it’s important to make sure that your name is available when you need it.

An eMarketer project estimates that advertisers will spend over a billion dollars on social media advertising before the end of the year.

If you’re a social media manager, there are a few things that you should probably be eating for breakfast.

Sometimes businesses launch social media campaigns and need to make sure that everyone is on the same page.

The illusion that social media measurement is too “out there” is spreading like wildfire. Check out these three free tools to use.

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Eric Alpin is the Associate Editor of Folk Media and works for a telecommunications company in Baltimore, Md. He is a social media enthusiast, blogger, writer, and student with a passion for leadership and self-development strategies and techniques. Find out more about Eric on Twitter.

*Photo by Jan Willem Geertsma

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A lot of things happened in the social media world this week and here are a few of the highlights:

Twitter Debuts its own Twitter Button – The ability to tweet and article or follow a business directly from the web isn’t a new concept but Twitter has finally released its official version of the tweet/follow button. Before Twitter was on the scene, most tweeting and following happened via TweetMeMe, a service that came to dominate the niche market. With the development of the official Twitter button, TweetMeMe is taking on a different role. Instead of directly competing with Twitter, they are striking up a partnership. TweetMeMe will offer technical support for Twitter and will link their tool to the official Twitter button.

I think the release of the official Twitter button is interesting to say the least. Although I think its good that Twitter is becoming more involved with user decision making, I have a few concerns. First, is this one of many moves to attempt dominating all things Twitter? What’s next? Also, the partnership between Twitter and TweetMeMe doesn’t seem right to me. I don’t know what is going on in the executive offices but I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this.

Delta Airlines Launches Ticket Sales Through Facebook – Delta has launched a ticket window for users of its Facebook application, allowing fans to purchase flights and share the information with friends. Delta is the first in the industry to have a booking application that keeps its users on Facebook and does not route them to a secure website. The ticket window has become popular since its debut and is even having trouble handling the load of people experimenting with booking flights. Its unclear as to how popular the tool will become in the distant future but for now, Delta is the king of airlines on Facebook.

This is a major step in innovation for the airline industry and any other online retailer. Since businesses can see that its possible to keep Facebook fans on the site while ordering, look for more retailers to move in the same direction. Its won’t be long before business giants Barnes and Noble or Wal-Mart give users access to check inventory and order via a Facebook application. This innovation only makes it easier for the customer to get things done efficiently and in a timely manner.

MySpace Relaunches User Homepage – Earlier this week MySpace redesigned its user homepage, the page where users are directed once they sign in. The once-so-popular social media company is hoping that the redesign will allow users to experience more with greater ease. The new site consists of a stream of information and gives users application and displays things like birthdays and recommendations.

Basically, MySpace just developed its page to look exactly like the Facebook homepage. Although I think its time for MySpace to join the rest of the world again, I think that this was a bad move. This doesn’t show anyone that MySpace is innovative or catering towards its users. They simply wanted to create a site that looked similar to Facebook to attract more people. MySpace better be careful because if they keep trying to play catch up and don’t show up, they won’t be around for much longer.

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Eric Alpin is the Associate Editor of Folk Media and works for a telecommunications company in Baltimore, Md. He is a social media enthusiast, blogger, writer, and student with a passion for leadership and self-development strategies and techniques. Find out more about Eric on Twitter.

*Photo by spanishwor

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There have been quite a few interesting developments in the social media world this past week. Let’s recap a few of them:

Citizen Use Facebook for Justice – According to the New York Times, citizens in Delhi, India are using Facebook to submit images of drivers who break the rules. The Delhi Traffic Police Facebook page is being used as a bulletin board for unlawful drivers and the low staffed department is taking advantage of the shared images.

Is this type of justice “right?” To an extent, yes. It’s nice for citizens to know that they can count on justice when they do their part and report reckless driving. However, what’s to say that some of the images aren’t authentic? What if someone isn’t committing a traffic crime and they get fined anyway?

There are still kinks in the system but I think that this is a good starting point for a more accountable justice department. If small to medium sized towns in America would adopt a similar system, the rate of traffic violations in the United States might slow. It’s time that social media applications and systems proved that they’re useful for something other than hookups and games; taking justice to a new level might be a new focus.

Video Blogger Hands His Life Over for a Year – Dan Brown, a 20-year-old video blogger from Lincoln, Nebraska, is launching a project called Dan 3.0. during this project, he will upload a vlog (video blog) of himself each day doing different user-submitted tasks. Basically, Dan’s life will be controlled by his community for the next 365 days.

Personally, I think this project is great and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. Although it’s not the first time that something like this has been done, it seems like this project is going to be a success. Dan already has a YouTube subscriber list that is near 250,000 so ideas for daily tasks won’t be scarce. Also, Dan’s energy is great. He is passionate about this project and if he didn’t have that passion, it wouldn’t be a success.

It’s somewhat scary to think that he has basically turned into a puppet of the Internet community. However, Dan has said that he won’t do anything too drastic, like dump his girlfriend, or a task that breaks the law. He also holds veto power but hopes he won’t have to use it.

We should all be passionate about what we do. Dan is a great example of someone who loves his job and is willing to do anything (literally) to foster community and connection.

Twitter’s “Planned Maintenance” Proves to be a Burden – Early Sunday morning, the hosting company for Twitter, NTT America, planned to do some server maintenance and was expected to have the site down for close to five hours. Although I didn’t personally see any tweets about the down time, I’m sure that some users, especially those outside of the U.S., were not happy.

