The Web Uncovered

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.

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.

As Twitter begins teasing users with the idea of bolstering their search engine so that it not only searches through tweets, but also crawls the content of links in tweets, a new door of possibility has opened.  This would create a much more time-sensitive search engine, where search results could be populated by content updates within the last hour.

Not only could this change search technology as we know it, but it also could impact your search engine management (SEM/SEO).  This would be especially true for buzz marketing.  One key way to generate a buzz marketing campaign in the digital age is to create a very specific campaign with a viral capacity, and to create a microsite that is solely used for the campaign (see my favorite example here).  While they are created with SEO in mind, with high keyword density, often times there is a lag between their release and when search engines actually show their content.  This new search engine technology would pick up on the microsite faster  than ever, granted you successfully generate attention to it with twitter users (who are increasingly becoming representative of the American market in demographics).  Utilize the power of now in the digital age.

The Takeaway:

With traditional marketing and public relations, timing is everything.  In the modern online marketing world, the same is true, and the specificity of time is more acute than ever.  While utilizing technologies that allow you this chronological targeting, begin recognizing how changing technologies further change the face of online marketing.

A phenomenal achievement by Social Media experts Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas, The Conversation Prism (V2.0 recently released) is a visual representation of the various categories and associated websites that make up the Social Media landscape. By their own admission, the creators recognize that the constatant evolution of online conversations and communities makes this a snapshot at best. Far be it for any one of us, expert or not, to define social media in such specific terms. However, we should be so lucky that Solis and Thomas have made such an attempt! A clear and crisp image of of the Conversation Prism and it’s many details is difficult to come by online. However it should be noted that a full size 18″x24″ poster is available for purchase at www.theconversationprism.com. (Click to view V1.0 | V2.0)

Thanks to a recent blog post by Andy Beal, We can find the MarketingProfs survey of Twitter users.  What did they find?

Twitter users were asked to rate the reasons why they participate, on a scale from 1 to 5 (with 1=strongly disagree and 5=strongly agree):

• “I find it exciting to learn new things from people”: Average score 4.65
• “I value getting information in a timely manner”: Average score 4.58
• “I like to be connected to lots of people”: Average score 3.91
• “I want to generate new business”: Average score 3.70
• “I find it gratifying to have people follow me”: Average score 3.64

The Takeaway:  Twitter users care more about being heard than listening.  if you are using Twitter as a marketing tool, then you must generate frequent, targetted content that will truly gain the interest of followers after you have enticed them to  follow you.