Customer Retention – Remember that when the economy gets tight, people are going to start looking for places to cut back.  This could include eliminating the need for a product or service altogether, or attempting to find a less expensive alternative.  It is vital that a business owner highlights the reasons why their product is worth the hard earned money of the struggling consumer.  On the upside, this also provides an opportunity to reach new customers who may be looking for alternatives to a competitor.

Avoid Excess – During difficult periods, people like to be reminded of better days, but advertisers must remember that moderation is key.  When the consumer must carefully monitor his budget, a business that comes across as excessive and overly opulent may serve to alienate a customer rather than attract one.  People are being more judicious with their money, and a business must be careful not to come across as intimidating or irresponsible during tough times.

Use Your Available Resources – While the opportunity for speedy growth wanes during times like these, businesses must reexamine all of the resources they have available.  Options that may have been previously overlooked or disregarded may present a new chance to reach out to customers.  This holds especially true for the less digital methods of marketing such as direct mail, newspaper ads and participation in local events.  People like knowing that there are human beings behind a business, and the  push to support small local businesses has jumped drastically since the onset of the current recession.

By being mindful of the circumstances of the average American, nearly any business can find the means to stay afloat in today’s market.  Hopefully, by staying true to these simple ideas, we can push through the tough times and find a better age waiting for us at the end.

But what good can come of these viral posts, videos, and emails?  Can they be leveraged for marketing purposes?  Is it ethical to do so?  Would it even be effective?  Who knows?  Maybe the polls were helped along by the “I Got a Crush..on Obama” video.  Perhaps wedding DJs would have seen a decline in funds if it weren’t for all the funny first dance videos sweeping the internet.

Viral marketing comes in here somewhere.  People who work in viral marketing hope that their marketing pieces “go viral.”  They utilize social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr to spread their marketing message like a virus.  The white hats do it organically.  They create great content, it goes viral, and BAM – people know their brand.  The black hats do it with spam and dishonest social media manipulation.  In fact, the term “viral marketing” has a bad connotation in most circles, because of the dishonest ways in which some individuals and companies attempt to reach the public.

So, if you create some really funny content, and it has the potential to go viral, you can either post it up on YouTube ala “David at the Dentist” and have someone maybe throw some money your way (I think that guy got $100,000 or something), or you can use your powers for good and find a good partner and a good way to leverage your opus for a cause that counts.  And you might even make a little money in the process.

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Societal marketing is the idea that marketing and advertising should be geared towards the consumers wants and needs.  It was also the beginning of the idea that companies should only produce goods and services that are beneficial to society as a whole.  This spurned the practices of sustainable marketing, and went a long way to develop the ethics of marketing that, some maintain, are evidence of a company’s marketing conscience.

One of the early pioneers of societal marketing is Sidney Levy, the current Coca-Cola Distinguished Professor of marketing at Eller College in Arizona.  He is active in the marketing world today, giving talks all over the world to doctoral students.  He is also conducting something called The Gullibility Project – something that is designed to discover why some people are so easily deceived.

Another founding father of societal marketing is Philip Kotler – S.C. Johnson & Son Professor of International Marketing at Northwestern.  He has developed marketing concepts that explore the potential economic outcome of a marketing campaign.

Another of these forerunners was William Lazer, who has since gone on to study and write books about Social Marketing, which is another theory born of societal marketing.

Because of these early marketing minds and others, large companies have adopted the tenants of societal marketing, including responsible corporate citizenship, social awareness, and good customer service.

Social media is not a fad – it is here to stay.

The issue is how to gatecrash someone else’s party with a commercial message that doesn’t get you thrown out of the door as soon as you walk in!

This is the conundrum which established, mainstream social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace are trying to address as they seek to monetize all those surfer eyeballs spending minutes, hours and days on the internet.  While this may seem like someone else’s problem, it is in fact every business’ problem – how to engage potential customers as part of their recreational time online.

