Are Deals still being driven by shares, posts, likes and other social media features in an era of Groupon and Living Social Super Bowl ads? Yes, definitely, according to Second Street Media, which held a Webinar with The Washington Post last week to discuss social media and deals strategies.

Referrals, “like-gating” and brand building via social media are key to building up customer lists and pumping up sales volume, notes Second Street Director of Affiliate Success Matt Chaney. Social media has been an inherent part of deals success from the beginning,” he says. Getting consumers to “like” a deals site and follow them on Facebook helps work- around email fatigue – or at least, reinforces email offers.

Deal sites, however, need to follow up and provide something in return for the likes. Chaney cites Edison/Arbitron research showing that 58 percent of consumers expect something in return for a “like.”

NBC 7 in San Diego boosted their likes by 60 percent with a contest around “San Diego’s favorite Voice.” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch boosted their signups by 36 percent with a “Name the Rally Squirrel” contest. ABC 15 in Phoenix boosted its likes from 8,000 to 88,000 with a giveaway of Guitars featured on the CMA Awards.

Webinar special guest Molly Urciolo, Marketing Manager from The Washington Post, said The Post’s Capitol Deal site adds 1,000 likes each week. The Capitol Deal has done especially well with “Get Yours Free” deals in which customers are incented to push a certain number of sales by their friends –typically three –so they get a free one. Twelve percent of The Capitol Deal’s revenues come from “Get Yours Free.”

Urciolo likes to post deals on FaceBook the night before emails are sent out; or post exclusive deals for the FaceBook audience. She also takes the page seriously as a community, posting topical subjects on local sports teams, or events; and running contests, or sweepstakes. She also recommends adding new posts two times a day.

Explaining the basics of local and social marketing to clients and prospects is a tough task for companies, who might come off as patronizing. Why not give them a book?

A couple of years ago, Yodle CEO Court Cunningham wrote Local Online Advertising for Dummies, which did a great job explaining local advertiser options. Now, Constant Contact CEO Gail Goodman has done the same for social media. Goodman calls it: “Engagement Marketing: How Small Business Wins in a Socially Connected World.”

As industry analysts, we look to Goodman for all kinds of insights into SMBs at every level. This book is more geared towards the basics of the engagement marketing cycle — as a means of managing good word of mouth.

Goodman defines the cycle as providing the “Wow! Experience”; Enticing customers to stay in touch; and Engaging customers via social media. She emphasizes that SMBs really need to develop nuance when they are applying messaging via email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and G+. Each has different strengths.

While a lot of SMBs don’t think they really have much to say – a real problem in working with them for social media — Goodman provides insights into possible subjects, and case studies on how and when to apply social media techniques, including discussions, promotions, events, polls/surveys, shared information and news and announcements.

If anybody wonders whether the considerable “legs” of Facebook justifies a valuation now set for $83 Billion, have a listen to a terrific BIA/Kelsey Webinar on Facebook’s IPO, featuring Trada CEO Niel Robertson Wildfire CEO Victoria Ransom, and Plink Co-Founder Peter Vogel (and BIA/Kelsey analysts Jed Williams, Matt Booth and Jeanne Dattilo).

People have to understand that “Facebook is more than advertising,” said Trada’s Robertson. “It is a platform that takes people through the digital marketing funnel. It lets you acquire prospects and move them through the different stages,” he said.

It will be more of a challenge over time as Facebook moves its client relationships down scale from the giant brand companies to mid market brands and SMBs. Creative is really hard at those levels. But the basic idea of collecting fans is a winner all around. “It’s like collecting email addresses you can use over and over again,” he said. “Fans amplify your own message.”

Wildfire’s Ransom said that most of the trends for Facebook in social media are very positive. “There was a lot of anxiety from businesses about the Timeline,” she noted. But Wildfire studies show that Timeline has proved to be a smashing success, with a 22 percent jump in photo sharing, and a 90 percent jump in video sharing.

The challenge for Facebook is get beyond the sheer quantity of Facebook friends. “How do you engage them? Who are the right fans? The valuable fans?” asks Ransom. Facebook is getting better and better coming up with answers. And “there are more tools coming out.”

Plink’s Vogel, meanwhile, noted that Facebook watchers are looking for signs that the company will break out big in transactions and payments – an area enabled by its games-based Credits feature. It hasn’t happened yet – perhaps the Facebook’s 30 percent “tax” on transactions performed via credits.

Vogel, however, expressed confidence that the transactions and payments space will soon break out. The company is known for constant adjustment until “it gets things right,” he said.

