Internet Marketing 101

Get Pay Per Click Advertising That Works

November 18, 2014 Beth Devine

“Gaze” by Marina del Castell, used under CC BY / Modified from original

Pay per click advertising is like sending out a sales letter on the internet. Your intention is to get your audience to open the letter and make a targeted response. Instead of opening your letter, the goal of pay per click is to click on your ad.

You pay only when someone clicks on your ad, which then takes them to your website. To get your audience to click on your ad and follow through with a desired action, your pay per click advertising requires focus.

When you’re using pay per click advertising, it’s important to focus on more than just the number of clicks. A conversion happens when someone takes a desired action after they click on the ad. It could be making a purchase or registering to receive something free.

By staying focused on conversions, you can boost your returns while also increasing your subscriber rates. Follow these five ways to get pay per click advertising that works.

1. Build a Landing Page

When your audience clicks on your ad, don’t send them to your homepage. A targeted landing page with focused content and a specific call to action is the key to focusing on the keywords that brought your visitors to you and getting the conversions you want.

Depending on the type of keywords you are paying for, you might need to build more than one landing page. Just be sure to focus on the specific intent of your audience and what they are searching.

Don’t confuse your visitors by confusing them with irrelevant content. Stay focused on ad-related content that teaches your audience about what your product or service offers.

2. Make an Offer

Make the goal of your landing page more than selling your product or service. Your landing page is where your visitors go to receive your free offering, such as an ebook, audio recording, video presentation, or any type of informational resource.

This is the best way to differentiate yourself from your competition. With a compelling call to action such as “Free Download,” “Learn How,” or “Get Yours Free,” you will encourage your audience to act once they get to your landing page.

When you make an offer, you’re working to establish your relationship with the people who clicked. By building your subscriber list, you can continue to boost your conversion rates through your website and blog.

3. Use Negative Keywords

One of the underused yet effective pay per click strategies is to use negative keywords. By choosing keywords that won’t trigger your ad, you are essentially filtering out people who aren’t searching for your ad.

When you use negative keywords correctly, you will whittle down your clickers to only those who are interested in you and what you have to offer, saving you money in clicks. Negative keywords will control the relevancy of clicks without eliminating targeted traffic from broad keyword terms.

4. Location, Location, Location

Be sure to utilize the geo-location features of Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo search engines. This will allow you to target your market based on the IP addresses, focusing your campaign on regions, countries, cities, even zip codes.

Your pay per click advertising campaign might be to test out different locations in order to learn how different areas respond to what you sell. Or you might not ship to certain areas. Or you want to promote a special offer to only a specific region.

As brick and mortar store, you can use geo-location to not only drive traffic to your store, but to promote online sales to geo-targeted locations. It’s a good way to improve your performance in certain places by breaking out of your standard target zones.

5. Test for Results

Your pay per click advertising will give you better results when you test those results. Test multiple ads and gather the data to gauge their conversion rates.

Google AdWords will give you tools to analyze the metrics to determine where, when, and which ads show the highest conversion rates. Don’t just invest ad money and hope everything turns out for the best.

Your pay per click advertising can be a profitable tool to delivering your valuable content to an interested audience. An audience that clicks, signs up for your offer, and keeps on hearing from you through email newsletters, blog posts, and updates.

This is how pay per click advertising will work best – through your ongoing, focused efforts to stay connected.

Why Email Marketing Is Still the Cat’s Meow

November 9, 2014 Beth Devine

old-school marketing — “Caption, anybody?” by Rob, used under CC BY and modified from original

It’s so old school, why would anyone still use it? Hasn’t social media replaced it? Won’t people think you’re just spamming them?

These are valid questions and concerns about email marketing. These objections all hold a grain of truth, but they only apply to email marketing when it’s used incorrectly.

If you want to get results from your email newsletter, then be sure you’re doing a few things right.

Don’t Pussyfoot Around With Old-School Email

The cat is out of the proverbial bag. Yes, it’s the oldest internet marketing technology. But old-school email is also the new e-newsletter that grabs your readers attention with bright colors and compelling visuals.

