The Reciprocal Consulting Blog

Some Internet marketing tactics are timeless – they will always work. You may do them poorly and in that case they may not work. But if you do them well, then they will work.

Here are 6 Internet marketing tactics that worked when they were first used, work today, and will work until the technology on which they are based dies.

1. E-mail marketing – Whether you send newsletters, e-brochures, or product giveaway postcards, e-mail marketing is a marketing tactic that simply works. Anyone can do it.
2. Blogging – Blogging not only is a great marketing tactic, it’s good for SEO. That may be why it will always work.
3. Social networking – Social networking can take many forms. In the past it was known as forum marketing or bulletin boards. Today, it’s just simply social networking. But no matter the form, if it involves socializing (even online), then it will work. Networking is networking.
4. Word of mouth – Word of mouth always works. Online and off line. Online, word of mouth takes shape in the share icons you put on your pages. You do put them on your web pages, don’t you?
5. Visual imagery – TV advertising is still alive and well. Online, it’s called video marketing. Yes, it works just as well as TV advertising.
6. Paid advertising – Free advertising is great, but it may or may not work depending on the venue. Paid advertising works. Off line, print newspapers and magazines offer display ads for your dollars and boy do they work. Online, PPC is the best paid advertising you can get. It’s the equivalent of your hometown newspaper ad.

There’s no question about it. These online marketing tactics work. They always have and they always will.

If you are looking for a way to make yourself more popular on Facebook, some scientists in the Netherlands have the answer. You need sexier friends.

Two scientists conducted a study using 78 people and their conclusion was that if you want to increase your Facebook popularity, then you should have more attractive friends. Is that a useful study?

Social scientists have for years now said that popularity off line in part has something to do with how attractive you are or your friends are, but does that translate online? Maybe it does. But I don’t think a sampling of 78 people in a study is enough to make that statement definitive, do you?

Nevertheless, it’s worth giving it a try. Maybe you can go around looking for attractive Facebook people to add to your friends list. Then what?

These kinds of studies don’t do businesses much good at all. You are looking for customers, people who will interact with your brand and purchase your products or services. That requires a certain level of targeting. If attractive people are your target market, then by all means seek out the most attractive people you can find. But if attractiveness has nothing to do with who is in the market for your goods, then don’t consider it.

Facebook is a place where people go to meet new friends and interact with their current friends. Don’t overcomplicate your social networking. Just do it.

It’s been talked about before, even predicted. TV is going social. But I think TV is going social in a way that wasn’t foreseen. Cynthia Boris at Marketing Pilgrim talks about it.

It seems that 64% of TV watchers have seen a social symbol appear on a program they’ve watched. Cool. But then she goes on to report that 33% of them acted on that symbol.

This is all great. What she’s really saying is that TV programming executives are now adding Like buttons, QR codes, and other social buttons on the moving images on the screen. So viewers are using their smart phones to interact with their TVs, Liking TV shows, and performing other tasks as well. That’s it?

OK, so I know what you’re thinking. Isn’t that enough? I mean, social TV has arrived.

Yes, it has. But I think the bigger question is how many TV programs actually employ the social buttons?

If you consider that the average TV watcher spends 2-5 hours watching TV during a 24-hour period, how many shows will they watch during that time? And only 64% of them saw a social button.

Let’s figure 30 minutes per show. A 3-hour-a-day viewer will watch 6 shows. Let’s say she’s a part of the 64%. She saw the Like button on one of her favorite shows. That’s 1 show in 6. Less than 20% of the programming.

Don’t get me wrong. I think social TV is a big deal. I think it will be even a bigger deal in 10 years. In fact, I expect that the “social” part of TV will become even more social, allowing TV viewers across great distances to interact with each on their TV screens while they are watching the same show. I can imagine people using their televisions as a sort of social network in itself.

We’ve only touched the tip of the pond with this social TV thing. Sure, it’s something to get excited about. But let’s hold onto our hats. It will get better. Don’t you think?

A discussion with another Internet marketer about the growing popularity of Pinterest led to a disagreement over the value of its traffic. The other Internet marketer exclaimed, “You can’t get any traffic from it and if you do it won’t be valuable traffic.” I disagree.

Evidently, I’m not the only one.

A WebProNews article indicates that Pinterest traffic is up 3.6% from December last year. Not only that, but the guide also tells you how to make the most of your Pinterest social networking activities.

