For example, if you type “apple pie recipe” into a search engine it will look to its index of information available on the Internet that most closely relates to “apple pie recipe.” Any site that uses apple pie as one of the keywords will be in the search engine’s index.

Some popular search engines include: www.google.com, www.yahoo.com, www.ask.com, www.msn.com, www.altavista.com and www.lycos.com.

SEO- An anagram for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the process of using targeted keywords in the content, tags and meta-tags of a website in order to gain traffic through search engines. SEO techniques also include testing the search engine results to make sure that the site is well placed in the keyword results.

For example, if you run a website that sells dog bones, you can use SEO to increase your chances of appearing under the keywords “dog bones.” You can add the word dog bones to your website content, and in the tags and meta tags of each page of your website. The better the SEO, the higher your web page will appear in the search engine results for that keyword.

SEO is a constantly evolving portion of the Internet. The process is a combination of art and science, and there are firms that are now dedicated to providing specialized SEO services.

Signature file- Sometimes referred to as a “sig file,” a signature is a short statement at the end of an e-mail message. It can be used to identify the sender and provide additional information. Often times, sig files include a link to a website or lists an address and phone number. Sig files can also be used creatively to display a small picture file or include a personal quote. Signature files are one way of establishing a unique identity on the Internet.

Site/Website- A place on the Internet or the World Wide Web. The term site refers to the body of information as a whole for a domain name. A web site is a collection of Web pages. The pages can contain text, graphics, audio or video content.

Site can also refer to an FTP site or archive site. These types of sites are directories that store files for downloading and uploading.

Spam- E-mail messages that are sent to a number of people without their consent. Spam is also known as “Unsolicited Commercial E-mail” or junk e-mail. It is normally sent to promote a product or service. Spam can also be found in newsgroups and forums when users post information that is not relevant to the pertinent topic.

Spam is characterized by its large volume. Spammers (who are people who spam) follow the direct-marketing technique of saturating the intended audience. They hope for a tiny return from their efforts (normally less that 5 percent). Spammers don’t really care if they offend large number of people, because there always seems to be those few people that respond to the unsolicited advertisement.

The most common forms of spam that reach inboxes everyday are:

· Chain letters
· Pyramid schemes (fake job opportunities)
· “Get Rich Quick” and “Make Money Fast” schemes
· Offers for adult websites and services
· Offers of software that collect e-mail addresses and send spam
· Offers for bulk e-mailing services
· Stock offerings in unknown start-up corporations
· Fake health products and remedies

Spam is not protected by the national Free Speech laws, which is contrary to popular belief. Therefore, anti-spam techniques are not a form of censorship.

Spam blockers- Also referred to a spam filter. A spam blocker program is used to detect any unsolicited or unwanted e-mail in your mail program’s inbox. This prevents spam messages from getting into your inbox. A spam blocker will filter through messages based on a certain criteria.

Spam blocker programs are normally available through an Internet Service Provider or through a third party program that is downloadable from the Internet.

Spiders- Another term for Crawler. Spider software is used by search engines to search the Internet for new content to display in the search results.

Spyware-This type of software is similar to viruses, in that it is “contracted” from using the Internet. Spyware, however, gathers information about the web sites that you visit in order to build a “profile” of your preferences for the purpose of marketing. Spyware is often included in free downloads that you get from websites. The license agreement for these free programs may mention the use of spyware, but very few people actually read the details of these agreements. As a result spyware often gets onto a computer without the user’s knowledge.

The result of having spyware on your computer can vary. Sometimes the presence of the programs can result in slower Internet speed and hard drive processing. The more aggressive programs will cause unwanted pop up ads and other marketing devices. More malicious spyware will steal personal information (such as credit cards).

The use of spyware is one of the most important issues today regarding privacy on the Internet. There are many programs available that will find and remove spyware programs from your computer. Some of the more popular are Ad-Aware and Spybot. An Internet search for these terms will lead you to sites where you can download these helpful programs. After doing a spyware search on your computer, you will be surprised by the number of spyware programs that exist on your system. The anti-spyware programs will allow you to delete the spyware from your computer. Generally, this will increase the storage space and speed of your hard drive.

