Social Media Marketing

The latest wave of marketing on the Internet is called "Social Media" or "Viral Marketing". It has sprung up out of nowhere and millions of people have latched onto it because it is much more personal and can have extremely wide reaching results. It is spreading like wildfire and fast becoming one of those "have to" items to succeed on the net. The idea of this form of internet marketing is to become "friends" with hundreds and thousands of people across the world.

Here's a list of some of the more popular Social Media sites: FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Plaxo, Orkut (run by Google), Google Groups, Digg (social news), YouTube (video sharing), Flickr (photos sharing), and Yelp (product reviews).

There are many websites that offer this type of service and almost all of them are completely free to sign up. Some of them are generalized about any topic you wish, while others are focused on a specific type of group or genre. We can help you decide which will most effectively meet your needs.

We have found that our clients are a bit reluctant to jump into it themselves, so we now offering help in setting up and maintaining these accounts to maximize your marketing potential. We are focusing on what we call the "top 3" social media sites, but we are also available to help with setting up other accounts.

Go to http://www.reliablewebdesigns.com/5Steps/InternetMarketing/social-media.htm to read up on how we can help you with FaceBook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Additional Thoughts about Social Media

With all of the above "Social Media" sites, we strongly recommend that you post your own content. You are your best representative, and thus will know what to post and what to respond when others ask questions or post comments. Some of our clients have expressed reservations about the time it will take to do this, but we wish to express to you that you can post as much or as little as you wish. There are no deadlines or rules to how much you must post. As with anything, the more involved you are the more successful it tends to be... Never feel pressured by having to post information. One posting a month with good content is far more effective than daily postings that don't say anything and become junk to the reader.

It is our goal to help you get started into the world of "Social Media" so that you have true success marketing yourself in this new universe.

There are Changes Coming to Email

A while back some new rules were developed to help reduce spam emails. These new rules have actually been around for a while, but until recently most servers didn't follow them. The reality is that over the course of the next year most servers are going to begin implementing them, so the general public needs to become aware of the changes before they happen. So, we thought it'd be a good idea to tell you about them and explain them in as simple a language as possible.

In an attempt to not techno-babble at you, the two main changes are called: rDNS (Reverse DNS) and SPF (Sender Policy Framework). Both of them do similar things and we don't intend to describe them to you in detail because you can read all about them from a technical point of view somewhere else. In a nutshell, what both of them are designed to do is put some checks on an email when it's sent to make sure that the sender is who they say they are.

Right now anyone could essentially steal your email address and use it to send out spam. They could find your email address somewhere (like on your website), and then put it into their email preferences. Then, they can send out thousands and thousands of junk email about whatever they want. All this going out using your email whether you like it or not, or even know it has been done.

What these new rules or policies are attempting to do is put a stop to this. The idea is that when an email goes out instead of just letting it go, servers will now run a check to make sure your email is legitimate. In essense, they are going to look at your email address and make sure the place it was sent from also matches the domain name in the address.

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Here's examples of how it will check:

Our city guide email address is info@flagstaffcentral.com.

1) Won't Work - If I send an email out having my outgoing preferences be my Internet Provider which is NPG Cable ( mail.npgcable.net ), then my Domain Name and the way I sent it don't match. And thus, my email would not comply to the new rules and would probably bounce back undeliverable.

flagstaffcentral.com does not match npgcable.net - Not Delivered

2) Won't Work - If a spammer tries to send an email out using my Email Address and their outgoing preferences are from their own Internet Provider ( mail.spamidiot.com ), then my Domain Name (in my email) and the way they sent it will not match. And thus, the spam email(s) they are trying to send using my address will not comply and will bounce back undeliverable.

flagstaffcentral.com does not match spamidiot.com - Not Delivered

3) Will Work - If I send an email out having my outgoing preferences be my Web Host ( mail.flagstaffcentral.com ), then my Domain Name and the way I sent it will match. And thus, my email will comply with the new rules and be sent fine.

flagstaffcentral.com does match flagstaffcentral.com - Delivered Successfully!

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You can see why this is good. It may cut a whole mess of spam off the internet and protect your email address at the same time. But, the problem is that most people don't know about these new rules. As they are implemented, more and more people are going to experience bounce backs on their legitimate emails because they have not changed their email preferences.

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So what do you do:

1) Using WebMail - If you are using a WebMail based system like Gmail or Hotmail, then there isn't anything you need to do. Your email address will have Gmail or Hotmail in it, and when you send it you are sending right through their website so your Domain Name and the way you send it will match.

2) Using Email Software (like Outlook) - If you are using some sort of email software like Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, Thunderbird, etc... then you will need to change your "Outgoing SMTP" preferences. This setting must have the matching Domain as within your Email Address. So, you should contact either your Internet Provider (if you use their email addresses) or your Web Host (if you use your own domain within your email address).

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We hope this article helps you understand the coming changes to how Emails will be "Checked" by servers in the near future. There's no telling when your server will implement the new rules or when the servers you are sending email to will begin doing it, so it's best to begin getting your email preferences ready today.