If Facebook does get transactions and payments right, that “will be more than enough to justify its valuation,” added BIA/Kelsey’s Matt Booth. Facebook is “the biggest website that’s ever existed,” said Booth. Indeed, classifying it as a ‘website’ is misleading since the company encompasses so many things. And will encompass even more as it begins to buy a lot of companies to round out its offerings. “The entire U.S. display market won’t sustain Facebook,” he said.

BIA/Kelsey’s Jed Williams said one of those forms will inevitably be an ad network – an ‘AdSense’ for social,” he called it. Williams also predicted that Facebook will march quickly into the deals and offers space. It will introduce a new offers tool for managed service accounts such as Macy’s and extend down market, he predicted. Mobile is another mega-opportunity, although a risk as well since it hasn’t yet been monetized.

BIA/Kelsey’s Jeanne Dattilo, a BIA/Kelsey valuation expert, said signs were very good for Facebook’s valuation to hold up. She noted that Facebook’s EBITDA of 56 percent last year has got to be considered “really impressive.” Google was in the mid-30s; Yahoo was in the mid 20s.

Listen to a replay of the Webinar here:

Ted Leonsis, Groupon Vice Chair, American Express Board Member and Internet Pioneer , emphasized the importance of scaling for local in a global economy during a keynote at ILM East yesterday. “Indiana really matters. India matters more,” said Leonsis, pointing out that for larger companies, most growth will come from outside the U.S.

The way that growth is measured, however, is rapidly changing. “I try to follow the new currencies: time, attention and clickstreams,” he noted. “Now you see payments in pixels, facebook newsfeeds, or points and rewards. Amex has trillions of points.

While growth for “the biggest companies” comes from serving the entire international marketplaces, local needs are universal.

“I love local; we built Internet on businesss created about ‘you,’ said Leonsis. There is no bigger business imagineable. He noted special opportunities in “MoSoLo….the convergence of mobile, social, video.” Mobile will make up 88 percent of digital advertising, he suggested, citing analyst projections. “One thousand cities are ready for MoSoLo.”

Leonsis believes that the largest companies will soon be making spending sprees in the local arena. Local entrepreneurs should realistically shoot for selling their companies because only a couple of companies end up IPO’ing in the public market, added Leonsis, who is, of course, a major investor.

Leonsis noted that the largest companies such as Google, Microsoft and Cisco are sitting on almost a trillion dollars of retained earnings. “That’s pent-up cash. They will want to fill in their value chains.”

Channels are also changing, and quickly. Email usage is way down and has “become a deliverer for ecommerce push. Email is for manicure or pedicure deals,” said Leonsis, noting that Groupon and Facebook are really poised to leverage this with their massive email lists. Phones, meanwhile, are for texting. The average teen sends 70 texts a day and barely use any minutes to talk.

But Leonsis predicts that video will emerge as the new killer app as it becomes the core medium for self expression and sharing. “The YouTube phenomenon is truly amazing. We’re all become Cable MSOs.”

Video also will be key to the future of retail and education. Retail site visitors who view video are likely to stay on site two minutes longer on average and are 64 percent more likely to purchase than other site visitors, says Leonsis. Video is a foundation for “next generation commerce.”

The pursuit of closed loop network is the really big game here, Leonsis noted. Amazon has made everyone an affiliate and a reseller. Similarly, PayPal made made everyone a small business with 100 million plus accounts for money transfers and payments. eBay has made everyone an entrepreneur.

Moreover, Google has eight million advertisers on file, and invoices 20,000 advertisers. Amex has developed a closed loop system of its own, and Groupon has created “curated local commerce.”

But Leonsis is skeptical that the world of interactive local commerce is something that startups can gain traction in. “No one will give an eight person startup their social security number. Payments are not for the faint-hearted. Startups are better off looking for margin opportunities.

“I don’t want to see any business plan saying ‘I’ll be the next Groupon.’ Verticalization happens.”

Here’s what we’ve been waiting to announce: Google Offers’ head Nitin Mangtani will join our great list of keynoters at ILM East March 26-28 in Boston. We believe Mangtani’s appearance marks one of the first public debuts of Google Offers, which is playing a major role in Google’s vital local strategy, along with Google Places, Google Maps and Zagat ratings and reviews.

Previously announced ILM East keynoters include Groupon Vice Chair +++ Ted Leonsis; American Express SVP of Social Media Leslie Berland; CityGrid Media CEO Jay Herratti; New York Times Research Ops VP Michael Zimbalist; and New York Magazine Digital GM Michael Silberman.