Social networking- The process of meeting and networking with people through the use of specific Internet technology. The largest social networking site on the Internet today is MySpace (www.myspace.com). In these communities, initial sets of founders send out messages inviting people in their own personal networks to join the site. The process repeats, and the total number of members grows. The process is also called “viral marketing.”

Social networking sites offer several things to their members, including the opportunity to meet members that share similar interests.

Software-A set of instructions that tell a computer how to execute functions and tasks. Software code is written in a programming language that makes computer systems and hardware work. Some programs contain millions of lines of code.

The two basic software categories are system software (which makes the computer run properly) and application software (which includes programs). Generally, software programs are purchased as CDs that are installed into the computer. However, there is also software that is available for download from the Internet.

Source code – The format in which a computer program or Web site is written. Online, the source code for a web page is normally in HTML, but can also be written in another computer “language.” To find the source code of a web page, select “View” from the top of the Internet Browser. In the “View” menu, there should be an option that says “View Source” or similar language. The source code will appear in a pop-up window.

Sub-domain name- A domain name that is part of a larger domain. If you’ve ever seen a web address that doesn’t start with the letters “www” then you may have encountered a sub-domain.

Sub-domains are like secondary sites within the larger domain. If you think of the larger domain as a file cabinet, the sub domain would be the folders. Some examples of sub-domains are “news.google.com” or “mail.yahoo.com.”

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Right click- Clicking the button on the right side of your mouse. On PCs, this opens a drop-down menu that gives you access to shortcut options. On Mac computer, this same drop-down menu can be accessed by clicking and holding down the mouse.

RSS- RSS is the format used for syndicating web content. The acronym stands for Really Simple Syndications, Real-time Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. RSS is a technology that allows websites to distribute new content to Internet users, without the user having the revisit the website. In essence, it is equivalent to a daily or weekly newspaper.

RSS Feeds– RSS Feeds are the syndicated information that are sent through RSS technology from websites to Internet users. Users can subscribe to feeds from a variety of websites, and then new information from those websites is sent directly to them through an RSS reader. It is similar to receiving e-mail. An RSS reader acts like an “inbox” for RSS feeds. Instead of having to check multiple websites for updates, the new information is located in one convenient place. The use of RSS feeds has increased as blogging has become more popular.

To begin to collect RSS feeds, you’ll need an RSS reader. Most readers are free and easy to use. Two of the most popular are Google Reader (which is web based, meaning you don’t have to download any software) and SharpReader (which requires that you dowload and install a free software program).

The next step to collecting RSS feeds is to subscribe to the feeds from the main website. When you visit your favorite websites, look for these small graphics:

These indicate that the website information is available through the subscription. To subscribe to the feeds, enter the URL of the website into your RSS reader. You can also use your RSS reader to search for subject-related content on the Internet.

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Query– A question or request to find a particular file, Web Site or record. Queries are typed into search engines or databases.

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Password- A combination of letters and numbers that is needed to login to a computer system, program, website or internet feature (such as e-mail). It is advisable to keep your password secret, and use different passwords for different programs. This keeps unauthorized users from breaking into your personal information and files. Changing passwords from time to time is also recommended.

When you are choosing a password, make sure that is it “cryptic.” This means that it has an ambiguous meaning and cannot be linked to any of your personal information. Using your middle name, street address, children’s names, etc, is not advised. It is also better to use a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters and include numbers in your password.

PDF-This file format is for documents that are viewed and created by Adobe Acrobat Reader, Adobe Capture, Adobe Distiller, Adobe Exchange and Adobe Acrobat Amber plug in. PDF technology has created a standard format for transferring documents on the Internet.

One of the benefits of using PDFs is that it is easily accessible, even by the most new of Internet users. It makes it simple to quickly transfer business documents and other files to large groups of people.

PDF has revolutionized the printing industry in that it is standard for publishers to offer a hard copy version and a PDF version. E-books are commonly delivered in PDF format, which makes them instantly downloadable.

Plugins- A plugin (sometimes spelled plug-in) is a software program that can extend the capabilities of your Internet browser. It can give your browser the ability to play audio files or movie files. Normally, if a website requires a plugin to be viewed properly, there will be a link from the website to a site when you can download the plugin. Some of the most common plugins are Shockwave, Flash, Acrobat, Real Player and Quicktime. Once you download a plugin, the small program will be on your computer to be used by other websites.

