The Web Uncovered

As the different technologies online become decreasing tied to the youth or the Millenials, new demographics can both be focused on in marketing research, and targetted in content generation.  Social Media Marketing guru Scott Monty shares with his blog readers about the bourgening market of moms.  He says:

There’s no question that so-called “mommy bloggers” are an interesting demographic. Recent statistics show that there are more than 36 million of them online, and they definitely wield influence in purchasing power. Which is why many companies think this community can be a key in their word of mouth efforts. 

However, he points out the fact that these broad segments also have high diversity within themselves.  Nonetheless, marketing research about the internet use of a specific demographic can also reveal how to market to them, or what advertisements will speak to them based on their values, and unmet needs.

The Takeaway:   Now that the late adaptors are joining the chorus of social networking, how you can you address their new unmet needs in the online world?  If you figure it out, you could be creating the next big thing to an underexploited niche market.

Creating fake websites is a means towards several ends.  While some implementations are funny or catchy, some can be unethical and even illegal.   A Fake website is a website whole sole purpose is something other than what would seem to be the obvious.  One such example is the ever famous petsORfood.com, a website that pretends to sell unwanted pets for food, including species on the endangered species list.  It’s totally believable with its extensive online content, complete with order forms and checkout.

Why create fake websites?  There are two main reasons why you might consider this.  Firstly, by creating content that has virality potential, you could set up PPC ads and then just sit on the ad revenue.  While it may not turn into a cash cow, it could give you a nice side income.  Another reason why some people create fake websites is to create a reputable link to their site.  Not only could it bolster traffic, but it has positive SEO effects as well.   Find a list of such websites here.

The Takeaway:  

While creating a funny or unbelievable fake website may advantageous, make sure you are complying with FTC regulations regarding misrepresenting yourself.  Furthermore, avoid lawsuits from refraining from lying about medical matters.  Finally, consider the use of these fake websites as jokes, if yours isn’t in good humor or obviously a hoax once scrutinized, you may need to reconsider your own ethical limits.

As if the current economic conditions weren’t bad enough.  Bidding for that dream job may be a real alternative, and for some their only choice. 

For years the internet has been shaping the way we do business.  A global marketplace for goods is available for just about everything.  Auction sites have been the rave for years, with eBay raking in Billions in transactions.

Did you know that you can also bid on a job? That’s right, only the bidding goes the other way.  At sites like http://www.jobaphiles.com/ you are presented with assorted industries to choose from.  Boston college grads started a Web site that allows job seekers to bid on positions based on who will work for the lowest salary. 

“We’ll start the bidding at $50 dollars per hour.  Do I hear 45?  How about $40?”  And with the rap of gavel, “SOLD for $35 dollars per hour!””.

Sound ridiculous?  Sound far fetched?  Not in today’s economy.  With millions of Americans looking for work, this could become a reality and the only type of place to post or find quality jobs.

We see companies letting people go saying they are eliminating their position, yet immediately recreating the position and rehiring someone else for less money.  Why not auction the job off to save money?  Heck, why not auction off the CEO or CIO positions?  That’s where a company would get the best bang for its buck.

Corporate America is more cost conscious now than ever before. They are motivated. Thanks to recent occurrences, we are seeing government bailouts in the trillions of dollars.  Adopting an auction approach to filling positions could become a real alternative for saving money as they restructure. Search engines like Monster and Career Builder may find themselves taking a back seat for some or most of the best job postings. 

The job auction sites are out there.  Is it time to rethink your job search strategy?  Is this a good or bad idea?  Would you participate or boycott?  I doubt the latter.  We all have a nasty habit called hunger and a propensity to live with roofs over our heads.

What do you think?  Can you stand the competition?  If so take your paddle and sit in isle 100 thousand.  The bidding will start momentarily.

For those of you who are managing one or more online marketing campaigns, you may want to consider using multiple identities for your work.  One reason is simply to separate your work social networking from you personal life.  On most sites, my family and friends find me by my real name, Frankie Fredericks.  However, I do most of my online marketing work with  psydonyms.  This allows me to both keep my private life private, and save my friends from seeing how obnoxiously frequent my use of Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, and Twitter is.  

Just make sure that when you are using multiple identities, that you are keeping within the limits of laws regarding spamming (everyone hates spam, don’t be part of the problem!), and also be sure to play by the terms of use for the sites that you use.  This is speaking practically, as if you use an account for much activity, breaking one rule that leads to the deletion of your account could cost you hours and hours of lost work.

For more reasons and ideas about using multiple identities, check out this post on the blog SEO Smarty.

While online marketers are still determining the best practices for online marketing, the Federal Trade Commission is also figuring out some details regarding regulations governing online marketing.  Blogger Jordan McCollum explores these new policies in the blog post “Are You Breaking the Law with Social Media Marketing?”

The key phrase that the FTC is pushing is:

If you’re being compensated to talk about someone’s product, then you need to disclose it.

There are various implications and applications of this philosophy.  For more details see the original post here.

In the previous post regarding Marshall Mcluhan, we talked a bit about interactivity as a means of evaluating media.  As said, the internet is a tricky new world where interaction can be built in many new ways.  Traditional media outlets, like television, radio, and print, are very much a one-way conversation, with them the outlets feeding content to us, the media consumers.  the interesting thing to watch is when traditional media outlets begin exploring new media, and trying to figure out how to effectively choose and place content in new opportunitities.

I read one prime example of this on the Sublimal Pixels blog by Manny Marrero.  In his “Open Letter to Channel 10“, he fumes about his passionate disgust for how the local television network has botched their campaign on Twitter.  Not only does he admonish them for their flood of follow/unfollow moves in an attempt to bolster numbers, but he also calls them out on not utilizing the medium of Twitter.  Rather than creating a space to interact with their audience, the station simply feeds their newslines into posts, without responding or interacting with their “followers.”

The Takeaway:  Before you can effectively market on a specific platform, website, medium, etc., you must know what the experience is for their users.  Only after understanding the platform which you are working with can you adjust the message to fit the medium.  This includes making it cooler/hotter, or more less interactive.