Amex Teams With Facebook in Major SMB Promotion

American Express has recently been leveraging its powerful relationship with SMBs on the Web, including a tie to search engine marketing and lead generation via a deal between American Express Open and Clickable.

Now Amex is going deep with social media, specifically Facebook. It is giving up to 10,000 SMBs up to $100 of customizable Facebook advertising.

The giveaway is on top of two other promotions tied to “Small Business Saturday,” which is designed to drive traffic to SMBs on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. These include a promise to donate $1 every time someone likes Amex’s Small Business Saturday page on Facebook (up to $500,000) and a $25 credit card refund for Amex consumers who shop at a Amex-accepting SMB on Nov. 27.

It isn’t clear whether there is an official relationship between Facebook and Amex. But the program looks like a mutual winner for both. It kind of reminds of us of earlier SMB promos, such as one between Google and Intuit.

Facebook execs Emily White and Tim Kendall will discuss Facebook’s local initiatives during a presentation on Day 3 of ILM 2010.