PM- Acronym for “private message.” PMs can be received in online chat, IM programs, e-mails, blogs and forums.

Podcast- This term can be used in several different ways, but it normally refers to the publishing of audio or video files to the internet. The files are referred to as “podcasts” or “shows” and are similar to talk radio programs or public access television shows. People who create podcasts are called “podcasters.”

Podcasters can focus their show on any topic, and generally post new shows daily or weekly. The term is a combination of “ipod” and “broadcasting,” although it is not necessary to own an ipod to listen to podcasts. There are many podcast networks that feature a variety of shows.

Post- This is a noun used to describe a message entered onto a message board, shared e-mail list or newsgroup. The message is called a “post” and the act of sharing the message is called “posting.”

PPC advertising- Pay Per Click Advertising, or PPC, is an online advertising payment model in which the payment is based on the number of “clicks” that are generated. PPC can also be called “cost per click.”

As an advertiser, here’s how it works. You bid for certain keywords that are related to the content of your site (the information or products that you offer). When a user searches with these keywords in a search engine, they are shown your listing, as well as others that are bidding on the same keywords. If the user clicks on your listing, you pay the amount that you have bid. The highest bidding advertisers will appear first in the search results, and the subsequent listings are ranked by the amount of their bid.

Bids for keywords can be anything from a few cents to a few dollars per click. Part of managing a PPC advertising campaign well is determining how much needs to be spent per click in order to get a good balance between visibility (your listing showing on the first page of the search results) and the advertising budget.

Starting in 1998, PPC Advertising became a larger part of the online advertising world. Overture (www.overture.com) and Google’s Adwords (http://adwords.google.com) are two of the most popular PPC systems. In these systems, ads appear near the search results under the heading “sponsored links.” PPC is advocated as an ideal short-term solution for driving traffic to a website, since the results can be seen within 24 hours of launching the campaign.

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Online can be used as an adjective and describes a variety of activities that users can do on the Internet. For example, it is used in the phrases online shopping, online gaming, online search, online store etc.

Opt-in & Permission-based marketing- This is a popular sales approach that is used online to make sure that the customers being contacted are actually interested in the products being sold. This developed out of the distrust and annoyance of spam marketing. The terms “opt-in” and “permission based” are interchangeable.

In permission-based marketing practices, a prospective customer will give his or her consent to receive marketing information (normally through e-mail). Opt-in marketing aims to tailor the messages and communication between the marketer and customer to the customer’s needs. This is often done using the principles of niche marketing.

As opposed to banner advertising, in which the normal flow of Internet use is interrupted by advertisement, permission-based marketing is a subtle, yet effective, form of advertising. Normally, a potential customer will be offered the chance to receive more information via e-mail, or a chance to register for a free site.

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Newbie- Any person who is new to the online world, or a specific forum or chat room. Some people use newbie as a derogatory term, although it does not necessarily have that meaning. At some point, everyone online was a newbie.

Netizen- A combination of the words “citizen” and “Internet.” The term refers to someone who spends a significant amount of time or is an experienced user of the Internet.

Niche and Niche marketing- A niche is a focused and target-able portion of the market. A business that focuses on a niche market is attending to the need for a product or service that is not being addressed by the mainstream market. The niche market narrowly defines a group of potential customers.

One of the advantages of dealing in niche markets is the ability to be one of the only suppliers meeting that need. The key is to find an untapped niche market whose customers are accessible.

Niche marketing is the process of finding and serving one or more small yet profitable markets. Niche marketers design custom-made products or services for the markets that meet specific needs.

Netiquette- This is the code of conduct and unofficial rules that govern all forms of online communication. The word is derived from a combination of “net” and “etiquette.” Understanding the basics of netiquette will go a long way toward getting along with other Internet users and getting help when you need it.

Although there are slightly different rules depending on the newsgroup, forum or mailing list, there are some basic guidelines that are followed everywhere.

