"If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough"- Mario Andretti.

It seems this was our motto last Friday as LevelTen hit the zip-line at DFW Adventure Park for our monthly team building event! It was a great success and a wonderful end to our work week as we soared through the open air and trees over creeks cheering each other on to success! I hope you enjoy the footage we captured to share just with you! Don't forget to watch the video of Chris spinning through at the end!

Everyone loves a good team building activity. Everyone also loves a little paintball game. So why not join the two? That is exactly what our LevelTen Team did this past week and we thought we would share a few of the highlights with you! They do say a picture is worth a thousand words! Enjoy!

There is nothing more irritating than knowing a place exists and searching for it on Google, only to have it not show up on the location search. So when our Marketing Manager, Colin, asked me to write a post about the 5 most important ranking criteria for Google local business listings, I was thrilled. I could finally figure out just why my favorite little shops were leaving me high and dry when I tried to find their locations.

Gowalla. The first thing that comes to mind when I hear that is "monkey" - a rather large monkey actually. Unfortunately (or fortunately), Gowalla is far from this; in fact, it's not a mammal at all.

What do Coach, Jamba Juice, The BART, Juicy Couture, Bravo TV and Harvard have in common? They are a handful of the businesses that have taken the plunge into the social media platform known as Foursquare. There have been some great case studies to support the success of a Foursquare campaign, which we will dive into later but for those of you who are still asking, “What is Fousquare for businesses” let me give you a bit of a background on it.

This week's podcast features a collection of top minds in the Dallas area Interactive Marketing field. Guests on this week's panel include Eric Feitel and Nate Christman. Eric and Nate both work for TM Advertising in Dallas. Eric serves as TM's Creative Director and Nate as the Art Director.

1. Exposure / Branding

For a small business, sometimes half the battle for success is exposure. If handled correctly (no spam), Social Media is an effective tool for generating awareness for your brand. You can use Social Media to promote content and knowledge expertise. Plus, as we'll see in a later point, Social Media provides many opportunities for networking.

Tip: Use your company name in your Twitter handle. For Example: @LevelTen_Colin

2. Customer Service

It’s official.

We are now entrenched in the worst recession since the great depression, and everyone’s talking about stimulus packages. Bailouts are everywhere: banks, real estate, auto manufacturers, municipalities, home owners and the unemployed. Just about everybody is receiving help - everyone but small businesses. Which we know is the hardest working sector of the economy. We know this because we are one – which is exactly why LevelTen has come up with our own Stimulus Package for small business owners.