Mangtani joins Google Channel Sales BizDev Head Christine Merritt at ILM East. Merritt will provide Google’s perspective on its emergence in the local ecosystem, and the most effective way to work with Google as a partner.

The next wave of Deals is, in general, a key focus for us at ILM East, along with mobile local media, social local media, video local media, hyperlocal and locally targeted national advertising.

In addition to the keynotes from Google Offers and Groupon, we have a special Day 1 session dedicated to the next wave of deals, featuring EverSave’s Jere Doyle; Find n Save’s Christopher Tippie; Closely’s Perry Evans; and Boomtime’s Bill Bice. That session will be followed by a broader view of deals and ecommerce, which featured NextJump’s Charlie Kim; Cartera’s Jim Douglass; and Bundle.com’s Jaidev Shergill.

Other recent adds to the program include The Boston Globe’s Lisa DeSisto, who joins Boston.com VP of Digital Products Jeff Moriarty as a presenter; and MIT Sloan Associate Professor Catherine Tucker, who gives the low down on the effectiveness of local social media.

Before the show, we’re making a special trip to The Boston Globe’s R&D Lab (Limited Space, RSVP required). Or come to Andrew Shotland’s SEO for the Enterprise session, which also features SEO Expert Will Scott and Advance Digital Media VP John Denny. We’re looking forward to a great show.

Venture Capital
•David Hornik, Principal, August Capital
•Scott Maxwell, Senior Managing Director, OpenView

Mobile Local Media
• Walt Doyle, CEO, Where
• Doug McDonald, Director, dotMobi
• John Valentine, VP, East Coast, SCVNGR/LevelUp

Hyperlocal
• Merrill Brown, Principal, MMB Media
• Josh Fenton, CEO, GoLocal24
• Zohar Yardeni, CEO, Main Street Connect

Social Local Media
• Geoff Cramer, CEO, Social Made Simple
• Adam Japko, President, Digital Sherpa
• Jeff Moriarty, VP, Digital Products, Boston.com
• Mark Schmulen, GM, Social Media, Constant Contact

Video
• Juan Delgado, Managing Director, Americas, Perform
• John McIntyre, CEO, Pixelfish
• Randa Minkarah, SVP, Revenue, Fisher Communications

Deals and Promotional Ecosystem
• Bill Bice, CEO, BoomTime
• Jere Doyle, President and CEO, EverSave
• Perry Evans, CEO, Closely
• Christopher Tippie, CEO, FindNSave

Transactions
• Charlie Kim, CEO, NextJump
• Jim Douglass, EVP, Retail Advertising, Cartera Commerce
• Jaidev Shergill, CEO, Bundle

National/Brands
•Adam Epstein, President, AdMarketplace
•Pete Gombert,CEO, Balihoo
• Steve Sherfy, Local & Mobile Search, GroupMSearch
• Karl Siebrecht, President and CEO, AdReady

Elections 2012
• Andy Slater, VP, Digital Agency Sales, Katz 360

SMB Marketing
• Dave Galvan, President, Schedulicity
• Maria Kermath, Director, AT&T Ad Solutions
• Randy Parker, President, SMBApps
• Darren Waddell, EVP, Reply.com

Sign up now (and hint: reserve your room earlier rather than later).

Yelp is IPOing today at $15 a share, allowing it to raise $123 million on a valuation of $900 million –$400 million more than it was apparently offered by Google a couple of years ago.

We know from the S1 that Yelp earned $58.4 million in net revenue in the first nine months of 2011, representing 80 percent growth over the first nine months of 2010. It also has 22 million reviews, and sees 61 million monthly users.

During the first nine months of 2011, the company claimed 19,000 paid accounts – up 75 percent from the same period in 2010, And 529,000 claimed pages –up 114 percent. Its ability to convert claimed pages into paid accounts is going to be where the action is.

It must also continue to penetrate deeper into restaurants, amidst tough competition from Google/Zagat and others. At the same time, it must continue to expand beyond restaurants deeper into shopping and services.

Restaurants and dining now make up 23 percent. Other major segments include shopping (22 percent), services (10 percent); beauty (9 percent); arts and entertainment (8 percent); Health (5 percent) Night Life (4 percent) and Travel and Hotel (4 percent). It also has a broad demographic, with 42 percent between the ages of 18-34, and 33 percent between the ages of 35-49.

MerchantCircle, which was sold to Reply.com in May 2011, continues to rethink the traditional Yellow Pages small business model. The company today unveils a web site that is less oriented towards directory listings, and more oriented – it hopes — towards winning more consumer traffic, generating more SMB leads, and better monetization.