Some of the important do’s and don’ts of Netiquette include:

• Think before you post to a group. If what you are going to post will not make a positive contribution to the newsgroup, forum or e-mail list…don’t post it! Use private e-mail for more personal conversations, off the list.
• Re-read and edit your posts and e-mail carefully before sending them. Make sure to check your spelling, grammar and capitalization.
• Don’t send spam or other non-necessary messages.
• Use proper capitalization. Using all caps is considered YELLING online, and all lower case is too casual.

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Ever tried to figure out how much time should be invested in building personal relationships on social networks ?

To quickly recap on some basics…

Social marketing really involves just two activities:

1. Personal interaction: building relationships through messages, writing on walls, emails etc

2. Content creation (and content sharing): notes, video, blog posts, photos, comments, etc

To get the maximum potential from social networking activity, you’ll need to build solid personal bonds with people at the same time leveraging the technology. This means allocating time wisely to making friend in addition to using mass communication strategies.

The basic idea with say, Facebook is that it acts like a content syndication platform to spread your message to thousands of potential friends, associates and prospects for your business…

The foundation for this is your personal relationships. If you haven’t built solid relationships and bonded with like minded people first it’s unlikely you’ll gain the same kind exposure as the person with many close friends within their “core group”.

Strategic Networking With a Core Group

It seems logical to think that even the most successful social networker/marketer can only ever really have a “core” group of friends. Although this core group may not be explicitly acknowledged or formalised it is in place nevertheless. (I’m using the term “group” loosely not to be confused with Facebook Groups)

This may consist 10 - 15 friends or may be be up 100 + ? They may have 5000 friends but it’s only really possible to maintain close relationships with a lesser number of friends.

For a more detailed discussion of how to go about building relationships with your core group check out Charles Heflin’s O.G.R.E.S relationship management formula.

My guess is the more time you have the bigger your core group might be?

My thinking is (or at least was)… even if you have plenty of time for building personal relationships, you should limit your time spent on one to one networking activity (maintaining freindships with your core group) and prioritize time for creating valuable content and sharing it with as many people as possible…

Content is king on social networks just the same as anywhere else on the web…

But how should you prioritize your time?

Well as they say success leaves clues…

What Does Gary Vaynerchuk Do ?

If you’re in any doubt about the importance of personal interaction, you only have to look at the success of Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibrary.TV. Here’s a social media celebrity known for his phenomenol success in leveraging social networks…

This is what New Media Expo says about him

“Gary leveraged technology to reach an untapped audience for his brand and now attracts more than 60,000 viewers a day. Gary has taken his unscripted show and used it for massive self promotion by carefully marketing it via Facebook, MySpace, Digg, Twitter, Pownce, and other networking channels. As a result of these Web 2.0 tactics, Gary has been featured by Conan O’Brien, Ellen, Time Magazine, Nightline, The Wall Street Journal, and other national media outlets.”

I don’t know about you but I’d assume that someone like Gary would be so much in demand that he’d carefully filter his personal communication and have little time for replying to messages from “friends”.

Not so.

Despite his massive success, he still prioritizes huge chunks of time to answering personal messages and fostering one on one relationships.

In July’s edition of “Wired” magazine they featured a breakdown of his activities on one particular day…

It turns out he spent more time on one on one personal emails than he did sleeping!

Impressive commitment to personal interaction.

Here’s my paraphrasing of the article titled:

How to Build an Army of Followers

“Gary Veynerchuk, the excitable host of Wine Library TV, has become a cult figure to the 80,000 “Vayniacs” who routinely tune into his vlog.

How does he inspire such devotion?

Simple: By spending more than twice as much time responding to emails as he does sleeping.”

Here’s how Gary allocated his time on April 29th 2008

Responding to email: 12 hours 12 minutes

Sleeping: 4 hours 24 minutes

Taking meetings: 3 hours 1 minute

Commuting: 2 hours 29 minutes

Connecting via Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Pownce, YouTube, Viddler and WineLibrary.tv forums 1 hour 14 minutes

Reading blogs: 25 minutes

Eating: 24 minutes

Vlog production: 22 minutes.

Ok, so that’s just one 24 hour period…even so it’s a mammouth effort and a real “eye opener”…

Now spending 12 hours replying to personal emails wouldn’t make the most appealing pitch for “how to make a gazillion using the latest greatest secret web 2.0 tactics” which is probably why we don’t hear so much about this subject from Internet marketing guruland but maybe this is a more telling peek into the real secrets of success ?