Today’s email newsletter doesn’t have to look like it did a decade ago. With the aid of email marketing services such as Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, AWeber, and GetResponse, you can easily whip up a visual prey of delight in your email.

So when it comes to old-school email, don’t pussyfoot around thinking it’s no longer relevant. Commit yourself to a scheduled email newsletter as part of your marketing plan.

Who Needs Email When You Have Social Media?

Social media continues to be a great way to have conversations with your followers and customers. When you want to link to others, explore joint ventures, and meet people who share your interests, social media is the cool cat’s party.

Compare social media to an event where your objective is networking. It’s an ongoing, online event where you can build your name, where you can share your latest news. It’s the ideal platform for taking the information you send to your email recipients and sharing it with a wider audience.

What social media doesn’t do is make direct contact by landing in someone’s inbox. In other words, trying to position yourself as a leader to your social media followers can be like herding cats.

It’s one thing to be an authority on something, but to be a leader, you need to show you’re serious about what you do. The best way to do this is to deliver interesting content directly to the people who need it most.

Your email subscribers are like the audience of a radio talk show. According to Ben Settle, world class email specialist who delivers content to his subscribers daily, it’s the best way to keep a casual conversation going about what you have to offer your customers.

But Email Is So Spammy

The primary purpose of your email marketing is to sell your product or service. But that doesn’t mean your emails need to be spammy.

The essence of your email newsletters is to talk about your common interest or problem. Sometimes you won’t even mention your product in the email. You might just include a link to it.

Wherever it fits in naturally, within the context of the story you are telling in the email, find the right place to add information about what you can do to solve their problem. You are the invited guest in their inbox, and as their guest you are obligated to tell them how you can benefit them.

Always include a reference to how you can meet their need. Make this a clear call to action, and tell them what to click, where to go, or what to do next.

As your readers continue to receive your emails, the bonding process also continues. When they need what you are selling, you will be the one they turn to – the one they always hear from.

How Your Brand Can Stand Out With Visual Content

October 31, 2014 Beth Devine

Social media makes it unavoidable: It’s important to engage in the conversation, or you’ll get lost in the crowd. By using a wide variety of imagery and visual techniques, you can represent your brand and get more attention and traffic.

All social media channels, even those that were more text-based, are now focusing on the visual component, thanks to what’s being called the Instagram Effect. Instagram is almost totally visual, relying on images to communicate its message.

Images have grown in size on Facebook, and videos now play automatically. Kissmetrics reports that Facebook “photos get 53% more likes, 104% more comments, and 84% more click-throughs on links than text-based posts.”

Even if you’re not a naturally visual business, such as a design or travel company, there are many ways to visualize the value of your brand, products, and services. There are visual opportunities for everyone to participate in the explosion of visual growth.

Here are four ways to create your visual content for social media:

Tell Stories With Images

When telling a story, think of a designated period of time and how to capture what’s happening. For example, it could be a product launch, a new building, a website makeover, a trade show or conference, a fundraising event, or the development of a prototype.

Whatever you choose to showcase, document it with a sequence of photos or videos. By chronicling the timeline of events, you’re sharing a behind-the-scenes peek and adding visual intrigue and engagement to ordinary processes.

Entertain With Memes

By creating memes – an image with simple accompanying text that represents an idea or makes a statement – you’re sharing your company’s personality. What better way to engage with followers than by highlighting your human side?

Use a quotation with striking typography and other graphic enhancements. Look for your quotes in relevant literature, popular culture, educational news, and even old advertisements.

Decades-old classic print ads from various advertising campaigns are great inspiration for your memes. Try Advertising Archives’ selection for inspiration to see how some brands managed to inspire and entertain without boasting or simply spewing out company slogans.

Information-Rich Infographics

The popularity of infographics is due to its concentration of valuable information that is formatted to tell a story. Having all that data compiled in one place is a visual feast for the data hungry.

