Essentials of Online Marketing

I am reading The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course: Online Marketing, written by Lorrie Thomas, M.A., a marketing strategist, educator, writer, trainer and speaker.

Ms. Thomas is the CEO of Web Marketing Therapy, a marketing agency. What I really like about Lorrie is that she gained her marketing muscles in the trenches, having no formal training in online marketing when she began her career on the founding team of ValueClick.

Ms. Thomas defines online marketing, e-marketing, web marketing and Internet marketing as "using the World Wide Web to market products or services." This book is a how-to guide on planning and building a website, writing and managing content, analyzing and optimizing the web site, blogging, and marketing using social media, search engines and email.

Lorrie Thomas states, "the key goal of online marketing is to maximize relationships, starting with increasing awareness." Throughout the guide, she emphasizes relationships, even coining an acronym, P2P (people to people), to demonstrate her marketing philosophy.

Each chapter in this book has a questionnaire at the end of the chapter. After finishing the book, you may earn a Certificate of Achievements by completing the final exam.

Tags: online marketing, mcgraw-hill, lorrie thomas, e-marketing, web marketing, internet marketing, p2p marketing

World IPv6 Day

graphic from arstechnica.com

On February 4, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), assigned the last of IPv4 addresses. IPv4 has been the Internet communication protocol for 20+ years. Considering the rapid proliferation of personal computers, smartphones, networked appliances, and other connected devices around the world, it’s easy to conceive how we’ve already exhausted four billion IPv4 addresses.

IANA is responsible for the global coordination of the Domain Name System (DNS) Root, Internet Protocol (IP) addressing, and other Internet protocol resources. IPv6 has a very large address space and consists of 128 bits as compared to 32 bits in IPv4. The first test of IPv6 takes place on World IPv6 Day on June 8, 2011.

On World IPv6 Day, major web companies and other industry players will come together to enable IPv6 on their main websites for 24 hours. The goal is to motivate organizations across the industry -- Internet service providers, hardware makers, operating system vendors and web companies -- to prepare their services for IPv6 to ensure a successful transition as IPv4 address space runs out.

How will this affect users? Not much at first, according to this article: Moving to IPv6: Now for the hard part (FAQ) | Deep Tech - CNET News

That's because there will be strategies such as proxies, translation, and tunnels to help IPv4 and IPv6 get along. For example, a person at home whose ISP assigned an IPv4 address, could try to reach an IPv4-based Web site. But the route in between might require IPv6, in which case hardware would have to wrap up the IPv4 data in IPv6, deliver it to the other side, then unwrap it for delivery to the other computer. That would have to be repeated for each packet of data sent in either direction, slowing network performance and increasing complexity.

Why do I worry? To find out your IPv6 readiness, use this test. Then you can worry, too.

30 Minute Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing?

I just finished reading 30-Minute Social Media Marketing by Susan Gunelius. I highly recommend it if you are new to social media sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning and Twitter, just to name some of the hundreds of social networking sites. If you are an old hand at social media marketing, you will find several new resources and techniques.

David Schawbel, the author of the bestseller Me 2.0, a Businessweek columnist and managing partner in Millennial Branding, LLC, states in the foreword:

. . . having profiles on Twitter and Facebook are not enough. You actually have to know how to use them and understand the best practices and the best ways to implement them . . .

Did the quote above make you cringe? It is a little intimidating to think about trying something new when we are already busy! Relax; this book is a how-to guide for social media marketing. Moreover, it is a manual on the basic principles of marketing.

What is the social web? Web 2.0, the Internet driven by consumer-generated content. How can social media marketing help your business? By helping you to develop relationships, to build brand awareness, to increase the reach of your publicity and promotions, and to conduct market research.

Start to build your social media marketing plan by immersing yourself in your chosen industry. Read related blogs, press releases and industry news. Follow industry leaders on LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media sites.

Next, you will create, share and discuss your content with interested contacts. You want your content to be shared on social bookmarking sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon and Delicious.

Susan details the three Cs of successful social media marketing:

• Conversation - let it flow.
• Content - share it.
• Control - give it up.

. . . as well as three Cs of failure of social media marketing:

• Conversation -Stop it.
• Content - copyright it, place barriers to sharing.
• Control - hold it tightly.

Ms. Gunelius takes you through all the steps you need to develop and implement your social media marketing plan.

• How to find your audience.
• What to do about negative comments.
• How to diversify your social media marketing.
• Where to go for help.
• What tools are available and how to use them.

From blog to microblog, podcast to BlogTalkRadio, social network to social bookmark, multimedia event to webinar, ebook to product review, word of mouth marketing to traditional marketing, Susan Gunelius walks you through it.

Do you have 30 minutes a day to extend your reach, build your brand, network with others and increase your visibility? If so, Susan has the plan!

Tags: social media marketing, susan gunelius, 30 minutes, web 2.0, book review

Garbage In/Garbage Out

I was catching up with reading of blogs and saw a few items I found interesting that I wanted to share.

I moderate all comments left on my blogs. It is time consuming, but I have always moderated rather than put commenters through completing captchas or registering at each blog. Over the years, I have noticed an increase in the number of SPAM sites and blogs.

These SPAM sites and blogs are usually about one topic, which is in the name of site and in every post or article. I often wondered whether these webmasters were really interested in those topics or if they just put up these sites so they could sell advertising, usually Google Adwords.

Study Confirms Issue with Search Results Quality | ineedhits

Evidently, Google search engine results pages are full of these SPAM blogs and sites it has been brought to the attention of Google.

Google has been thinking for quite some time about how to deal with content that isn’t obvious spam but is clearly not designed with the best interests of the user in mind. Google needs to be open to ways where we can improve.

Top Trends of 2010: Content Farms-ReadWriteWeb

However, before going after SPAM sites, Google is going after content sites, like Demand Studios, Associated Content and SEED (new from AOL). These sites publish thousands of articles each week and have flooded the Internet and have gained an advantage in search engine results.

The company operates based on a simple formula: create a ton of niche, mostly uninspired content targeted to search engines, then make it viral through social software and make lots of money through ads.

Now, there is a video content farm, called Howcast. Short, how-to videos on how to keep lipstick off your teeth, how to take baby pictures and other exciting topics.

I think I need to retire--the Internet is starting to resemble politics. Everyone making money by offering nothing of valuable.

Tags: content farms, spam sites, howcast, demand studios, associated content, seed