It is important for businesses to understand that while Facebook, Digg, Reddit, LinkedIn and the rest of the big players in social media, may be grabbing the headlines with multi-million dollar valuations and financing, they are not the only party on the block.

So let’s take a look at three sites you may not have heard of, but they are bubbling under the top division in the social media league.

Kirtsy.com (Alexa 10,100)

Kirtsy caters primarily for women and it’s a good social media site for businesses looking to attract women as their prospective customers.

The site is primarily user-content driven with a substantial amount of third party content added by the users themselves for comment, education and simple fun.  Kirtsy focuses on female friendly topics and issues, but they do include forums and self-help groups for dealing with more than just relationships and the site lends itself to infiltration by businesses with something positive and constructive to say on issues such as technology, especially if it addresses a female experience with the issue.

Kirtsy is well laid out, simple to use and easy to register – it stands out because of its focus on women.

Small Business Brief

(http://smallbusinessbrief.com)

This is a good example of how to develop a blog into a social media site – Small Business Brief is primarily a blog, with content centering upon small business issues, however, it has developed beyond a blogger writing posts.

The site/blog stands out because of the quality of the posts and information which is included – it is obviously written well and by people who really do know what they are talking about based upon experience.  What makes SBB stand out though is the opportunity for users, eg. your business, to interact with solution provision.  If you do have a genuine B2B solution, then SBB has a platform for you to hold forth.  If you are a B2C company, you have a community of tens of thousands of small and medium sized business owners for you to tap into, to bolster your own knowledge and experience base.

SBB has some way to go in getting its format better developed, but it certainly shows how powerful even a simple platform can become in the social media niche.

NowPublic.com

NowPublic is a social media platform powered by citizen journalists who either write, or more usually, share existing content with the rest of the site community.  News items are voted up or down, depending on popularity pretty much the same way as we see on Digg or Reddit.

NowPublic stands out because of the diversity of issues which are covered – there is a well organized format which effectively replicates the content of a serious newspaper, and there is a very active community of users and a vocal commentary on stories of consequence.

Consider NowPublic to be an evolution of Digg and Reddit, with a greater degree of organization, much more user-friendly and a very lively community which is not primarily made up of internet nerds, but Joe Public with a passion for issues.

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He goes on to say that those in marketing or advertising are “Satan’s little helpers,” “the ruiner of all things good,” and guilty of “filling the world with bile and garbage.”   That’s not even the worst thing I’ve heard about marketing and advertising as a whole, how about you?  It’s hard to get into a debate about the ethics of marketing and whatnot without delving into the realm of consumerism and waste, environmental crime, and even more socially-charged topics, and at the end of the day, it is true that people who have even  little bit of money spend it on things they don’t need, which in turn clutters up their lives, and finally makes them no less happy than they were before they bought all that stuff to begin with.

But, short of reverting to a hunting/gathering, no system of ownership, loincloth-wearing type of existence (and let’s face it, with the country’s obesity problem that wouldn’t be good for ANYBODY) the fact remains that we’ve got to work.  We have to either work for businesses or run businesses and to make those businesses we have to market them.  How do we do that without being reduced to Satan spawn?  Steve Pavlina says that the only way to market responsibly is to market a product that you can believe in.  That means fast food chains, car companies, and drug companies are pretty much screwed, as are manufacturers of plastic widgets, squeezy stress balls, and many, many other things.

Pavlina asks you if you feel like your product or service benefits society and the world.  Are you marketing something that will save money, lives, society, or a combination of the three?  Maybe not.  Maybe you own a hair salon.  You make people feel better about the way they look, but would Pavlina consider your service a benefit to society?  Maybe not.  Does that mean you shouldn’t market your business?  No.  Not unless you don’t want to stay in business for very long.

While it might be possible to give you a clear and complete roadmap to marketing your business, you’re not paying me (hah!), so I’m not going to.  I will, however, give you some times on what to AVOID when marketing your product or service.  These are the no-nos.  It’s up to you to figure out the yes-yeses.

