Are you familiar with trending on Twitter? Basically it’s what people are talking about right now on Twitter. It could be Kate Gosselin. The real Shaq. The economy. Halloween.

If you use Twitter, you may have noticed on the right hand side of your profile page a list of Trending Topics. Click on any of them and you’ll see the most recent streams mentioning this word or hashtag. If you’re interested in the topic, it’s a great way to see what people are saying about it.

Halloween is currently a trending topic. Understandable, since it’s just around the corner.

Let’s look at this from a marketing perspective. If you could find some relationship to Halloween and tweet about it, your tweet would appear in that trending stream. People would click on it. They’d follow you. They’d visit your website. Not bad for 140 characters.

Let’s give it a try. What do you do? Are you having a Halloween sale? Selling special items just for Halloween? If you can’t think of anything that directly relates, try offering tips. Write a blog post (a la this one) and tweet it out to get traffic to it. Here’s a few suggestions:

• PR people can tweet 10 Halloween-worthy press release ideas
• Real estate folks can tweet top not-so-scary housing markets with hashtag #halloween
• DJs can tweet Halloween party venues

Get creative. It’s fun. And you don’t have to stick to Halloween. Take any trending topic and relate it to what you do, then make sure to use that keyword or hashtag in your tweet. Track the traffic that comes to your site as a result.

So, I have a confession to make. I’m a closet workaholic. Despite me talking about work/life balance and how I have time to spend with my son, I find myself sneaking in to my office on the weekends to check email. Why? I don’t know, honestly. I guess I’m afraid something exciting will come in while I’m relaxing. But I honestly enjoy what I do, so it’s not a stretch for me to want to work all the time.

So I’d like to make a pact with you other work-from-homers. This Fourth of July, we shall not work. We shall shut down our laptops and close our office doors. Are you with me?

I know it’s not easy to just turn off the entrepreneur side of you, so here are some tips to help.

• Look at your workload for the next week and divide it out so that you finish everything pressing before the holiday.
• Don’t be afraid to put things off until after the holiday. No one else is doing work around a holiday, so no one will expect it of you.
• If it makes you feel better, set up an autoresponder saying you’ll be out of the office for the holiday. Not that anyone will be emailing you, but if it makes you happy, do it.
• Mentally prepare to not think about work for a few days. I know it’s hard, but disconnecting yourself from the computer and your work can help you rediscover something special: your family!

A new year means a fresh start. People feel invigorated and ready to start something new. This, actually, is a great marketing tactic. Let’s look at how you can use it.

Think about your product or service.

I own a marketing firm.

Think about how people can use your product or service to start anew or reach their resolutions.

People are ready to create a new marketing plan for 2009. Many businesses have goals they want to meet, and marketing helps them achieve that.

Consider how you can take this approach in your marketing collateral, press releases, blog and newsletters.

I could come up with a slogan that says it’s time to start fresh with a new marketing plan. I could send out a letter about the importance of marketing plans in my next newsletter and blog about it.

Hopefully this exercise is helping you brainstorm. Here are a few ideas for different industries:

• Health. This is the obvious one. People are ready to recommit to exercise, eating better and losing weight. If you’re in the health industry, you absolutely should be marketing for the new year!
• Coaching. People want to live stress free and happy. My coaching client often uses resolutions as her tactic to reach people (”I’ll help you achieve your resolutions”)
• Finance. Well, it can’t get worse than last year, can it? 2009 is time to turn a new leaf, wipe the slate clean.
• Eco Friendly Products. Green + New Year? Success. People want to start the new year out by treating their bodies and homes well. Hone in on that.

How are you going to use the new year to market your product? Need some ideas? Leave a comment and I’ll brainstorm for you! But hurry! By mid-February, everyone will have forgotten those well-meaning resolutions!

Last year I posted my resolutions for 2008. I want to review those first and then list my new resolutions.