Infographics can illustrate an abstract concept with humor, distinction, and imagination. With one post, you save your followers hours of gathering information on a specific topic.

Piktochart and Easelly are great places to start for do-it-yourself infographics. With ready-made templates and walk-through steps, you can turn your research into a customized visual story.

Online Presentations

Presentations continue to stand out as visually persuasive content. Thanks to the growing number of free online presentation tools, showcasing your own creativity and knowledge is easier than ever.

Besides the well-known Microsoft PowerPoint online, there is also Slideshare, Prezi, Haiku Deck, and Google Slides. With these tools, you can create a visual strategy that fuses art and copy to form a compelling presentation.

To get the best results, start your content creation so both your visual images and text work together to promote a unified concept. The end product should be more than just tacked-on graphics to your documents.

Reinvent the slideshow with a rich digital experience for your audience that’s easy to share across your social media platforms.

When sharing your visual creations, remember not to post every single image across all of your networks. Each social media platform has different image dimensions as well as unique community expectations. Make sure that your message is expressed in a format that reflects each platform’s identity.

For every visual you share, include something that will make your brand recognizable, such as a watermark or logo. By expressing your brand with visual creative planning, you will build trust and stand out from your competition.

Snapchat: What’s the Big Deal?

October 27, 2014 Beth Devine

snappening — This work is a derivative of “Ouija Board” by jmawork, used under CC BY.

Remember having long conversations on telephones? Back when you had to pick up a landline, punch in a series of numbers, and then gab with your friends for hours?

That’s what Snapchat is for the Millennials – where today’s teens and young adults get their gab-fest fix. It’s no accident that they named it Snapchat.

The snap portion of its title corresponds to the ephemeral nature of the mobile app. Snapchat lets its users send pictures and videos that last only a few seconds. With a reported 100 million monthly users worldwide sending 700 million Snaps a day, it’s no wonder brands are interested.

Happily for any brand who wishes to communicate with the tech-savvy young generation, Snapchat said it’s now offering advertising. According to its blog post, the decision to begin ads is simple, they “need to make money.”

Any company looking to capitalize on this latest opportunity must adhere to one chief rule. It seems you can’t be “creepy and targeted.” Additionally, ads won’t be allowed in users’ personal communication, otherwise known as Snaps and Chats, because “that would be totally rude.”

Advertisers follow the same rules as users who post in Stories, the alternative way of sharing Snaps. They’re a series of Snaps added in the form of a narrative and are found in the “Recent Updates” section, disappearing after 24 hours or after they’re viewed.

The first advertisement appeared over the weekend and was far creepier than expected, given its no-creepy-ads-allowed rule. The Snap ad, a twenty second trailer to the horror movie Ouija, makes you wonder if their public advertising statement, “It’s going to feel a little weird,” was a cloaked warning from the dark beyond.

In case users are concerned about the new advertising gig, Snapchat assures us that you can choose whether or not you want to watch the Snap ad. It is, after all, “no biggie,” Snapchat explains.

So if it’s no biggie, then perhaps brands will no longer be reluctant to work with Snapchat despite the messaging app’s reputation as a potential conduit for disagreeable direct-response advertisers, teen sexting, and other inappropriate content.

Snapchat said they won’t be giving advertisers any user data and that it doesn’t wish to target its users. How Snapchat could manage to do this is unclear given the nature of the messaging service and the erasure of user information along with the messages.

Only the United States will be featuring this first run of advertisements, which means only the U.S. will be subject to advertising described by some as “untargeted spam.”

The creepy advertising comes at a time when 200,000 Snapchat images were leaked via an app that allows users to save Snapchats without the sender knowing. The app site, Snapsaved.com, has since closed down since what’s been called the “Snappening.”

Despite Snapchat’s recent brouhahas, brands should keep an eye on opportunities for promotions, including Snapchats of discounts and coupons. While about half of the users are between the ages of 13 and 17, 77% of college-aged students use Snapchat daily, with half of them saying “they would open a Snap from a brand they’d never heard of.”

