A couple of days ago, Internet marketing agency Outspoken Media’s chief branding officer Lisa Barone posted about the emails she’s received from readers, noting the number of requests for “ultimate rules” for internet marketing success. The question is, whether those who’ve been sending in email will eventually find what they’re looking for.
The drive to find the “ultimate” way to do something implies that there is one best way to do something and that a web-lebrity (ok, I’m using this term) like Lisa will give the answers/secrets, and somehow everyone who follows the rules will be able to replicate the results with precision.
Right?
Wrong.
So if her headline “Stop looking for rules. There aren’t any” is true. Does that mean that newbies are scrod?
And more importantly, is the “stop looking for rules because there aren’t any” a rule itself, making the post paradoxical/oxymoronic?
Here’s her answer:
If I define it as a rule, then it comes moot, right? 😉
I think you can either take it and apply it or you can sit here and argue semantics as to whether its a rule, life lesson or something that should be found inside a fortune cookie. As time becomes more scarce and
more precious, I like to focus on what matters. Arguing semantics rarely does. Unless you’re doing it with Michael Gray and the it’s THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS! 😉
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Instead, here’s her advice:
I think people who are looking for the universal rule book are putting themselves on a path to be mediocre. Following the worn path rarely leads to anything particularly interesting or great. It just ensures
you’re starting out just like everybody else. There’s no point of difference. I don’t want to know the 10 things that you say I need to do on Twitter. That cookie-cutter information does nothing for me. I want
to hack Twitter. I want to turn it upside down and inside out and do things that every expect would tell me not to and be horrified at. Because that’s how I’m going to learn what it’s capable of and what I’m
capable of using it. That’s where I find my value.
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Which makes perfect sense if you’re willing to deal with 2 challenges: fear and failure.
Fear is something that most newbies, whether dipping their digital toes into twitter or social media are going to deal with. Especially if you’re constantly reading about successes like the CoffeeGroundz cafe which saw business double and soon became a destination for tweetups (twitter meetups). The spate of success stories can be pretty intimidating for the clueless.
It’s the rare individual who likes to be mess up on their first attempt at doing something new, although it’s a likely outcome for the majority of people who try something new. If you’re working in a corporate environment, the repercussions of messing up can be (more…)
I invited Peter Dunbar, an experienced PPC and social media affiliate on the Friday Podcast to share strategies and promotion ideas for affiliates.
Peter has been an affiliate since 2000 and has a variety of different experiences in the internet marketing/affiliate industry since then, using a variety of different strategies to generate traffic to his sites.
During his time on the podcast, he shared a number of comprehensive tips to use video hosting networks such as YouTube, Metacafe, Revver and others to generate leads for your affiliate offers.
He also shared some business management tips which he’s used to grow his own business.
Besides his role as a VIP coach for the PPC Classroom program, he consults for clients on their internet marketing strategy, and has recently launched a new training site, AffCoaches, targeted at new and experienced affiliates.
Check out the podcast below:
Links:
Rebecca Kelley, who’s established a reputation during her time at SEOMoz, as a blogger, consultant and participant in the SEO community is a bit of an engima. She has a background in communications and Spanish from the University of Washington and stumbled into the world of search engine optimization.
Rebecca’s just taken up the portfolio of Directo of Social Media at internet marketing consultancy 10e20, where she’ll be taking up blogging duties on the 10e20 blog as well as take up social media work with clients.
I had the opportunity to invite her on the Friday Podcast where we talked about:
- How she got involved with search engine optimization
- The role social media can play in job searches
- Which are the relevant social networks now
- How companies can better use social media in their branding and marketing
- Key elements that can make or break your social media campaign
- The big picture view for social media. What users are looking for, how to make that traffic work for you?
- An example of a company which is using social media effectively and how they’re doing it
- Her new role at 10e20
Check out the podcast below:
Links:
Rebecca on Twitter
10e20 blog
10e20
Mediocre Athlete
Fresh Edge Media
One of the questions that came up recently has been the long running nature of the Friday Podcast (which started in mid 2007) and elements that help keep it growing in terms of it’s brand and readership. I distill it to a couple of simple components.
#1: I Enjoy What I’m Doing
Let’s face it, even if you are doing well (refering to income) from something you do, but find it a chore, repetitive, boring, etc, you’d bound to (more…)
Twitter could possibly be on the verge of mass acceptance…or bring about the downfall of social media, according to the signs we’ve been seeing.
- Promotion by mass media: So suddenly, mainstream media like newspapers, TV news and talk shows are jumping on the twitter bandwagon, making it sound like the best thing since sliced bread. Just like they did with the internet back in the mid 1990s.
- Overemphasis on the technology: So there’s been an overemphasis about the tech aspects of twitter, how you can build a following of 100,000 in a few days/weeks, how you’re able to mass msg them updates.
- Celebrity buzz factor: Now everyone knows that the_real_shaq is well, the real shaq. And that other celebrities have their publicist, manager scraping old interviews and sending tweets out on their behalf, saying that the content is sent in the “spirit” of the celebrity. Authenticity/credibility fail.
But the bigger danger of social media, especially the new wave of twitter’s brand of new social media is that it could potentially be tethering you to your computer instead of freeing you.
Remember the crackberry, er, blackberry?
When blackberry addicts had it with them 24-7 and felt compelled to answer an email the moment it was received? Till now, I know of a number of affiliate managers who keep their blackberry at their bedside and wake up to answer emails the moment they come in.
Me, I’m in the process of cancelling my cellphone to be less accessible.
But here’s why I think twitter might be self-destructive – the design of the system is such that it’s like a 24-hour chatroom, with topics being constantly discussed and possibly buried in a matter of hours.
That means if you want to:
- tap the buzz
- be part of the flow
- be part of the conversation
It means you need to tether yourself to the medium, you need to essentially be watching the channel during the 8-12 hours that the service is at its peak.
So it’s like watching TV, except (more…)
Return visitor and affiliate marketing veteran Sam Harrelson came on the Friday Podcast to share his thought on social media interaction and marketing and the strategies behind his newly launched podcast network, Thinking.fm.
During the course of our conversation, Sam talked about:
- How he got involved in online marketing and his quest to become a Renaissance man.
- How he has “given up marketing”
- Ethics and morals in affiliate marketing
- What inspires him to podcast
- The origin and direction of his Thinking.fm podcast network
- Monetization options for podcast network owners
- One of his favorite podcasts and why it works effectively
Sam’s one of the deep thinkers in the internet marketing industry and it’s always a pleasure to talk to authority who helps shape the industry.
Checkout the podcast below:
Links:
