Web Strategy

All kinds of tools to track twitter links... Great resources

In it's simplest form Word of Mouth (WoM) Marketing is tapping into the conversations that occur between people to sell your product. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WoMMA) defines it as: Word of mouth marketing: Giving people a reason to talk about your products and services, and making it easier for that conversation to take place. Effective WoM strategies cultivate and amplify these conversations, understanding that they are the most powerful way to convince a consumer to buy your product.

More than 80% of marketing executives say email, search marketing, and display ads are their company's top performing advertising channels, and many plan to increase spending on them in 2009, according to a survey from Datran Media.

Marketers must adopt an entirely new strategy -- more than that, an entirely new mindset. They must get away from trying to create new desires in people, trying to push and force themselves on people, trying to control people. Instead, find a more natural way. Find out what people want, and then give it to them. Offer them value, and they will appreciate that. Be a resource. Give things away. Don't force -- let them come to you, because of all the value you offer. Here's how:

1. Linking Out Encourages Participation 2. Linking Out Incentivizes Linking In 3. Search Engines Likely Reward It 4. It Makes Your Site More Valuable 5. Linking Out Sends Trackable Traffic

This fall, Mike Moran and Bill Hunt released the 2nd edition of their book Search Engine Marketing, Inc: Driving search traffic to your company's web site. The guide is 600+ pages and packed with practical, applicable information. I've worked my way through it once and now am heading back in to begin implementing some of their strategies.

In the ever-evolving world of social media, public relations professionals (PR) and journalists have more opportunities than ever to build strong relationships. It serves each of us well to stay up on social media trends-learning faster, easier ways to share information. With that, here are 10 of the best social media tools for PR professionals and journalists:

Now that the idea that RSS and email can and should coexist has taken hold, what can bloggers learn from the email marketing world and use to make RSS to email (even more) worth their while?

In the end you will realize, as I did, Google AdSense is just the beginning of your online income. Once you expand your horizons, you can make serious strides toward expanding your bottom line.

For years the Public Relations industry has ironically one of the worst reputations -esp since they are hired to look after the reputations of their own clients. Things only got worse as some brands got punk'd; the introduction of self-publishing tools that allowed anyone to connect to each other using social technologies, causing a shift in power. We've already talked to death about the risks and the changes that are happening to this industry, yet I'm hoping to elevate the viewpoint out of the gutter and focus on the larger opportunities -and risks at the industry level.

The influence of search visibility as well as word of mouth on social media sites (the social web) is too significant for companies with any kind of brand equity to ignore. Lucky for readers of this blog or those you pass it on to, there are two upcoming opportunities to learn in depth about how to tackle online reputation management.

Great rundown of two successful social media press releases from a skeptical PR consultant

But one problem nags at me. Local merchants like "Joe The Plumber" usually don't have a web presence and many don't really even want one. But if you are going to buy cpc advertising, then you'll need a place for the clicks to go. The local ad agencies and local oriented web services are happy to create a web presence for local merchants, but they are often poorly designed and there's no standardization of them.

As the evidence shows, a white paper can be a powerful and persuasive marketing vehicle. Provided, of course, that the reader actually reads it.