If you’re not already Snapping (if that’s even a verb yet), then perhaps you ought to be.

SEO Benefits to Embedding Video

August 15, 2014 Beth Devine

Embedding video in your website has many SEO benefits, including the two-for-one benefit. You get two listings for the price of one – one for your website and one for your YouTube (or other hosting) channel.

We already discussed why embedding video is better than uploading on your WordPress site. By embedding videos and using YouTube as the host, you give search engines added content to rank. Since YouTube is a Google product, using YouTube for embedding videos gives your site that much more traffic-building power.

So how do you get the most out of embedding your videos?

Here are 8 tips to help your SEO with embedding video:

1. Name your video title with video keywords.

Google Trends is another way besides Adwords to see what keywords are good for your YouTube videos.

Go to Google Trends and begin a search for something. Then click on “Web Search” in the upper right and select “YouTube Search.” Check out the search queries used as well as the trend over time to see what keyword terms you might wish to try.

2. Describe your video.

Completely fill in the description portion using these same keywords. Use your website URL in the top line of your video description so viewers will see this first when they search.

3. Transcribe your video.

By adding a transcription of the video, you’re reinforcing the keywords with additional text. This is especially useful as well for how-to videos, giving users another way to view your explanation.

To do this, go to your video listings on your channel via Video Manager. Click on “Edit” then “Subtitles and CC,” “Add subtitles or CC,” and select a language. You can then choose to upload a file of your text or transcribe and set timings by typing in the text as the video plays. The video automatically pauses while you type.

4. Label your video.

You can add a watermark or other labeling by using Annotations. This is also a great way to add your website URL as a live link.

5. Link to your video from you website.

Don’t forget to add a link from your website to your YouTube video. This is another way for viewers to access your YouTube channel and your other videos, which are in turn all have links to your site.

The more your videos are viewed, the higher they can potentially rank in YouTube searches.

6. Create a video sitemap.

Or not! Video sitemaps are a way to make sure Google (and other search engines) index your video. The good news is when you embed YouTube videos, YouTube does the work for you, giving you much better visibility.

7. Place your video on a product page.

Placing your video in other locations such as a product page will help you to stand out in SERPs and give you a video thumbnail in the search results as well.

The added stickiness (increased time a viewer remains on a webpage) of video viewing is an indicator of page quality, another consideration in your rankings.

8. Don’t forget to share on social media!

It’s important to get inbound links to your video. By sharing your video on social media sites and email blasts, you are encouraging views, giving you increased website traffic.

This careful attention to your videos is good for your SEO because it helps search engines (and humans) to understand what type of content you are sharing. Optimize your website’s embedded video content and get your two-for-one benefit today.

You Need These Social Media Automation Tools

July 8, 2014 Beth Devine

The weekend has arrived, and the last thing on your mind is creating social media posts for your small business. It’s the last thing you want to think about on any given day, come to that.

How do you find the time as a small business to be a part of social media? You automate your social media posts, that’s how.

Successful social media automation requires knowing what to automate (and what not to automate), and doing this means choosing the right tools for the job.

Social automation tools can help you not only schedule posts, but manage your communications and find new people to follow.

Here are some social automation tools to get you started. Begin by focusing on one or two social media networks at a time. And don’t get too crazy with the automation. Social automation doesn’t mean removing the social entirely. Conversation and human interaction are irreplaceable.

Zapier

Zapier includes nearly every online platform you can think of – and many you probably never knew existed.

When you make a “Zap” you create a trigger that results in an action. For example, “when I publish a new WordPress post, send a Tweet to Twitter.”

Because there are so many connected web apps, the options for automating events from one platform to another is mind boggling. You select when the Zap happens, and the free plan gives you up to five Zap configurations to set up and run.

IFTTT

“If this, then that” describes the function of this tool. Like Zapier, it lets you create triggers that lead to a particular action.

“If I’m tagged in a photo on Facebook, then send me a text message” is one example of what IFTTT calls a recipe. Each recipe, or automated post, can contain ingredients which give more specific data to the triggers.

An email trigger might contain ingredients such as subject, attachment, received date, and sender’s address. Most of the recipes are checked for new trigger data every fifteen minutes.

Dlvr.it

This is a great app for managing your own content as well as content you find elsewhere to share across Google+ pages, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and RSS feeds.

While content is automatically shared or can be placed in a queue, the free version doesn’t allow you to schedule a time for your posts. With the free version, you have up to five feeds, three social profiles, and one photo feed per account.

Twitterfeed

Twitterfeed will curate content to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and App.net, allowing you to add RSS feeds for automatic updates. If all you want is to set up an automatic system for newly published posts, yours or another blog you like, this is for you.

There are some customizations, including showing the title of a new post and the link, and adding “RT @username.” Best of all, it’s free.

Bufferapp

The free version of this app allows you to schedule and place in a queue your selected posts, as well as ones they suggest for you.

The networks include Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ Pages (not profiles), and App.net. You can link one each of these accounts for the free version, and you can store up to ten posts at a time.

There’s also analytics for your Twitter posts that tracks the number of retweets, favorites, mentions, and clicks if you shared a link.

Hootsuite vs. Tweetdeck

These two social media apps are mighty similar, yet be forewarned: don’t let appearances fool you.

Tweetdeck is totally free and compares to Hootsuite’s free version, although Hootsuite also has a paid version with more options. What you get for free on Tweetdeck is initially far more user-friendly than Hootsuite’s overwhelming vista of columns.

However, Hootsuite’s ability to include your Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn profiles, not to mention all the potential columns for your different Twitter lists, gives you much more social media management.

In other words, why is anyone comparing them at all?

With either platform, you can schedule your tweets/posts ahead of time, sit back, and enjoy the show.

This is exactly what you mean to do on the weekend, after all, while still being able to engage your audience. Like I said, you need these tools.

Here’s How To Automate on Social Media

July 3, 2014 Beth Devine

When you automate social media, it’s important that you understand its limitations. Social media automation will help you be more efficient, but it’s not meant to replace actually being social with your audience.

Here are important things to practice when you automate your online social presence.

Different posts for different folks

Remember to customize your posts to remain relevant for different social networks. Each network has a distinct style, so it’s best to try and match that style to make your best impression.

When posting across the social media spectrum, you could appear insincere and robotic if you don’t try to simulate the unique style for each network. Learn each network’s best practices and follow them for improved engagement.

Schedule posts no more than a week out

By scheduling your posts no further out than a week, you have better control over keeping them timely. What makes sense today could quickly lose relevancy due to current events.

Too much scheduling isn’t your goal. Social media loses its social aspect if you’re creating a full-on automation system. By not scheduling too far in advance, it helps to keep a customer focus.

Be aware of current events

Part of keeping to a one-week scheduling mark is being aware of what’s happening in the world. Some of the greatest social faux pas have been from well-intentioned posts that went awry due to a dramatic change in current events.

Whether it be a natural disaster, political movement, or national tragedy, staying abreast of current events is critical to your social media success.

Grow your global appeal

Perhaps one of the most immediate benefits to automation is scheduling posts for different time zones. Increasing your impact across time zones helps you to grow a global audience.

Even small businesses are able to create a global conversation about their products and services with a well-planned automated social media schedule.

Follow The 5-3-2 Rule

Use The 5-3-2 Rule of social media to keep a human voice and keep your audience first. What this means is out of ten posts, five are from other sources, three are from you, and two are personal.

When you increase your content curation, none of your posts should be direct sells, and they should all be relevant to your audience.

Think personal

As part of the two out of ten posts in the 5-3-2 Rule, your personal posts can include anything that’s not considered urgent.

Think of posting quotes, retweets and reshares, and audience-focused ideas and thoughts.

Automate your blog posts

Because you want to share your latest blog posts to as many social media networks as you can with as little effort and time as possible, automation is key.