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Seems “social etiquette” is a hot topic. Since joining Facebook, I’ve been listening and joining in the conversation about the most effective ways to use social networks to raise your profile and find customers for your business…

If you want to create marketing opportunities with social media here’s the golden rule:

“Network first”

There’s a bit more to it than that but if you remember this always you’ll find opportunities to market yourself, your products and services. You’ll also steer clear of the negativity my FB friend Kenny Barrow encountered when he tries to challenge an over aggressive marketer on Facebook…

Two Sets of Rules ?

Listen to this story I picked up from an email conversation…

It’s an example of how things can get nasty when people are operating with different rulebooks.

The gist of the story is about some guy who violated his “no spam” rules in his Millionaire Video Secrets group. I have my friend’s permission to share this so here’s some quotes from Kenny’s account…

“This individual attempted to circumvent my no spamming rule in the Millionaire Video Secrets group on Facebook and pasted a full page sales letter complete with an introductory paragraph asking everyone to come to his group to promote their videos.

In my eyes this was equivalent to the Burger King man walking into a MacDonald’s birthday party and waving a flag saying “come follow me” enticing everyone to follow him to the Burger King store.

I took this mans flag by deleting his sales letter and asked him not to do it again. I also gave him the party analogy to illustrate how his actions were not social actions.”

He replied with a message:

“Hey Kenneth, its called Marketing !

BTW if you have taken down my discussion you have done your members a great disservice…

We had a few more posts with him getting more personally abusive but before we could finish our conversation he was booted from the system.”

What’s interesting is this guy didn’t seem to think he was doing anything “wrong”. If you read Mari’s post on email etiquette, you’ll hear a similar story. The person who sent her unwanted promotional email didn’t seem to realize he was actually hurting himself rather than positively promoting his business.

It just seems so blatantly obvious that building relationships is a good thing that can only help your business in the short term and the long haul…

So why are people prepared to damage their own reputation and undermine the relationship and business building opportunities available ?

Could it be that just not all of us are cut out for this social marketing game?

“Natural Born Promoters”

We have a family friend…She doesn’t have her own business or any aspirations to start one…But geez, does that girl know how to get what she wants?…too right!

She’s a “natural born promoter”.

Whenever you meet her, before you know it, she’s enrolled you into her drama class, she’s “sold” you her unique ways of potty training, giving birth (no kidding), making pizza, packing a suitcase, whatever…she never stops…it’s just her way. Oh, and she does get on people’s nerves and offend people occasionally. She just doesn’t seem to notice..she just gets on with being herself.

I like her because there’s no fakeness, she makes no adjustment to her surroundings or social situation. You know what you’re going to get with her. And that makes her honest and transparent.

Now, if she ever did try to use social networking for business purposes, I think she’d be too impatient and too pushy to find Facebook useful. She can only be herself. For some people “promoting” and “cutting to the chase” is a natural part of the personality.

Natural born promoters want the quickest way from A to B, and that means getting their stuff “out there” as quickly and as often as possible. As Kenny discovered, try explaining the logic of NOT posting a link and you’ll come up against a brick wall. All they see is a wasted opportunity to “get clicks”.

So are there specific “personality types” that are more suited to traditional direct sales and marketing and others for social marketing ?

What Makes a Successful Social Marketer?

In traditional direct marketing, you target our audience according to niche interests and look for people with problems we can solve. Much of this work is about research, analysis, and metrics, which seems to be a different set of skills than those required for successful social marketing.

(I know, I know we still need to know all this stuff regardless of whether we’re using social networks or other means to get people moving through our sales funnel…but stay with me). The key point here is you have to do the social networking before you can implement a more direct marketing strategy.

1. Do you need to have additional skills and/or personality traits for social marketing? (a different skillset from traditional direct marketing)
2. Should we also focus our efforts on connecting with others who demonstrate the skills and personality best suited for social networking ? (remembering communication is most effective when there’s interaction or in marketing terms..”response”)

For our strategies to be effective, surely we have to be connecting with active social networkers. Those who are investing time on social networks. Those who are open to engaging.