Pinterest is a unique service in that it relies mostly on graphic content, unlike other social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Google+ comes close, however, Google+ also provides benefit for video marketers and textual content publishers. Pinterest is almost exclusively graphic in nature. But it is social. You could say it’s more like Flickr or Photobucket except that the social features are much more enhanced.

Because it is social in nature, one of the most important parts about Pinterest to keep in mind is to make friends. That means follow other people’s Pinboards and connect with them over your tastes in graphics. But you should be careful not to violate anyone’s intellectual rights, and you should spend considerable time sharing your own graphic content as opposed to just pinning others’ graphics. Mix it up, in other words.

Perhaps the most important part of Pinterest is your ability to group images by category. If your categories are interesting, then you’ll stand a much better chance of gaining new followers and by doing so you’ll get the referral traffic you are seeking. Like any social network, be interesting and people will follow.

Social video marketing is a new term that is beginning to catch some momentum. But what does it mean? Is it just about slapping a video up on YouTube and going about your business?

In a word, no. There’s much more to it than that.

The keyword here is “social.” Video marketing involves high quality video production and then uploading your videos to the right video sharing websites and/or posting it to your website or blog. But social video marketing takes that a step further.

Google gets it. Its new social media service, Google+, makes video sharing very easy. There are two ways to share on Google+. You can click the YouTube slider on the top right of your screen and search for a video by keyword, then click to share that video. Or, you can click the video icon in your post box and record a video live to post it in your stream for your followers to see.

Of course, you can also share videos on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. But social video marketing is as much about the social marketing as it is about the video marketing.

You should be commenting on other people’s videos. And you should be sharing other people’s videos. Don’t forget that YouTube is as much a social network as it is a video sharing site. So use it for networking. That means befriending people with like interests, liking their videos, embedding their videos, sharing their videos with your friends and followers, etc.

Take video marketing to the next level. Make it social video marketing.

Two days ago Facebook files papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission to make an initial public offering (IPO). That means the company is committing itself to making its profit and loss statements public for the rest of its life. But will that change the way the world networks?

Likely not.

Facebook has already become the 800 million pound gorilla (it has 800 active million users worldwide). It will likely grow and the money it collects from its IPO will likely help it reach some strategic goals, but the core aspect of its product will likely not change much if at all.

Maybe it will get better and maybe it will get worse, but change? Let’s see …

• Facebook offers personal profiles to anyone willing to sign up for an account and provide certain specific private information to the company based on its user’s term of service.
• Companies can set up a brand page and promote themselves to users through that page.
• Developers can build apps that interact with Facebook and allow users to engage with marketers, businesses, and savvy development agents.
• Facebook also offers paid advertising models for businesses wanting to reach new prospects.
• You can interact with Facebook through you desktop computer, laptop, smart phone, or tablet.

What else could Facebook offer? What else likely to be offered as a result of the private company becoming public?

Of course, new technologies could lead to Facebook expanding its offerings to its consumer base, but that would happen anyways. The company already has made billions of dollars so the money it collects from the IPO will not likely give it much more financial clout that it already has. So why go public?

It is likely that investors and shareholders realize that certain information is going to end up public anyway so why not be the first to make the disclosure? It’s a good political move for Facebook to go public, but don’t count on the IPO changing the service in any drastic way. Social networking will continue as it has for the last five years.

Online coupons are starting to become a big deal. They are much like their off line counterparts, but they have the potential to be found online by casual searchers using a search engine or social media. That’s a good thing for you, the business owner.

Like old-fashioned coupons, you can use online coupons to drive new business to your storefront or website. And it works.

One of the things that makes it work is social media. If your offer is so good that your prospects want to share it with their friends, then they will share it will their friends. They’ll share it on Facebook, Twitter, and through e-mail. They’ll share it on any social network where they have a presence, and they’ll use it too.

Online, you can offer the types of coupons that you can off line. You can offer 2-for-1 deals, minimum purchase discounts, coupons that are good only for certain days, perpetual coupons that are good any time of the year, and you can be as creative as you can be with your traditional off line coupons. Your customers can print the coupon and bring it to your business, download it to their mobile phones, tell you the coupon code when they call in their order, or enter the coupon code into a field on your website form.

If you think it through all the way, you’ll see that online coupons are another opportunity for you to reach new customers and increase your business. And they’re as social as other online tool.

Social networking has become so important today that you’ll hardly find an Internet marketer not doing it. If you do, they probably aren’t very effective. But you can get a leg up on your competition by spending some time doing a little social networking. To do it correctly, it’s important to identify the right type of social network for your need.