You can set up your account so all new posts get automatically posted to all your social media channels. Make sure that your content formatting makes sense for each network. You don’t want to overtly appear like an automaton.

You can also post new content more than once in order to reach a wider audience. It helps to reformat your post by using a different headline.

Never automate interactions with your customers

Customers know when they are interacting with an automaton rather than a human. Social media is your opportunity to show your human side. Take that away, and you’ve removed the social aspect.

Obviously, any troubleshooting and problem solving must be handled by a person. Outside of fixing a common problem with an automated response, anything else is bound to make matters worse.

Even responding with an automated “thank you” can be risky. Your chance to show genuine appreciation is lost, and customers often like social media due to the opportunity to interact and have real, individual responses.

Use the time you’ve freed up with filling your social media queue by creating spontaneous, last-minute social updates, responding to your customers’ needs, and finding great content to share.

Content Marketing Buzzwords You Need to Know

June 18, 2014 Beth Devine

Content Marketing isn’t about selling. It’s about giving your audience information they need and want without a price tag.

To help you stay in the know on this important concept, I’ve rounded up the most-used content marketing buzzwords.

Native Advertising

A type of paid advertising that matches the form and function of the content that the user is viewing.

Or, as Demian Farnworth defines it in a Copyblogger article, “Native advertising is paid content that matches a publication’s editorial standards while meeting the audience’s expectations.”

Owned Media

A channel that a publisher or brand owns and where they can publish whatever content they choose, such as a blog or website.

Shared Media

Content that is promoted and shared on social networks by a brand’s followers.

Anchor Text

The readable text that you see which provides a link to another page. It’s normally a royal blue color and changes to purple once you’ve visited the link.

Call-to-Action (CTA)

Words that persuade a viewer to perform a specific action. Appears in the form of a link, button, banner, or some type of graphic or text.

Click Through Rate (CTR)

A measurement used for CTAs and emails to determine how many clicks received by a link, image, or anything that leads to a web page, landing page, or offer.

Top of the Funnel

The point in the sales process where a prospective buyer acknowledges a need for more information on a certain product or service.

Permission Marketing

Seth Godin writes “Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.”

In order to earn the attention of your audience, you need to demonstrate respect. There are no short cuts to permission marketing.

Content Promotion

The type of content promotion through channels that are controlled by the brand, such as social media posts, RSS feeds, and personalized email.

Content Distribution

Differs from content promotion in that it’s the paid form that’s disributed on channels the brand does not own, such as sponsored articles, social updates, and recommendations.

Inbound Marketing

A type of marketing that focuses on getting found by new visitors through blogs, websites, social media, SEO, whitepapers or other content marketing forms.

Landing Page

A web page where visitors end up after clicking on an advertisement or CTA and exists solely to capture visitor information.

Long-Tail Keywords

Specific keywords that aren’t searched for as often individually, but when combined, they have a higher search ranking. Are growing in use as natural language search becomes more popular and pervasive.

Marketing Automation

Software and technologies that are designed to automate repetitive marketing tasks on multiple channels, such as email, social media, website blogs, etc. It allows for great efficiency and less human error, but may result in less personal engagement.

Content Management System (CMS)

A program that makes it easy to add, edit, and publish content on a website from a central interface. WordPress is an example of a CMS where users create and manage HTML content.

Unique Visitor

An individual visitor to your website who is counted once although they could have visited more often.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

A form of internet marketing where you promote your website to achieve maximum exposure and traffic. A combination of paid advertising and SEO (through website design, copy, and keywords) is used to to increase search engine results (SERPs).

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The process of making your website more relevant to get higher ranking in search results for a particular keyword or combination of keywords.

Social Advertising

Advertising on social media channels by paying for sponsored posts, stories, or promoted links.

Social Targeting

Targeting your advertisements to certain groups or excluding other groups or locations from seeing your posts to increase the relevance of your posts on social media.

