Business Media Profile: Why MerchantCircle?

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COMPANY:  MerchantCircle
 800 W. El Camino Real Suite 330  Mountain View CA , CA, 94040 USA

• Executives:  CEO Ben Smith. 
• Founded 2005
• Top Competitors:  Groupon, Ingenio, Weblistit, TriValleyBook, CitySquares , LocalPrice, Yelp
• Revenue:  ??
• Employs:  30
• User Base:  1,500,000 Local Businesses

MerchantCircle is the largest online network of local business owners, FOR small business owners, driving traffic by combining social networking features with customizable web listings that allow local merchants to attract new customers. We are a small, growing company dedicated to connecting neighbors and merchants online to help build real relationships between local business owners and their customers. To date, well over 1,000,000 local businesses have joined MerchantCircle to get their business more exposure on the Internet, simply and inexpensively.

Merchant Circle:  Facebook  |  Twitter  | LinkedIn |

WHY JOIN?

1. Promote your business on the web in minutes
2. Be more visible in search engine results
3. Track what's being said about your business online
4. Easily advertise on Google, Yahoo! and more
5. Get local customer referrals

BUSINESS SOCIAL MEDIA OFFERINGS:   The site is free with many free tools, and some premium services, but they also offer premium accounts starting at $30/month, as well as business verification services, search engine marketing, and website creation- all great for helping support your business.  MerchantCircle Community Forum offers resources for how to get started.

• Appointment Making Online (Click it And Book It)
• Dashboard -- (Simplifies all key features and how to manage business effectively).
• Company Profile Page ( How To Edit Your Business Information - Contact, Cities, Description, Key Words, Web links, Profile Photos, Story, Map Location, Layouts, News Topics, and Other Favorites)
• PUBLISHING: Create your Own Content for publication on your page, in your community, and shareable out on other websites and social networks!
• Blogs (How To Blog Video) ,
• Product Descriptions,
• Newsletters,
• Coupons, (Easy to Follow Wizard) - David Gwynn Shares how to do it.  
• Advertisements,
• Pictures,
• Widgets,
• Videos, 
• Online Answers
• Local Indexes and Networking (How and WHY to Network with Other Merchants- because people with 20 or more connections have 3 times more traffic to their page)
• PROMOTE: For Paid Merchant Services.
• INTEGRATION WITH OTHER KEY SOCIAL NETWORKING:
• Widget Integration with Sites Outside of Merchant Circle   (How To Add Widgets - Reviews, Blogs, Newsletters, Logos, Coupons to other Websites or Blogs outside of Merchant Circle) Badges and integration with other social networks, blogs and webspaces.
• Social Integration with Twitter and Facebook. (How To Integrate MerchantCircle-  with Twitter and Facebook Wisely)
• Facebook Fan Page Forum:  Follow and Be Followed.. Grow and share a Facebook FanPage Following.

GETTING STARTED:

1. Build Your Business Page.
2. Build Your Following and Connect to other businesses.
3. Participate in Forums some Forums.
4. Create some blogs, news, coupons, ads.  
5. Make Reviews of Other Merchants, create Lists, and Participate with Merchants you like
6. Grow your presence. Celebrate Partners and reward customers.

BEST TO FOLLOW AND LEARN FROM:

• Merchant Circle  @MerchantCircle on Twitter  Profile has TONS of Help for business!
• Lindy Asimus @lindyasimus on Twitter Social Media Training
• Dawn C Khan @dawnckhan on twitter LinkedIn HFCN for Business Blog. 

FEEDBACK:  Have you read anything hot you felt should be included to support Business Media Growth using MerchantCircle?? Share it here..

HFCN Global :  Web | Facebook | Twitter | Merchant Circle