Here are 5 types of social networks you might consider for your online marketing needs:

1. Plain Old Vanilla – If you haven’t heard of Facebook, then you probably live under a rock. It’s not the only plain old vanilla social network online, but it is the most popular.
2. Social Bookmarking – These sites, like Delicious.com and countless others, allow you to save a link with a summary of your favorite web pages.
3. Question & Answer – Getting more and more popular every day, sites like Quora and Yahoo! Answers allow users to log on, ask a question, and get an answer from the crowd. Sometimes you’ll get several answers that you can choose from. And the community can often vote on the best answers.
4. Video Sharing – These sites – sites like YouTube and Vimeo – allow users to upload videos that others can view online. And you can use them to drive traffic back to your website.
5. Blogging Communities – Blogging has become the trend of the decade. So why not join a blogging community. There’s one for women called BlogHer and then there are more generalized communities like LiveJournal. They are places for bloggers to meet, share their ideas, and network over conversations.

There are plenty other types of social networks as well. Pick the type that best suits your needs and jump right in.

Social networking has become a big part of a lot of people’s day-to-day activities. The latest social network to hit the scene is Google+ and they’ve just added a couple of new features that make social networking even better. One of those features is called Ripples.

Ripples allows you to see what the share trail of a particular item is. You can see who all has shared the post. If you shared a blog post from your own blog and several of your circle friends shared it, then a few of their circle friends shared it, Ripples allows you to see which Google+ users have shared the post.

So why would you want to do that?

First, you can see at a glance, with a graphical representation, just how many shares your post has. But you can also find those Google+ profiles and find new connections. Sharers who are not in your circles can become a part of your circles. I think that’s pretty nifty.

Social networking is not all about linear connections. I think Google understands that more than any other company – even Facebook.

So which social network do you think is stretching the limits on social sharing? Is it Facebook, Twitter, or Google+?

Does “content is king” mean the same thing in 2011 as it meant in 1995? Is content still king?

This is a question that pervades almost every single discussion on web design, Internet marketing, and search engine optimization. What is content and what makes it king?

Traditionally, content referred specifically to your on-page content – keywords, text, images, etc. But the broader view is that content is anything you produce that is tangible in an online environment and that produces intangible results. In essence, content is both on page and off page. It includes links, videos, and might even in some situation refer to code.

Content moves beyond design elements. Simply having a website with a pretty header and a nice layout is not content. Filling it with images that pop, content that sells, and videos that rip roar and demand attention, that’s count. Writing articles and guest blog posts for other Web properties that link back to yours and drive steady traffic to your site, that’s content too. Bookmarking your pages and networking with others through Facebook and LinkedIn, that’s content too. And content IS king.

It’s important that webmasters not get too wrapped up in definitions, but you should take a broader view of content. And crown the king.

If you are an author, artist, performer, or other creative business person who uses pseudonyms in your business for legitimate purposes, then you might be interested to know that you can now use Google+ as your alter ego.

This is a new development for Google+, however, Vic Gundotra, head of Google+, makes it sound like they’ve planned this all along. Maybe they have.

Google+ users have been asking for the ability to use fake names for some time. Now they’ve got their wish. But how does this benefit you?

Anyone who uses a pseudonym for normal business (for instance, Samuel Clemens used the name of Mark Twain), then you can have a Google+. Before now, if your public persona was wrapped up in a pseudonym, then you couldn’t use Google+. You had to use your real name.

This brings up the question, how will Google be able to tell the difference between a legitimate pseudonym and a fake name used for spam? That’s a good question. I suspect that Google has it figured out. If not, we can all expect an onslaught of fake spam accounts to hit our Google+ streams soon.

Business accounts haven’t been rolled out yet on Google+, but Google says they’re coming. When they do, that should boost your social networking abilities.

If you’ve had one eye on Gogole+ and the other trying to figure out why you’d try it, let me give you 11 reasons why you should try it. You don’t have to leave Facebook and Twitter behind, and you don’t have to spend all your time on Google+ checking out your friends. But if you run a business, Google+ can be your friend.

11 reasons to try Google+ now:

1. Every time you use Google+ your Google profile rises in search. Give yourself more search prominence.
2. Because Google+ is owned by the largest search engine online you can bet there will be search benefits in some fashion.
3. There is a built in local component with the tie-in between Google Maps and Google Places and Google+
4. You can use your Circles for better targeting of your prospects.
5. Google+ business accounts are soon on the way.
6. Sharing YouTube videos is much easier through Google+
7. Google Picasa allows you to share photos easier through Google+ and you have unlimited photo storage.
8. Google Hangouts.
9. Google+ allows you to add hundreds of new people to network with one click through Circle sharing.
10. You can set the privacy for each component of your Google+ profile.
11. It’s easy to use.

