Let’s say you’re a small business owner and you procrastinate.  A lot.  Well, you’re in luck.  There is still time to get in on the American Express Small Business Saturday campaign.  To get started, go here and sign up.

Believe it or not, here are a lot of people out there who would rather buy from you than an impersonal, packed full of crazies box store.  Take a few minutes and take advantage of this promotion but be realistic.  This is about American Express pushing their brand more than anything else.  But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some ways you can’t smartly take advantage of it for yourself.

Know that American Express does NOT limit the promotion to businesses that accept its card and that it does offer special bonuses like a $25 statement credit for card holders who shop at participating stores today.

Also, there are some cool free tools you can get that are perfect for the holiday season like $100 in free LinkedIn ads and the exposure you get from participating in a campaign “liked” by more that 2.4 million Facebook users.  Go to the page here.

Start by liking that page.  Then click on For Your Biz on the left navigational menu.  The free Facebook ads are gone but you can still get free in-store signs, digital marketing materials and LinkedIn ads to use AFTER the holiday weekend.  If you post an in-store sign, email a picture of it to AmEx at socialmedia@open.com to potentially have it posted on that Facebook page.

To get the digital marketing materials, click on the Get E-Marketing button (who says e-marketing anymore? AmEx that’s who), then the Print Yourself button and download the .ZIP file.  Warning: it’s not intuitive at all.  Your marketing materials are contained in the print materials package.

AmEx either thinks you’re an idiot or lazy because they have put together an email message, Facebook posts and tweets for you to send out about the event.  There are links to create a Facebook Business page using the Small Business Saturday page creation wizard if you are still living under a rock and don’t yet have a page on Facebook.

Good luck!

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