Has Twitter become too active in our lives? I’m just as much a Twitter fan as the next guy but I think that the site, and the concept of sharing every move we make, is beginning to get the best of some people. Some people can’t function without tweeting where they are, what they’re doing, or who they are with. It’s good to create community but when emotions change because of routine maintenance to a website, something might be wrong.

I think that as an Internet community, we should take a step back every now and then to appreciate the non-technological parts of our lives. If you don’t unplug every now and then, what makes you any different than the next guy or a robot?

Our lives should not be controlled by Twitter or a lack thereof. We should control them.

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Eric Alpin is the Associate Editor of Folk Media and works for a telecommunications company in Baltimore, Md. He is a social media enthusiast, blogger, writer, and student with a passion for leadership and self-development strategies and techniques. Find out more about Eric on Twitter.

*Photo by dleafy

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Ford breaks the mold and debuts its new Explorer via Facebook, not an auto show.

Do you think that Twitter will be around forever? After reading about its flaws, you may not be so sure of its stability.

Some would say that social media addiction is a disease. Well, some stats will help you prove that.

If you’re looking for a social media expert, you might want to make sure that they meet a few qualifications before you commit to them.

Checking your social media strategy is something that companies often neglect to do. Make sure that you don’t fall off the self check-up wagon.

Twitter could be stepping up their game by including photos and videos directly in the Twitter stream.

Interested in sending some voice text via Twitter? Check out Mashable’s article on sending voice tweets to satisfy your need to tweet speak.

YouTube Viral Video Alert: Guy Walks Across America

Tip: If you have an iPhone and you have Bump, now you can connect with others on Facebook and Twitter just by fist pounding.

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Eric Alpin is the Associate Editor of Folk Media and works for a telecommunications company in Baltimore, Md. He is a social media enthusiast, blogger, writer, and student with a passion for leadership and self-development strategies and techniques. Find out more about Eric on Twitter.

*Photo by CDJensen

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It’s a new week and it’s time for a new set of social media one-liners.

As always, these one-liners are created to give you the scoop on what is happening and tending in social media this week.

Here goes…

Are you a Facebook junkie? If so, you should learn how to do some pretty sweet things with your profile.

If you have a social media plan for your business, it may be time to evaluate your status and progress.

With Facebook approaching 500 million users this week, it will be celebrating by allowing users to share their own Facebook stories.

Some businesses see angry customers as a sign of weakness or flaws but they can actually be quite valuable.

It’s no secret that a social media catch-22 exists in many companies. How can you avoid it and deal with it if it happens?

Gearing up to begin a social media campaign? Check out one approach to creating a social media press release.

Giving props and saying thanks via social media is still very underrated. How can you show love for your fellow online users?

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Eric Alpin is the Associate Editor of Folk Media and works for a telecommunications company in Baltimore, Md. He is a social media enthusiast, blogger, writer, and student with a passion for leadership and self-development strategies and techniques. Find out more about Eric on Twitter.

*Photo by sue_r_b

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As promised, we’re delivering you some quick hits from around the social media world. We know that you don’t have all the time in the world to browse the Internet so we thought we’d give you the content and you can decide what you want to read.

If nothing else, you need to be tracking these six social media metrics.

There are 10 things that you can do to be a great Twitter user. Are you meeting your goals?

Facebook is back into the game of making users mad…especially those who already know what they’re doing.

Disney is the first sponsor of Twitter’s @earlybird campaign. Is this thing going to catch on?

Are you a health junkie? How can social media help you improve your health?

Move over Starbucks, Ann Taylor has joined you in giving out foursquare mayor discounts.

What article was most useful for you? Do you have any you’d like to share?

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Eric Alpin is the Associate Editor of Folk Media and works for a telecommunications company in Baltimore, Md. He is a social media enthusiast, blogger, writer, and student with a passion for leadership and self-development strategies and techniques. Find out more about Eric on Twitter.

*Photo by cema

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Five years ago still seems like yesterday for me, although a lot has changed in my life. Five years ago I was single but now I’m engaged. Half a decade ago I was struggling to get through community college but I recently graduated with honors from a great university. In 2005, I had no clue how to effectively use social media and now I can’t get enough.

A lot has changed but that’s just how it goes. Don’t worry–it’ll continue to go that way.

Five years ago, MySpace was all of the rage. The social networking platform was peaking and it seemed like everyone had a profile. I don’t know about you but if I came across someone who wasn’t on MySpace, I was at a loss for words.

Fast forward to 2010. Facebook and Twitter are constantly fighting for the the prestigious title of Social Networking King. YouTube has a monopoly serving online videos to billions and Foursquare is becoming increasingly popular with every age bracket.

So, that brings me to my question:

Where will social networking be in five years? Will location-based networks be the rage? Will our social networking profiles become linked to our credit cards and key rings? Is it safe to say that Twitter and Facebook will be ancient websites with a small user community?

What do you think? What direction is social networking going to take in five years?

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Eric Alpin is the Associate Editor of Folk Media and works for a telecommunications company in Baltimore, Md. He is a social media enthusiast, blogger, writer, and student with a passion for leadership and self-development strategies and techniques. Find out more about Eric on Twitter.

*Photo by guitargoa

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