While the new platform has been launched on the core Merchant Circle site, it will soon be available on a white label basis for other publishers, such as Internet Yellow Pages and City Guides. A key driver of the move has been the company’s desire to leverage a larger consumer base for Reply’s “clicks or leads” model.

MerchantCircle has actually been moving towards a “social commerce” model for some time, in recent years adding Answers, community content and other features. But EVP Darren Waddell tells us that the site has now more clearly moved away from an IYP “silo” model, where consumers basically encounter a business and its merchant page.

“It is not about the merchant value proposition,” says Waddell. “It is about helping consumers to connect with local business owners in a meaningful way.” Consumers will be able to seek requests for quote, see pictures – which Waddell stresses are “really important”; build deals; enter business subscriptions; and access the company’s trove of six million+ pieces of user generated content. Merchants, meanwhile, move up from a simple IYP-like enhanced listing to Reply’s Marketplace.

“We really blew out the entire MerchantCircle front-end,” Waddell adds. “We’ve developed an entirely new look and feel.” In beta tests involving up to 10 percent of its user base, the new, improved MerchantCircle has yielded a 2.5 X improvement in consumer engagement.

Being consumer friendly has also required Merchant Circle to crack down on merchants that were aggressively gaming the site and hurting its credibility. “It was a small but loud minority,” notes Waddell. “Algorithmically, we’ve really cracked down on people gaming the system.”

Initially, some of its merchants have not been pleased with the changes, which put most non-featured businesses below the fold. Waddell notes that some merchants on the site’s forums have been “really upset,” but MerchantCircle is sticking with it’s more balanced approach.

In the long-run, the company believes that they’ll realize they’re better off with the consumer-friendly features. In the meantime, Waddell suggests that Merchant Circle has hit an effective balance , with 1.2 million active merchants being able to respond to a strong volume of consumer requests – a capability that he believes is unmatched in the industry.

Waddell appears at ILM East March 26-28 in Boston on our all-star “Local Business Success: Picking Winners” session, along with AT&T’s Maria Kermath, Schedulicity’s Dave Galvan and SMBApps’ Randy Parker . Register here.

Yelp reviews are susceptible to a lot of noise – relatives and friends of a business, mischief makers, people without any perspective (or taste). In fact, most review sites – Trip Advisor, Zagat, etc. — are impacted by these factors.

Some sites have tried to get around this problem by using proxies for reviews. A few years ago, for instance, Grayboxx used “mentions” of a location as a proxy for reviews, assuming that the majority of mentions would be positive ones. That method, however, proved to be inaccurate and especially dicey in smaller markets. Other sites are experimenting with the use of check- ins and Tweets as review/rating substitutes.

Now comes Bundle, a new service with seed funding from CitiBank, Microsoft and Morningstar. Bundle, which is based in New York City, has built the algorithms to clean and sort “mentions” from 20 million + Citibank credit cards. While other services work with credit card companies for loyalty programs and recommendations, we haven’t seen companies that can actually apply algorithms to aggregated, anonymized credit card data.

Bundle scores are based on the popularity of a restaurant (i.e. number of visits); the number of repeat visits by customers to a restaurant; and the amount people are willing to pay when they eat at the restaurant. One assumes scoring can easily be applied to other categories as well.

CEO Jaidev Shergill tells us that the company started 2 ½ years ago as a money management site that would analyze statements for better budgeting practices, etc. But the company changed its business model to “solve problems for people using our differentiated data asset.”

“Local search and discovery have become bigger and the importance of accurate, relevant reviews is increasingly important. However, there is no way to tell whether the review is relevant to you,” says Shergill. Credit card data, coupled with aggregated demographic and behavioral data, clears the hurdle.

The service launched last December in New York and San Francisco, and nationwide on January 1. “We have two million merchants ‘rated,’” said Shergill. “That’s as many as Yelp. It will get richer as the months go by.” He also notes that unlike review sites, Bundle doesn’t need to go market-by-market for reviews.

Shergill acknowledges some limitations to Bundle’s methodology. If there is no data, there are no ratings. So that rules out cash-only places. The data also can’t distinguish how many diners are on the check, although individual prices can be estimated based on pattern analysis. But a quick look at my zip code (“92009”) showed fairly robust, accurate results.

Bundle CEO Jaidev Shergill is speaking at ILM East March 26-28 in Boston along with Next Jump CEO Charlie Kim and Cartera SVP Jim Douglass. Register here.

Bundle CEO and Founder Jaidev Shergill

The focus for vertical sites is likely to shift in coming months. In addition to regular features, such as listings, many vertical sites will also begin to blend personalized or on demand “maintenance” information with various social media features such as scheduling and reviews.