1.  We’ve already given you an example of what happens when people market through children.  You come off as a bad guy.  Unless you’re marketing a product or service that will make children’s lives better and thus turn them into better, more productive members of society than we ever were, stay away from it.  Same goes for the elderly.  Unless you’ve got a business that fights for the rights of the elderly, or you have some product that makes their lives better, leave them alone.  You’ll just come off looking like a jerk, and you’ll probably make the angels cry.

2.  Don’t exclude any particular demographic.  No “selective marketing.”  Don’t have an ad with a bunch of people from just one race, or feature an ad with all really skinny people.  You make the people who aren’t that race, or aren’t skinny, feel like you don’t want them to buy your product or use your service.  You disenfranchise them.  That’s bad.  And if you don’t want certain people to buy your product or use your service just because of the way they look or the particular social group they belong to, you’re both a jerk and not very smart.  It pays to be inclusive in your advertising – many studies have shown that.

3.  Stay away from violence and aggressive sexual innuendo.  Somebody’s kid might see that.

4.  In pricing your product or service, don’t employ price fixing, price discrimination, price wars, bid rigging, or dumping.  That’s just sheisty.

5.  Don’t lie, steal, or cheat.  I know.  It seems counter-intuitive to the whole marketing process.  But don’t do it.  Don’t make your product packaging look like someone elses, don’t name your website some ridiculously similar url to your competitor’s so you get their misspelling customers, and don’t say your product or service is something or will do something that it won’t.  If you sell ice cream, don’t tell people that your ice cream removes wrinkles.  Unless it does.  In which case, give me some.

6.  Don’t spam.  It’s annoying, and it’s getting to be pretty useless.

7.  Don’t.  Do not.  Telemarket.  Don’t do it.  You have someone call my house, I’m never, ever, ever going to buy your product or service.  Ever.

If any of these tips leaves you with a “Well, there goes MY marketing strategy,” you probably need to work on developing your marketing conscience a little more.  It’s OK.  Rome wasn’t built in a day.

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I finally got a BlackBerry in 2009, and soon discovered the joys of social networking.  I signed up for a Twitter account, and decided I was going to become an internet celebrity.  So far, that hasn’t worked out for me, but I have several followers on Twitter, and on a recent trip I decided to use foursquare to document my travels.  Here I will tell you what I think about the service.

First, in case you don’t know what foursquare is, it is a mobile application that you can use to track your whereabouts.  Not so great if you happen to have a lot of creepy Twitter followers, as you can tell foursquare to publish your updates on your Twitter account.  Pretty cool, conversely, if you are hanging out someplace that someone else you know is hanging out and you check in and they see that you’re there and – viola!  Instant party.

Yahoo has shown a lot of interest in the company, so it looks like they might buy it.  Who knows if the application will change then, but it could certainly do with some upgrades.

For instance, foursquare is user-powered.  So, if nobody has entered a location into the application it won’t show up if you try to check in there.  That’s fine, except that it isn’t always 100% intuitive, so the same place can be added multiple times.  That matters, I suppose, to some people who like to become the “mayor” of the places they go.

That’s right.  If you check in at a place more than anyone else, you become the mayor of it.  Since foursquare awards points and badges for check ins, those people using it as a game like to win, and if they are the mayor of a place and someone else is the mayor of the same place that was entered into the system a different way, that might irritate them.

Foursqure screenshot - not mine

As for any business value, different venues can add specials to the system, making it so that if you check in a place you can see if there are any specials or incentives attached to it.  That could, potentially, help people with traffic and sales in their business, but I certainly haven’t heard any great success stories yet.

The company was only launched in March of 2009, so it, of course, has room to grow.  Who knows what will happen?

A press release is all about the publicity that you can do for your online business. The more publicity you do for your goods and services the more your business gets recognized everywhere on and off of the web. The trick is in making use of all the publicity tools including press releases in the correct way to draw attention to your site. Publishing press releases on the web is one great way of going about the successful publicity of your site.