Resolutions for 2008

1. Increase readership of blog to 5,000-10,000 unique readers per month. While I didn’t quite hit this high a number (I don’t think I realized how hard that would be), I did end up here, on the Sparkplugging network, and that has propelled my blog in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

2. Make blog profitable. Okay, so I’m not making six figures (or even four) from my blog, but I have found profit in unexpected ways, like my trip to BlogWorld, courtesy of Epson, and my fantastic Epson printer.

3. Expand Egg Marketing into marketing coaching, ebook products, and classes. This, I am proud to say, has happened. I’ve developed two ebooks on press releases and email marketing, and have taught several online courses on writing press releases. I have one client that I provide marketing coaching services to.

4. Listen to my husband/business partner’s good ideas for my businesses. I have definitely learned the value of listening to my husband when it comes to solid business advice (we will overlook the Marble Slab snafu, though).

5. Continue to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses. I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing this! I met a lot of fascinating people and worked with great clients in 2008.

6. Translate blog readers into Egg clients. This remains difficult, but I did determine this year that my blog readers and Egg clients are two separate markets, so this might not be necessary.

7. Exceed my revenue projections for Egg. Didn’t quite do this, but I added several staff and increased expenses for Egg, which means I can do more fabulous things with my company!

8. Get in touch with my blog readers. The last part of the year, I’ve strove to really connect with you guys. It meant being less stuffy in my posts (and you tell me if you feel more in touch with me as a result).

9. Continue to network, both in person and online. Yes! This is one I can unequivocally say I have done. I’m sure you’ve noticed my transformation into a social networking butterfly! Networking has been the greatest reward this year.

10. Have my business run itself while I relax on a beach in another country! I had to throw this one in last year. Not there yet, but my husband and I have made it our goal that in 2010 we will spend the summer in France.

Keep reading to see what I have in store for this year!

And that extends into my clients. Every year I get them gifts. And I always get warm thanks and positive feedback. Here are my tips for how to get the most out of holiday gifts. I wrote this post last year, but it bears reposting.

Now that we’ve officially crossed the threshold of Thanksgiving, it’s officially time to panic. Christmas is just right around the corner! The end of the year tends to be chaotic as businesses try to wrap up their activities for the year, but don’t let your customers slip through the cracks. By remembering them during this merry and mad time of year, you’ll be marketing your company at a time when people are sentimental and more likely to think warm, fuzzy thoughts about you.

The secret to client gift giving is that it is marketing, although it should never, ever appear to be. In thinking about what to give, get away from the thoughts of advertising your brand or slogan. It’s simply the time to thank clients for their business and support of your company. Trust me, even if your logo appears nowhere on the gift, they will think of you.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to knocking your gift-giving out early.

1. Make three lists and check them twice. Not all your clients or contacts are on the same level, so break them out into your top clients (where most of your revenue comes from), medium clients, and good contacts that you’d like to develop into good clients. You may have a list of people for whom a simple holiday card would be sufficient.

2. Set a budget. Each level should have its own budget. And before you get cheap, think: did this client net me more than this amount? When you look back at your income, you can easily afford even a $100 gift for an exceptional client who brought in 10 times that!

3. Keep it simple. If you have a long list, you don’t have to be Santa. Find a single gift for each list and buy the same thing for everyone. Here are some good ideas that have different price levels:

The interesting thing is: retailers may not be making any money, in spite of that number. Everyone has been desperately slashing prices in an effort to close the year out with some sales (better than none), so now profits are so tight they squeak, and the only ones that are happy are consumers (go us!).

From what the article said, I gather that people are buying more pragmatic gifts this year. 54.7% of shoppers bought clothes. So while we’re still spending money, we’re staying away from over-the-top extravagant purchases and leaning toward more useful gifts.

Sales continue today on what they’ve dubbed Cyber Monday. Now that shoppers have eked out all the savings from Black Friday, they’re looking for great deals online. This is a smart way for brick-and-mortar retailers to get a little more out of shoppers now that they’re done with the physical store.

