Great article in Wall Street Journal about Facebook Privacy Issues.

Granted, marketing online is one of the greatest things to happen to marketing since caveman days, but users beware. Sometimes viral marketing and social networking can create problems. When devising your online marketing campaign, steer clear of these pitfalls.

When asked about his feelings towards viral marketing now, Dickson said, “The interesting thing about viral marketing is that when you put it out there there’s no way of taking it back - it’s gone. You might get people who say bad things but that’s just going to happen. [1]

“You have to build on your reputation, but it can turn on you and damage your reputation if you don’t get it right.” [1]

Sources Cited

[1] Wordtracker Case Study

Picasa is a powerful Photo album software which is created by Google company. This software is lightweight software for pictures management. It finds all photos from your hard disk automatically. You can edit your photo easily and also create a online web album easily. Picasa 3 is a newer version of picasa.

Picasa applies the “no_follow” tag to images, so it won’t be helpful for keyword rich text link purposes, but still may be good for getting your photos out on the web. We do not recommend adding photos to Picasa for straight SEO–web marketing, maybe–but straight SEO? No.

This article offers the best internet marketing articles of 2007.

Sellers of handmade crafts post photos there. So do Amazon affiliates and fans of Tag Heuer watches. But when a search optimization consultant posted images to Flickr of products sold by eyewear retailer FramesDirect.com, and photos of people wearing them, the Yahoo-owned photo sharing site banished his account.

Like other sites prone to corruption by purely commercial exploits such as Wikipedia, Digg, or even Craigslist, Flickr has taken pains to rid its photo community of marketers who use the site simply to boost search engine rankings. And, like others, it has implemented no-follow tags to prevent misuse of the service.

“One of the techniques they frequently discuss [at SEO conferences] is if you have a Flickr account and post an image and a title to it, and a description, it’s just like having a Web page. The search engines will spider that,” said SEO contractor Richard Burckhardt, who writes “The Web Optimist” blog. Despite the no-follow decision, he continued using the Flickr account for FramesDirect.

Full Story on ClickZ

With the economy crumbling and many seeking lean, low-cost marketing solutions, new enhancements by MailerMailer help companies generate more business with effective, do-it-yourself email marketing. The launch of their revamped website offers new features and helpful resources to help make email marketing faster, easier and more powerful than ever.

Rockville, MD (PRWEB) January 12, 2009 — In a time when many are trimming down their marketing spend, new enhancements by MailerMailer can help companies generate revenue for a fraction of what they would spend on traditional promotional methods. eMarketer reports that many people are cutting back on expensive marketing like trade shows and print advertising and putting it into email marketing. With the launch of their revamped website, MailerMailer makes it easier than ever to get started with email marketing.

Ad agencies specialize in the traditional types of marketing, television advertisements, radio spots, printed marketing collateral, flyers, brochures and direct mail. When it comes to devising your corporate brand image, nothing beats a traditional ad agency. When it comes to the web, that’s a different animal. In the cutting-edge world of marketing your company online, you need a specialist. Here’s why:

Marketing online is different from traditional types of marketing.
Marketing on the web is unlike any other type of web marketing. Online marketing defies many old-time rules held in traditional marketing circles. Things that were more important yesterday are becoming obsolete. Clickz states, “s social media changes the way people interact with one another and the world around them, it is also morphing the very definition of advertising.”

The internet has changed the way your clients buy things.
You are now selling to a more informed, web-savvy client. How you approach your internet-age client will determine your success.

Web Marketing is complex.
Web marketing is complex and getting more so every day as technology advances and more people go online. You need a company that specializes in the intricacies of the web from a technical perspective, as well as from an e-commerce vantage point.

You can’t just throw money at your site and get results.

Web marketing is changing very quickly, so it’s hard for a general ad agency to keep up.

It takes a completely different mind-set to market your business effectively online using organic search engine optimization.

Ad Agencies focus on Media & Print Ad agencies have a heavy foot in media and print and are not as keen on the intricacies of the internet. The ad agency rep will be more focused on branding and less inclined to bring new ideas to the table.

Ad Agencies will be less inclined to bring new ideas to the table. Old, established industries tend to do things “the way we’ve always done them,” and are less inclined to think outside the box. The infrastructure of an ad agency is set on print ads and media. Everything about their internal processes will be geared to print and media. It will be difficult, if not impossible for such an organization to change their culture to be

Twitter is a social networking medium that allows you to login and keep other people informed about what you are doing. On first glance, it seems that Twitter is just a dumb, stupid website aimed and wasting your time. If you’re new to the game, you’ll think Twitter is for people who have nothing better to do than to tell others about what they’re eating for lunch, or other boring data on trivial matters that don’t pertain to you. Once you’re past the newbie stage–if you have a little vision and imagination–you’ll begin to Twitter as a whole new way to market your real estate practice online.

Twitter only has about 2 Million users at this time, compared to Facebook’s 90 million users, however, this will change as people become more aware of social network marketing. I believe this is the beginning of something–what the web is becoming; so it’s important to get on board now if you want to be effective later. Learn the social networking ropes at the ground-floor so you’ll be on the higher floors when the elevator goes up.

How does it work?

Twitter is very simple. All you do is sign-up, login and type in the little box: “What are you doing right now?” That’s it. Just describe what it is you are doing.

Why is what you are doing important?

What you are doing is important to people in your life. (If it’s not, you need to get a life!) You can use Twitter for personal, business, hobbies, news info, and more. Since I’m a real estate web marketer, I’m going to discuss Twitter for marketing your real estate practice.

What should I do to market my real estate practice on Twitter?

The best way to market yourself on Twitter is to (again) provide valuable information that is interesting and informative to your target market. If you sell homes in McKinney, Texas–Twitter about McKinney. Twitter, Twitter, Twitter away. It may seem like you’re getting no where, but in truth you are. You’re discussing your service area and this will eventually tie into everything else you are doing. Use the same good web marketing acumen that I taught you in my Do’s & Don’ts for Facebook Article.

Establish your credibility. Show your personality and style. Offer value. Don’t just post ads saying, “Looking for real estate leads in Ten-Buck-Two. That’s a total turn-off and you’ll find no true followers. Be informative, snazzy, interesting, fun and sassy. Have a little personality please! And whatever you do, don’t try to sell us anything.

Following Other People

The premise of Twitter is following people who are involved in the process of telling you what they are doing. Once the ball gets rolling and people start to come on board, you will be able to get pretty good insight from other top-real estate agents, and other people who share what they are doing to your advantage. You can pick and choose who to follow. The options are endless.

Getting Followers

Another aspect of Twitter is getting people to follow you. Ideally you want your target market to follow you, but they may or may not be online yet. In the meantime, you want to attract followers to your Twitter handle using the following methods:

• Letting people know you’re tweeting on Twitter.
• Inviting people to follow you in person, via email and providing a link on your website.
• Doing a “Follower Push” by following a bunch of other people in hopes they’ll reciprocate the follow.
• Have a very popular blog or website already and tell all your users you’re on Twitter.
• Let people on Facebook know you’re also found on Twitter.