Well, it is not enough just to write press release and publish them on the web, you must know the correct way of writing a press release to be noticed on the web. There are hundreds of press releases posted on the web on a daily basis and there are chances that the one you write will get lost among the lot. The press release that you write must be just perfect to make you visible on the web.

The first and foremost rule of writing a good press release is that the information that you give throughout the press release must be newsworthy. Who will even read the press release that you have written if the information is not newsworthy? Remember, your press release must not sound like an advertisement. Rather it should be newsworthy information about the product or service you are offering to customers. There is a very thin line between writing about your site and the write up not appearing as advertisement of your business.

Always remember to ask the question how you as a customer will feel while reading your write up. And if you feel that you would not like to read it, then you drastically need to change your press release. If you do not like something chances are no one else will like it either. Put special emphasis on the first paragraph of your press release. Most editors do not go beyond the first paragraph and if you are going to create a first impression then half the work is done. If some one likes to read your first paragraph then they will go through the entire thing.

Press releases have more credibility among all the other publicity methods. While reading a press release readers do not feel that they are reading some other disguised advertisement about a product. Readers and online visitors are more likely to trust credible sources like columnists, editors and reviewers about the authenticity of any write up appearing anywhere. Editors will not publish anything that is not well written.

The buck does not stop here. The next step for you is to submit your press release to the proper places. You need a proper channel to publish your press release be it online or offline. Lots of people must have access to your press release if you are serious about this and want to create an effect. Create very impressive and eye catching headlines for your press release. A catchy headline guarantees that you press release will grab attention and compel people to read it.

Take care that there are no spelling and grammatical errors in your press release. Get someone to proof read it two or three times so that there is no chance for any mistakes. Incorrect spelling and grammar usage is not acceptable. Stick to the facts while giving information to readers and do not try to use fancy language and adjectives in your writing.

Written by Lior Levin. Lior works for a company that developed an online task management tool and also for a company that sells nursing wear clothes.

SEO or search engine optimization is a technique used to rank up high in Google. Deciding to hire a search engine optimizer is a big decision that can potentially improve your website, as well as, help you save valuable time, money and benefit your internet business further.  If you’re thinking of hiring freelancers to do SEO tasks such as link building and article writing, then you may consider oDesk freelancers.

oDesk freelancers can provide clients with valuable service and it is advisable doing SEO earlier to get maximum benefits. The best time to hire is when you’re planning a site redesign, or considering to launch a new site. That way, you and your SEO can make certain that your site is designed to be optimally search-engine friendly from the bottom up. Also, a good SEO can help develop good websites content.

Competent employees are considered lifeblood of any business and finding those honest, hardworking and knowledgeable employees can sometimes be frustrating. This is mostly true when searching to employ outsourcers. Whether you are lucky enough to find a qualified candidate or not, you have no uncertainty wasted with your much precious time and money. If you are looking for a faster, easier and cost-effective solution to finding competent outsourcers, then there is no doubt that you can find them in oDesk.

First advantage of hiring an oDesk freelancer is you can definitely save time and money. The most costly part of running any internet business is its employees. This does not refer to their salary, but the cost of finding them, training and retaining them. There are also other costs involved like overtime, health care, office space and finding dedicated individuals for certain projects. Using oDesk freelancers to create a virtual workforce answers these problems and frees up your capital to help manage your internet business.

oDesk can help you post job position and search through thousands of competent applicants. It also gives tests to make certain each applicant has the required skills needed to do the work required. You can look further into an applicant’s work history by carefully reading comments from previous employers and viewing previous work samples. oDesk has streamlined the interviewing and hiring process, making it simple to employ short-term, long-term employees or build a team of freelancers.

When hiring odesk freelancers, you can manage your team as if they were working beside you. One of the main problems with hiring outsourcers or any worker for that matter is making certain that they are basically working and staying well-focused on task assigned. oDesk comes with advanced technology where you can monitor your team’s activity on your wide computer screen. Every minute that a certain task is being worked on is as well, logged into the system giving you total control over your staff, even more so than having all of them in the office beside you.

oDesk does charge a little percentage of the money you make to pay for their valuable services. The quantity is stated when you apply to a job and is included to your bid requested so you can glimpse what your employers would pay in full if they hired you.

