Black Belt Marketer

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2008-10-28

The Ten Commandments for online marketers

The Ten Commandments for online marketers
There is one Internet. It is a shared resource. Any marketing strategy that relies on polluting the internet by pushing unwanted noise into community space is suspect. It is one thing to strategically place information scent that leads users to your site; it is another to spray that scent on every tree and fire hydrant.
You shall use neither bots nor macros to create links, nor spread comments promoting your site. Spambots can not only cause your site to be banished by search engines, they leave a huge footprint across the web and can tarnish your brand with a stink that can't be washed off!
You shall not allow your advertising and affiliate dollars to go to scrapers, scammers, nor spammers.
Advertising budgets are the fuel that drives the spread of blight across the internet. Make sure your money is not promoting blight even if you must forsake short term profits in favor of protecting your brand. While it is easy and tempting to pour money into any channel with a positive ROI, you may be cannibalizing your brand in the process. Even if your strategy is making money and your brand survives, you are funding parasites who devalue the communities that support your business.
Honor your visitors. Do not sell impressions or links to companies you do not vet. As a publisher, you are endorsing your advertisers every bit as much as if you give them an editorial link. Caveat Emptor may be the motto of cut throat capitalism, but it is not a good strategy to protect your brand. If you are not satisfied with the moral and ethical practices of your advertisers, do not sell them advertising. Syndicated advertising networks offer an easy path to monetizing traffic in the short term but you risk associating yourself with the sites where you advertise.
You shall not make use of sock puppet accounts for vote stacking, spamming friend requests, nor other schemes. Sock puppetry and false friending is so obviously a form of fraud that no one can argue it is an ethical practice. Do not succumb to the argument that others are doing it if you want to build a sustainable business.
You shall not form cabals nor engage in elitist plots to disenfranchise people. Karma matters. If you treat others badly, they will eventually form a mob and come after you.
You shall not grieve other users by spoiling their fun, troll, nor post flame bait to get attention. Acting up to gain attention only works for a short while, then you get banned, filtered, and ignored.
You shall not scrape content, plagiarize, nor assist in the theft of virtual assets. Stealing content is stealing, simple as that. Scraper sites are the most prolific and pernicious form of Made For Advertising (MFA) sites.
You shall not distribute badware, scumware, spyware, nor malicious bots. This point is so self-evident it shouldn't have to be mentioned, except that the proliferation of Malware is accelerating and the potential damage it can cause is frightening. Criminal activities ranging from identify theft, transaction fraud, click fraud, and distributed denial of service attacks are all being carried out by botnets that contain hundreds of thousands of compromised machines. Most of the global spam problem can be traced to these compromised computers as well. Despite the clearly criminal nature of malware, Google recently estimated that 1.3% of search result pages contained a link to a site that potentially could infect the user's computer. Most of these exploits are distributed via Iframe injection through advertising networks.
You shall not covet your neighbor's traffic, nor engage in parasitic marketing. If somebody is doing well, give them a pat on the back instead of trying to pick their pockets.

The commandments represent what Internet users already expect. Unfortunately, many players rationalize their own breaches whenever a little cheating is profitable. We, the Internet community, need to take a stand against blight. Major online properties need a code of conduct to ensure that they do not contribute to the problem, and they also need best practices for controlling blight. Investors should ask managers what they are doing to protect the value of online assets. Everybody needs to worry when the next advance in black hat technology has the potential to turn billion dollar web properties into a slag dump.

Posted at 03:17:39 PM | Post Comment | Read Comments (0)

2006-07-29

Success-

Did you know that we all possess 4 distinct personality styles? I didn't until I was about 35 years old, when I read a book called 'The 4 personality styles' and I am sorry that I do not remember the author at this time.

However the book is all about how all of us posses an analytical, expressive, amiable, and driver personality style for how we act, think and feel. For all of us, 2 of them are predominant.

1. Analytical: Neat, organized a thinker. Think of Felix Ungar from the Odd Couple and you will have a funny analytical. Task orientated.

2. Expressive: A talker, the one you find chatting or the social butterfly at any social gathering. People orientated.

3. Amiable: This type of person would cut off their arm, rather than lose a friend and also is very aggressive when backed into a corner. People Orientated.

4. Driver: This type is one who has a very strong personality, will gladly stand in front of a crowd and want to speak. Task orientated

Knowing these 4 things can actually help you in your associations with your colleagues and unless you read about it, you will not know. Knowing that out of these 4 all of us possess some of them, but TWO are predominant in our lives.

So knowing that you are talking to a driver will give you some instincts, because you know this person just wants the bottom line. Knowing that this person is analytical will tell you that they just want the facts. Knowing they are an expressive will give you the information you need, because they just want to talk, or be heard. Knowing that they are an amiable gives you the knowledge that building a rapport first, would be a very good thing to do.

Insight is an amazing thing and its even more amazing to know it can be learned, just by knowing a few things from a few books.

Remember that 'Change' only occurs when you make a change. Do not expect change to just magically occur, because it will not.

A great way to begin that process is to develop solid reading habits with books that will give you that personal development. If you are shy, I would recommend reading 'How to win friends and influence people'.

If you want more leadership skills, then I would recommend reading the book I gave above by John Maxwell (21 laws.).

Take 10 minutes out of your life a night before you retire and begin the steps towards your own personal development. Make that change and begin to see yourself finding the goals you wish to achieve.

Posted at 07:27:12 PM | Post Comment | Read Comments (0)

2006-06-05

Re:Doug

I was very saddened to learn of Doug's passing. I was personally sponsored by Doug into Money Legs and believe that I was amongst the first to join(#4305). The man was totally honest and set the standards for other traffic exchange owners. He encouraged people to set up their own blogs,websites and I notice that quite a few of the members have their own traffic exchanges. Doug's work was all done without all the hype and ?%&# you see the so called gurus use. He was mentor in the truest sense.

I sincerely hope that the same standards will be kept by whomever is administrating what Doug has started !

With deepest and warmest respect from a fellow Canadian in Kamloops

Ken

Posted at 02:59:22 PM | Post Comment | Read Comments (0)

2006-05-07

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS !

Hello from Kamloops BC Canada !

Hello - My name is Ken Milligan and I live in the beautiful city of Kamloops, BC, Canada. I am not one of those hyped up so called marketing gurus that you have seen around the internet. What I am is a career professional marketing consultant. To qualify my calling myself a professional marketer please consider my background.

1) Have over 30 years experience working on color coding projects, packaging of product/services, pricing of same, distribution solutions, advertising, promotions and public relations.

2) In 1981 I successfully completed the MBA program at the University of Calgary.

3) Have held several key positions in major corporations.

4) Have taught marketing courses at several Canadian and American colleges and universities.

5) Was honored and privileged to be associated with Brian S Tracy.

6) Spent 9 years on the pro rodeo circuit as a bullrider !

Posted at 02:36:03 AM | Post Comment | Read Comments (2)

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