Word Cloud

A collection of significant keywords from a particular text or subject to show which ones are the most relevant. It can be an image or a jumble of words with the size of each word indicating its frequency or importance. Wordle or Tagxedo will create one for you.

If you have an addition to this growing list, please leave it in the comments.

Marketers Need Ethics Now More Than Ever

May 16, 2014 Beth Devine

Transparency in marketing is absolutely necessary in today’s world of social media. But is it really possible to have marketing ethics?

The American Marketing Association outlines its statement of ethics with the core values of honesty, responsibility, fairness, respect, transparency, and citizenship. This is how you build relationships. This is how you enhance consumer confidence.

Is a miracle is required for marketers to make this happen?

Will brands still try to wiggle out of these high standards of marketing ethics when social media accountability looms over every marketer’s head? Is there room to have a personal opinion as a marketer or business owner when even secret recordings revealed to the world can herald your demise?

“Thou shalt have no other gods in advertising but truth,” agreed the Associated Advertising Club in 1911 as its first rule in The Ten Commandments in Advertising.

Target’s Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Jones applied this rule of truth when Gawker published an anonymous rant by an employee. By being willing to admit the company’s failings, he tried for transparency and optimism in his letter of response, The Truth Hurts.

The best of the ten commandments gets more specific with number seven. “Thou shalt not lie, misstate, exaggerate, misrepresent, nor conceal; thou shalt not bear false witness to the public, but thou shalt be fair to thy merchandise.”

Can we expect fairness and truth online from the public sphere of marketing and advertising or allow a Wild West of order? And where do you draw the line when companies are beginning to think of themselves as publishers of information?

The shift from hawking products and services to providing valuable content and engaging on social media should mean more listening and better service from marketers. All the new channels of communication allow companies to reach their audience better and give their audience the access that they desire.

It also allows brands more wiggle room.

How can marketers stay within the lines of ethical standards when so much is demanded of them? What are some benchmarks marketers can use to establish marketing ethics?

Here are some basic rules to follow for a business as well as a public profile:

1. Avoid all defamatory or libelous comments.

Since you are legally responsible for anything said by you or your business, be careful to avoid all statements that could damage someone’s reputation. Because businesses are now able to act as a media channel, the same rules that journalists should follow apply to a business.

The greater your public profile, the harder you can fall. Anything posted on social media applies.

2. Stay away from controversial topics like politics and religion.

If there’s anything that’s guaranteed to put your brand in hot water, it’s taking a stand in a political or religious debate. Social media is meant to give a business a personal context, but these subjects have the potential to offend and alienate people.

So unless you want that kind of spotlight on you, avoid it like the plague.

3. Know and follow the rules for each social media network.

It’s always wise to understand the terms of service for the information that’s posted on a social media site. For instance, Facebook’s terms of service states that for all content covered by intellectual property rights – like photos and videos – you grant “a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook.”

Twitter’s rules includes permanent suspension of accounts with updates that consist mainly of links and not personal updates, posting duplicate content over multiple accounts, or multiple duplicate updates on one account.

4. Show professionalism.

Merriam-Webster defines professionalism as “the skill, good judgment, and polite behavior that is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well.”

The best way to stay on the safe side of the ethical boundary line is to say things online that you would be agreeable to saying aloud at a client meeting or sharing with everyone at an important public event.

When Benchmark responded to a dissatisfied customer’s tweet, a representative exhibited the opposite of professionalism, and even demanded that the customer be more professional! Worse, she made a thinly veiled threat to the customer’s future career. Benchmark recovered quickly with all the appropriate, professional actions.

5. Be truthful.

Eventually deceptive content will come back to bite you. People will realize the deception, grow dissatisfied with their product or service, and they will vent their dissatisfaction on social media. Negative word-of-mouth takes on new meaning when it’s given an audience of potentially thousands online.

Studies show that 70% of consumers trust brand recommendations from friends. This same authority can be used against a company on social media when it is less than authentic.