I’m thrilled I got a Leapster for my son (regularly $49.99) for $29.98. Shopping in your pjs rocks.

This year? Not so much. With the economy down the toilet, retailers started pushing aggressive sales in early November. Stores like Kmart and Kohl’s started sales early, and Kmart even added prize giveaways with Disney to entice shoppers. Seems it’s like pulling teeth to get people to spend money these days.

Wal-Mart is creating Value Bundles of items that sell well to generate more sales. The Nintendo DS can be purchased with games and accessories for $149.

I could be wrong, but if you go out today, the crowds might be a little thinner. You might not break a bone this year.

If you’re sadistic enough to go out on Black Friday, check out this site that lists all the savings.

Although…I have to wonder. Will OfficeMax have the success it had last year? Can you duplicate a viral marketing campaign? We shall see. I plan to count how many times I get an ElfYourself email from a friend. Not that that will be a true gauge of the campaign’s success, but it will give me something to do.

Ain’t my family cute?

Of all the candy sold annually, 1/4 of it is sold during Halloween
After Christmas, Halloween is the most commercially successful   holiday
Americans spend $1.5 billion on Halloween costumes each year!
We spend $2 billion on Halloween candy

Here are some interesting Halloween marketing articles:

Scaring Up Halloween Marketing Ideas

Halloween Marketing Ideas

Ideas for Realtors for Halloween

Now he’s got an ebook out on Viral Marketing called The New Rules of Viral Marketing: How word-of-mouse spreads your ideas for free. Once again, David, great stuff. It took me a minute to get the “word-of-mouse” concept because I live in Orlando where everything references our mousy friend who lives at Disney!

David provides great examples and links of viral marketing at work. It’s a must-read, as all his works are. So download it now and enjoy!

PS. Just a little sidenote about viral marketing. Did you know you were part of it at Christmas time? That is, if you were one of the 26 million people who created an elf using OfficeMax’s Elf Yourself e-card. (It was funny the first time, mom) You know the one–the silly little elves with your picture on top dancing to a stay-in-your-head tune. It spread like wildfire. And did you feel like you were being advertised to? Probably not. But I bet OfficeMax is at the top of your list for office supplies now!

-Susan

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Now that we’ve officially crossed the threshold of Thanksgiving, it’s officially time to panic. Christmas is just right around the corner! The end of the year tends to be chaotic as businesses try to wrap up their activities for the year, but don’t let your customers slip through the cracks. By remembering them during this merry and mad time of year, you’ll be marketing your company at a time when people are sentimental and more likely to think warm, fuzzy thoughts about you.

The secret to client gift giving is that it is marketing, although it should never, ever appear to be. In thinking about what to give, get away from the thoughts of advertising your brand or slogan. It’s simply the time to thank clients for their business and support of your company. Trust me, even if your logo appears nowhere on the gift, they will think of you.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to knocking your gift-giving out early.

1. Make three lists and check them twice. Not all your clients or contacts are on the same level, so break them out into your top clients (where most of your revenue comes from), medium clients, and good contacts that you’d like to develop into good clients. You may have a list of people for whom a simple holiday card would be sufficient.

2. Set a budget. Each level should have its own budget. And before you get cheap, think: did this client net me more than this amount? When you look back at your income, you can easily afford even a $100 gift for an exceptional client who brought in 10 times that!

3. Keep it simple. If you have a long list, you don’t have to be Santa. Find a single gift for each list and buy the same thing for everyone. Here are some good ideas that have different price levels:

4. Order online. Take the sweat out of holiday gifting by skipping a trip to the post office laden with boxes. Websites like harryanddavid.com and cherylandco.com make it easy to send individual gifts to everyone on your list. You never even see the boxes. You can order early and set your date for the gifts to arrive in time for Christmas.

Things to Keep in Mind

-Susan
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