The Trends and Basics of Internet Marketing
By Thomas Dolaskie - September 1st, 2009
Welcome to Internet Marketing, where timing is everything, and everything takes time.
Respect your resources.
An Internet Marketing campaign should respect company resources. Be it staff activity on trendy social media sites or the constant monitoring of statistical data and subsequent informed adjustments. Often problematic is finding a way to balance the time between actually managing your business and allocating time to "talk" about it on the Internet or manage an Online Marketing (OLM) campaign.
Think Big, Start Small.
Don't overwhelm your staff with a million ideas that require their participation. You are the business mind, the idea person; but take it easy on your resources. Ask your most web-savvy staffer if they'd like to get involved and how they feel they can best contribute. Work your way around the company and visualize the best team you can properly hold accountable to execute basic social marketing practices. It is best to allow one individual to "manage" (always have an up to date password log from this person!) the social service sites but be sure to ask everyone to participate. This "manager" is simply a monitoring body capable of gathering basic feedback and conversing via the Web as "the company." Do not expect this individual to initiate an Internet Marketing Campaign! Have participating staff, friends and family become fans on Facebook, follow on Twitter and comment on blogs and picture albums. Remember this takes some time and expecting magic overnight is a set up for discombobulated madness. Keep it simple!
These social service sites allow connection between outlets such as Twitter, Blogspot, Wordpress and popular photo sharing sites like Flickr and Smugmug as well as Bookmarking with StumbleUpon or Delicious, etc. Keep in mind this social exposure is only a fraction of the web presence battle. Behind the glory of social exposure exists an ever-changing science of data collection, analysis and adjustments that are the true foundation of effective Internet Marketing for your website.
My business isn't social so am I just wasting time tweeting?
Some businesses will benefit more than others with social marketing. How "social" is your business? There are countless business models and they all have a place in the social marketing culture. Bars, Bands, Restaurants, Cafés and Clubs all work non-stop to be noticed in online social circles. As with fishing guides, skydiving outfits, hotel or vacation spots, photographers, doctors, you get the idea. Typing "café" into Facebook will return close to 14,000 results. Depending on the feed or content, Twitter will do the same. A Google Search for "café blog" will net you just under 300,000 results. Rest assured if competing for business is involved, somebody (your competition) is online tweeting, blogging, instant messaging, discussing on forums and experiencing some sort of result. To break it down, they are promoting themselves.
Are they doing more than you? At the end of the day you're the one who has to live with your efforts to improve, grow and sustain your business. Being social in marketing is a choice. Choose wisely and efficiently!
Should I hire an Internet Marketing company?
Internet Marketing such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is a highly focused and specialized skill set that constantly evolves. Your competition is always finding new ways to improve and stay ahead, one night they launch a change to their website or Internet Marketing strategy and suddenly your competitive position is compromised. Internet Marketing specialists must understand brand recognition and competitor trends to be prepared for sudden challenges. Establishing an effective online Marketing campaign that fits a budget requires experience in actually writing, monitoring and adjusting budgets that work.
This isn't rocket science!
No, much of what is done to produce effective online Marketing campaigns doesn't require surgical genius. But it does require full time dedication and incredible depth, exposure and comprehension of Internet trends. Internet Marketing campaigns can be small and grow with the feedback of gathered data. Continue with what works and learn from what does not. Do your research. Internet Marketing is a specialty service that can burn through budgets, eliminate R.O.I. and leave you incredibly frustrated. An efficient Internet Marketing team should provide insight on website content, coding, social media practices, forum and discussion principles, and comprehensive analysis of the competition to name only a few. Be certain you are working with an experienced Internet Marketing team. Countless businesses are claiming years of experience in "marketing," but may know nothing of Pay Per Click, Web Positioning, SEO, or data analysis. This will be covered in depth on our blog and in future newsletters.
Make sure this Internet Marketing team can mesh seamlessly with your website developer or administrator. Communication and execution are absolutely critical to campaign success.
Do not settle for less, your business deserves to "Be Found."
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