6. Play fair.

As this letter to the marketing industry points out, marketers can wield a mighty sword with their emotional tactics. Like telling lies, a brand’s lack of fairness will come to light sooner or later. People won’t stand for being tricked and manipulated.

Begin by offering a quality product or service that you believe in. Then observe Seth Godin’s philosophy on the good guys: “Individuals and organizations that can compete on generosity and fairness repeatedly defeat those that only do it grudgingly.”

Online accountability is ultimately a positive force, and technological advancements in cyber communication will encourage businesses to make decisions that reflect ethical standards.

Transparency may not be easy, but it doesn’t require a miracle either.

Improve Your Image and Get Your New Twitter Profile

April 23, 2014 Beth Devine

Twitter has a brand new look. Initially the new profile was only available for a select few, but as of today all tweeps can get the new Twitter profile.

The new profile gives you a large Facebook-like image header, a much larger profile picture, a featured tweet, and a prominent media section.

The old look:

The new look:

Twitter’s tag line is “meet the new you,” which highlights the fact that since it’s only your profile page that’s changed, no one will notice unless they travel there for a look-see.

The changes are for your convenience, although you will sport an improved Twitter “home page” appearance should anyone stop by. One of the greatest conveniences, if you’re into this sort of thing, is checking to see if the tweeps you’re following are following you back.

The profile shots of all your tweeps got larger too when you view them in the “following” and “followers” lists. While it takes longer to go through and view them, a quick look shows you if a recent follow-back has subsequently unfollowed you. (I know, the nerve!).

Updated look of following/followers list:

New Photo Sharing Option

The updated media section groups and counts up all your videos and photos for easy retrieval. If you use Twitter as a way to collect favorite images or videos, you can click on the link and create a unique page with all your tweets featuring media.

With the new photo sharing, now you can also include up to four images per tweet and tag up to ten people in a photo.

Notice the Link?

If you have a website link posted, this stands out more in the new look. Just below this is the date you began using Twitter, something which wasn’t featured before. This could spell bad news for those folks who continually get banned and then reestablish another identity.

Featured Tweet

The new pinnable featured tweet places your favorite tweet at the top of your tweets on your profile page. This gives would-be followers a way to see what they can expect from you, so choose one that reflects you well. If you have an event to promote, select a timely tweet to display for your visitors.

Every time you tweet, the new one replaces it, but when you refresh the page, the pinned tweet resurfaces back to the top.

You can view your tweets with three lists: tweets (without replies), tweets with media attached, and tweets and replies combined. The list option is still there for those of you who want to create categories of their tweeps, and you can still keep them private if you choose.

Naysaying Tweeps

Some complaints to the new look include no background customization option, inability to move header image that is automatically uploaded during update, and an overwhelming resistance to any Facebook lookalikes.

Dear Twitter. Stop trying to be Facebook. Even Facebook doesn’t want to be Facebook. #NewTwitter

— Lewis Somerscales (@LewisHammer) April 22, 2014

It appears that tweeps are vehemently against any remake that remotely resembles Facebook, although I think the similarities are very superficial. There’s no confusing the two platforms, in any case. Not to mention that the user experience differs widely.

Where else can you interact with like-minded strangers from the web?

Lookin’ swell, #NewTwitter! Once us Tweeps can adjust, that is. @kreativekonnect knows what I’m talkin’ about! 😉 pic.twitter.com/tBSslmnWsk
— Kacee Erhard (@KaceeAngels) April 23, 2014

Despite the complaints, the changes are intended to bring new users to Twitter. Make the best of it and seek out others to invite and engage in the Twitter community.

Upcoming Real-Time Notifications

Look for a change to live notifications when someone replies, favorites, or retweets one of your Tweets. You have to be logged into Twitter to receive these notices. Direct messages (DMs) and new follower notices can also be seen as they occur.

Twitter says they are fully interactive, so you’ll be able to reply, favorite, retweet, and follow directly from the notice box. In settings you will be able to select which notifications you want to see.

Let us know in the comments how the #NewTwitter works for you.