In terms of payroll, odesk has also done it very easy for you. The difficulty of paying outsourcers is taken care of in one easy line. You get well-detailed reports on each oDesk freelancer at the end of every week and have the chance to object to any hours billed. If you are in favor to all the hours billed, then payment is done through your credit card or bank account that you specify. oDesk gives you total control of your expenses at a touch of a button.

Using oDesk is simple and hiring qualified freelancers is easy and free without the frustration you have come to imagine from seeking to find qualified outsourcers. Setting up your own account will only take less than five to ten minutes and you will certainly be on your way to searching your next star employee.

—–

Lior works for a company that developed an innovative online task management app and also for a company that sells nursing tops

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Sometimes, product reviews are merely fun, offering unbiased commentary on products both useful and useless.

as seen on tv by vidiot

Faced with such a myriad of swindlers, con artists, hustlers and outright thieves, finding quality research on any given topic can be a challenge.  This rings especially true for any website offering product reviews or recommendations.  From the onset, even finding such a site can be difficult.  Many searches will lead you to manufacturer’s websites or mass-market online stores, where the only reviews that can be found are generally those offered by random purchasers.  More often than not (unfortunately for the consumer), those customers that choose to provide feedback on a product are generally those that are dissatisfied, resulting in an overall lack of solid information about a product.  Many ratings systems are also based on the “five star” scale, which can lead to confusion when a product is rated well by a buyer, but the comments provided say otherwise.

Consumers must also beware of websites claiming to offer product reviews which end up leading to sales pitches or attempts to discredit competing products.  A reliable, quality review website will offer consumers the opportunity to read sincere, unbiased opinions of products.  These reviews should include both the pros and cons of the items in question, as well as comparisons and alternatives, thus providing the potential buyer with the information necessary to make an educated, well-informed choice.

SEOMoz

To me, one of the greatest resources for search engine marketers. Not only does SEOMoz have a blog, they also have helpful videos, a forum, tools to help you analyze your site, and you can also get a chance to write for them! In their YouMoz section users are allowed to blog, and if your post get’s enough traction they’ll move it to the main page and turn the link into a dofollow link.

CopyBlogger

Internet Marketing has a lot to do with content. Following CopyBlogger’s blog will give you a chance to learn from the best, and apply it to your own use of content. Whether it be onsite or offsite, you’re sure to benefit from the tips given in this insightful blog.

Matt Cutts

Straight from the horses mouth….subscribe to Matt Cutts’ blog to learn what exactly is happening over there at the big G. What updates have they made lately, what are the topics du jour, and listen in to see if you might catch something useful.

ShoeMoney

Again, a great blog to subscribe to. Learn about things that have to do with PPC, social media, SEO, link building and more. Not only that, but ShoeMoney.com has a way of writing that is both hilarious and informative.

Chris Brogan

If you’ve been in the industry long you’ll know the name Chris Brogan. He’s an expert at his craft, and subscribing to his blog only seems natural right? Learn about standard Internet Marketing practices, questions in the industry, insightful information about Twitter, and much more.

Search Engine Journal

I just couldn’t forget about Search Engine Journal. With multiple daily posts there is definitely no shortage of information on this blog. Topics include: SEO, social media, link building, content marketing, online reputation management, the list goes on and on.

Convince & Convert

Over at Convince & Convert get ready to get your learn on. Jay Baer is a favorite among many. His approach to blogging, social media, and Internet Marketing in general comes from years of experience with big name brands. He has a way of explaining key concepts without hiding behind secrets. He lays it all out there.

What are some of your own favorite Internet Marketing blogs? Share in the comments below!

About the Author

Steve Lazuka is owner and operator of Interact Media, a content marketing company based in Ohio. He regularly guest blogs about social media, web content, content development and business blogging.  He is also an avid tweeter.  Follow him @SteveLazuka.

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