We’ve seen it with garden and health sites, and also, increasingly, with car maintenance sites. DriverSide and RepairPal, both launched in 2008, have pioneered the personalized garage approach, which links car owners with auto diagnosis and leads to service providers.

A new site, CarCareKiosk, aims at DIYs — Do It Yourselfers. Founder Hans Angermeier, a former investment banker, has developed the site to provide car owners with “how to” videos that are specific to their car make. AT&T/Compete research shows that “How to” videos are major drivers for vertical sites. The site now has 8,000 car repair videos in its library.

Based in Milwaukee, CarCareKiosk has a team of seven who work with new and used car dealers to contribute videos on everything from how to check your own oil to changing the cabin air filter. “Every car is quite different – the cabin air filter on one car might be behind the glove box on one model, but in a completely different place on another car,” says Angermeier.

CarCareKiosk currently has a PayPal “donate” button for support the site, but Angermeier says he expects to sell some search-based advertising. There is also a directory for finding local mechanics, a la RepairPal and DriverSide, but that is just at a starting phase.he real target are used parts manufacturers. Sites such as eBay Motors are stores onto themselves.

He cites research showing that used parts will account for $43 billion in sales in 2012 and $47 billion in 2013. The poor economy might be contributing to people keeping older cars and maintaining them, and also doing their own work, he suggests.

ILM East is coming back to Boston March 26-28 with a lineup of do-ers and innovators that are transforming and re-defining the local space.

Highlights include a featured keynote from industry legend Ted Leonsis (Groupon Vice Chair/Amex Board Member/Sports team owner/AOL mastermind), along with keynotes/interviews from Jason Calacanis, Leslie Berland, Jay Herratti, Michael Zimbalist and Michael Silberman.

Other highlights of the 2 ½ day event includes a pre-conference rundown on Local search run by Andrew Shotland of Local SEO Guide; a full plate of Top BIA/Kelsey research and forecasts; a special Venture Capital panel; and innovator panels on Social, Mobile, Deals, Video and Hyperlocal (the latter co-moderated with Merrill Brown.)

KEYNOTES/KEYNOTE DISCUSSIONS
• Ted Leonsis: Owner, Monumental Sports (Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards;) The Vice Chair of Groupon;, Board member of Amex, former Vice Chair of AOL; Author, The Business of Happiness
• Jason Calacanis: CEO, Mahalo; Investor. Calacanis’ career has been at the cutting edge of local and social media and reflects all the big trends, from his development of The Silicon Alley Reporter to Weblogs (AOL), Mahalo, and the creation of TechCrunch50 and Launch.
• Leslie Berland, Vice President, Social Strategy, American Express. Berland’s a major deal maker deeply involved in Amex’s mega FourSquare and Facebook deals.
• Jay Herratti, CEO, CityGrid Media. Herratti always gets top rankings at our events. He runs IAC’s super quad of the CityGrid Media Network, Citysearch, UrbanSpoon and InsiderPages.
• Michael Zimbalist, VP, Research Operations, New York Times Co. Zimbalist leads the NYT’s 12 person research unit. He’s deeply immersed in cutting edge social, mobile, tablet and video efforts.
• Michael Silberman, GM, New York Magazine Silberman is the mastermind of NYMag’s development of a super set of verticals catering to the “New York state of mind.”).

FEATURED SPEAKERS
• Bill Bice, CEO, SpaBoom
• Merrill Brown, co-founder. MSNBC.com, Court TV
• Jim Douglass, EVP, Cartera Commerce
• Jere Doyle, CEO, EverSave
• Walt Doyle, CEO, Where
• Adam Japko, CEO, Digital Sherpa
• Maria Kermath, Dir.,, New Tech & Sales Apps, AT&T Advertising Sales
• Mark Josephson, SVP, AOL Local
• Charlie Kim, CEO, Next Jump
• John McIntyre, CEO, Pixelfish
• Randa Minkarah, SVP, Revenue, Fisher Communications
• Randy Parker, President, SMB Apps
• Mark Schmulen, GM, Social Media, Constant Contact
• Andrew Shotland, Publisher, Local SEO Guide
• Andy Slater, VP, Digital Agency Sales, Katz 360
• Christopher Tippie, CEO, FindNSave
• Darren Waddell, EVP, Product and Corporate Marketing, Reply.com

Join hundreds of senior level local executives at ILM East for the local community’s best networking and insights. You can register here for earlier bird rates.

Internet Pioneer Ted Leonsis