Given the finite amount of time we have for say Facebook activity and the need to spend that time wisely it’s important for us to connect with people who are “connectable”…those with a “social networking personality” and generally speaking are those most likely to succeed the ones with most suited personality traits ?

Why bother with the “un-connectables” ?

Introducing “The Connectables” the New Super Heroes of Social Marketing…

Look at the successful social marketers…They are extremely “connectable” and seem to have some common personality traits making them ideally suited to social networking.

Take Twitter for instance…

You only have to read the tweets of Mari Smith, Deborah Micek, and many others to understand learned strategy and tactics are all part of the equation…

But there’s also a unique personality shining through all tweets.

Communication with just 140 characters of text providing bite sized tips, tricks and energetic interaction is an art form. This adds value for followers but also shows people what the “tweeter” is like as a person…people get hooked on the “personalities” behind the tweets.

Admittedly, there’s nothing new about personality driven marketing, but I’m not talking about Dan Kennedy style ads. I’m talking about authentic genuine personality coming through each day through the tweets, the posts, the videos…

And it’s those with personalities most suited to social marketing who win this game…

If you’re not sure, think about this…

Could anyone successfully use just the tactics regardless of their natural personality…OR is a certain “personality type” for effective social marketing almost a pre-requisite today?

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Message Boards- An alternate term for forums. Please see “forum” entry.

Meta Tags- Meta tags are part of the HTML code that makes up what you see on a website. When webmasters create web pages, meta tags are used to provide structured information about a web page. These tags are placed in between the <head> and </head> sections of an HTML document.

However, the meta tags are not visible to the person looking at the website through an Internet browser. Meta tags are part of the hidden code of the web page that is recognizable to the web browser only. Meta tags are used by search engines (like Google or Yahoo) to generate and display a list of search results based on what a user enters into the search engine. Tags do the same thing, however Meta Tags refer to the overall keywords for the entire website, while tags refer to the specific web page.

Meta tags have been used as a key component of a technique called search engine optimization. Historically, websites were listed based on their meta tags, so it was commercially advantageous to pick the right meta tags to drive traffic to a website. These days, they are not so important, but should not be ignored.

MSN- This stands for MicroSoft Network. MSN offers a wide variety of programs and features to Internet users. The main website, www.msn.com, is a site that many people use as their homepage. MSN offers news and information on the main site, as well as search engine functions. MSN also offers MSN Instant Messaging, which is a downloadable program that allows real time text messaging between members. MSN’s e-mail service “Hotmail” is another popular service. Most MSN services are free of charge.

Mod- An abbreviation for “moderator.” A moderator is a volunteer who screens messages for a moderated mailing list, newsgroup or a forum. A moderator’s main job is to make sure that conversation on the group flows freely, and within the site or list guidelines. They watch for inappropriate language, “flaming” and off topic messages. Depending on the site or list, moderators may have the ability to change the look and style of the main page.

Mouse- A device that connects to your computer and is used to move the pointer or cursor on your screen. A standard mouse is equipped with two or more control buttons. A mouse is used to highlight text, open menu items and launch programs.

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Link- This is reference to another document, resource or web page. Links are “clickable,” meaning that placing your cursor over the link and clicking will take you directly to the information that you are looking for. Links are a short form the official term “hyperlink.”

Links can also be used as a form of “internet” currency. Google ranks websites based on the number of related links that they have to and from their website. Many online businesses seek links to add to their websites so they can increase their ranking on Google and other search engines.

Log in- This term is sometimes spelled “login” and is interchangeable with the term “log on.” To “log in” to the Internet is the act of connecting to the World Wide Web. The term is also used to refer to the act of entering your user name and password into a website, e-mail program, instant messenger system, message board or chat room. When you are “logged on” to the Internet, website or program, you have access to all of the features available. Many sites that require privacy ask you to register with the site and then login with a name and password.

Login Name- Also called a “user name” or “user ID,” this is the name you use to access certain programs, websites, software or networks. A login name is the “nickname” for a user on the Internet. Normally, the user can pick their own login name. Quite often, a login name for e-mail programs is the first part of the e-mail address. Many people choose to use the same or similar login names for all of their Internet activity.

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