So how many more reasons do you need? Google+ offers you the best in search and social. Try it.

It seems that social media marketing is now a foregone conclusion. If you’re not doing it, you have no future on the Web. You can even be doing it poorly and you’ll have a better shelf life online than someone not doing it at all. Thanks a lot, Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, they’re supposed to make a big announcement today. Are you listening?

This kind of suspense makes me wonder a few things.

• If you’re already No. 1, should you be talking about revolutions? I mean, I thought Facebook had already revolutionized social networking.
• Is Facebook, even just a little bit, somewhat concerned that they might lose a few users if they go off the deep end and change too much?
• Does competition mandate a change? (I wonder if Google+ would say “yes?”)
• Will the average user like Facebook even better after the new changes, like it less, or about the same? And will that even matter?
• Could Facebook be preparing the way for businesses to be more interactive through its social networking interface?

There are a lot of questions that can be answered about Facebook’s coming announcement. They’d all be speculative. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. I’m a bit anxious, aren’t you?

A new craze in social networking has companies starting their own private social network. Is this a good thing? Does it benefit the company?

There are lots of reasons why a company might want a private social network. You can’t share sensitive information through LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Those are unsecure environments. But Chatter, a website that specializes in providing private social networks for businesses is a secure environment.

In order to use Chatter, a person has to have an e-mail address from your domain. If they don’t, they can’t join your network. Pretty simple.

But what uses does a private social network have?

For one thing, you can use a private social network if you have multiple offices – either in the same city – or in various geographic locations. The private social network will allow you to collaborate more easily across distances. You can build better relationships between your office locations and the employees at those locations.

You can share information more efficiently through your own private social network. Instead of sending out an e-mail blast to everyone who needs to know, you can post one message to your network and the people who need that information will be able to access it.

A private social network can also be beneficial for training purposes.

There are a myriad of reasons why you might want your own private social network. Chatter is free and open source. That’s not a bad deal.

Twitter has become all the craze. Even small business owners are getting into it and trying to figure out how to make the most of their 140 characters. Here are 12 guaranteed ways to build value into every Twitter message.

1. Use short URLs. Bit.ly, ShortURL, TinyURL, and Is.gd are just a few of the services you can use.
2. Optimize your tweets for keywords.
3. Include a hashtag and make your hashtag a part of your message (for example: Why didn’t I #think of that?)
4. Make your message sing like a news headline.
5. Retweet your favorite Twitter users and do it often.
6. Build relationships using the @mention feature.
7. Tweet different items than what you would share on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networks. Keep your audience in mind.
8. Don’t add more than one link per tweet.
9. Keep your Twitter messages on topic. Don’t send out frivolous tweets about topics you are not passionate about.
10. Don’t tweet too much. Spread your tweets out throughout the day.
11. Shorten your messages to leave room for your shortURL link and a hashtag.

Keep these 12 tips in mind when using Twitter for your business social networking. Remember your audience and what they are following you for. Build value into every tweet.

When it comes to using online marketing tools, it seems that small business owners still haven’t put a lot of value on social media. That’s interesting because those same small business owners do put a lot of value on word of mouth advertising. They say it’s important.

The reason I find this puzzling is because social media is the new word of mouth. But I understand how some people might not see that.

If you consider that Facebook is the most trafficked website online and that it’s the new social club (without the drinks), then you might get a glimpse into why it might be useful to do some business networking through there. But don’t just take my word for it. Ask the people who are using it.

Then there’s LinkedIn. People asking questions and answering them. Introducing each other to connections. That sort of thing.

A lot of referrals take place through social media. Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. Google+. Even Quora. But if you talk to small business owners, you wouldn’t know it.

I’d recommend picking a social media website – any one will do – spend 15 minutes a day for two months just figuring it out, meeting new people, interacting in small ways, and see where it leads you. What would it hurt?

If you’re used to doing a lot of offline marketing, or traditional marketing, then you’ve likely noticed that it has become quite expensive in the last few years. Oil prices have driven up the cost of paper and everything else. The economy taking a downturn has caused many businesses to stop advertising altogether, or diminish their marketing budgets.

But there is hope. Online marketing is less expensive and, if done right, is much more effective. That’s why so many businesses have transferred their marketing and advertising budgets to online.

Here are 5 online marketing methods that are outpacing their offline counterparts:

1. Pay Per Click – Pay per click advertising is the online equivalent to some forms of print advertising. The difference is you pay only when a desired result takes place. It can be less expensive and deliver a higher ROI.
2. Social Networking – Offline, you go to business functions. You often have to buy dinner, pay for transportation costs, business cards, and other incidentals. Online, you just show up. And talk to people. Make friends and contacts. Sell them stuff. The time commitment is higher, but it’s a lot easier on the budget.
3. Video Marketing – Liken it to TV advertising. Do you really want to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on 30-second spots that disappear with the money? Instead, pay for one video and it stays live online forever.
4. Website Design – Call them online billboards. Just like outdoor advertising, you have a limited space – your prospect’s browser window. Unlike outdoor billboards, that space can be expanded. And you can build many websites for less than the cost of a handful of billboards.
5. Search Engine Optimization – Sorry, but there is no offline equivalent to search engine optimization. Yet it’s still the most effective online marketing money can buy.

Try just one or incorporate them all into your marketing plans, but online marketing is where it’s at.

A new report based on a survey of social network users says that LinkedIn is the most important social network for 59% of the people who use them. That’s LinkedIn, not Facebook or Twitter. That might seem unusual considering that Facebook and Twitter get most of the hype.

But, frankly, I think it makes a lot of sense.

Facebook is still a place for personal networking for a lot of people. It’s where they go to connect with friends and family. Yes, they also can set up a page for their business and network with people to attract new business. But being that Facebook is a personal space for a lot of people, and it is the most trafficked social network in cyberspace, the threshold for a high ROI is rather low. In other words, there are challenges in turning a Facebook networking plan into a profit. But it’s not impossible.

Twitter has become much more of a micropublishing platform. And it hasn’t quite caught on with the mainstream just yet.

LinkedIn, on the other hand, is a business social networking tool. People who use it use it for business. Period. So it makes sense that it would deliver the highest ROI. What do you think?

It’s common knowledge that Facebook has supplanted MySpace as the premier social network online. But does that mean that MySpace is no longer useful?

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. There are still millions of users on MySpace. But MySpace has been relegated to a niche website, unlike Facebook.

So what is MySpace’s niche?

As it has always been, MySpace is a hangout for musicians and other creative artists. If you visit the site you’ll notice that it’s top navigation bar has the following options:

• People
• Music
• Video
• Games
• Topics
• Events
• More

While MySpace has done a lot to upgrade its look and to provide new offerings for its users, unless you are in the entertainment industry, or you cater services to the entertainment industry, then I don’t see a whole lot of value in there for you. It may be there, but I don’t see it.

MySpace does have a snazzier look than it used to have, there’s no doubt. But don’t go on the look alone.

I would suggest that non-entertainment industry professionals seek social media opportunities at LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and niche social sites that cater to your industry. Leave MySpace for the kids, the musicians, and the entertainers.

Location-based networking, using your cell phone to notify others of your current location so that they meet up with you (for God knows what), is beginning to take off. This is a spin off of the Twitter and Facebook geographic networking phenomenon. So what’s the difference?

With geographic networking you are networking with others in the same city or area. For instance, Facebook has local groups you can join that are based on the city in which you live. It’s one way to use Facebook and has worked well for many small businesses. Twitter, too, has been used for geographic networking.

Location-based networking takes this concept one step further. You can narrow your location down to a specific point within your city and let others know where you are right now. You can then hook up, make a connection, hang out, or whatever it is you choose to do based on your networking. So what’s the benefit?

Actually, there are a number of benefits. If you’ve been following someone on Twitter and you know they are in the same city as you then you find them on Foursquare, one of the many location-based social networking sites to emerge, and you see that they are just around the corner from you having lunch, you could send them a quick message, “Mind if I join you?” Your networking then has just taken on a new dimension. You’ve met in person.

Of course, this can happen in other ways as well. Meetup groups allow local Twitterers to connect in a similar fashion, but usually as a group. With Foursquare you can hook up with a contact one on one. It might mean the difference between closing that sale and letting one slip through.

ChannelWeb lists eight other location-based social networking sites (besides Foursquare). While the idea hasn’t exactly caught on yet, it’s just a matter of time before it does. Are you poised to be there?

Try these eight location-based networks and see what happens.

• Brightkite
• Citysense
• GyPSii
• MobiLuck
• Loopt
• Plazes
• Whrrl
• iPling

And, of course, don’t forget about Foursquare. Take your local social networking one level deep.