5 Major Changes in Online Marketing

Issue #1267 Oct. 16, 2018
Publisher: Joan Stewart

“Tips, Tricks and Tools for Free Publicity”

In This Issue

1. 5 Major Changes in Online Marketing
2. 4 More Free Photo Sources
3. What’s New at PhotoFunia.com
4. Hound Video of the Week

This Week in the Hound House:

Remember the photo of the gorgeous dahlias I shared last week? A frost wiped them out. Now, their drooping blooms face the ground, almost as though they’re weeping. Time to remove the tubers from the soil and pack them in vermiculite so I can use them again next year. Meanwhile, Wisconsin sports fans are celebrating today. I watch the Milwaukee Brewers win Game 3 of the National League Championship Series last night against the Dodgers, then switched over to the Packers game, tied 30-30, and watched them march downfield in the final minutes and kick a field goal to beat the San Francisco 49ers, 33-30.

1. 5 Major Changes in Online Marketing

Gone are the days when a content-rich website could help you pull more traffic than what your competitors were getting.

Techniques that worked before–like strategic keyword placement and attracting inbound links from quality websites–are still important, but they aren’t necessarily the main traffic generators.

Here are five major changes in online marketing:

–The best way to pull traffic is by paying for it through pay-per-click ads. Why is this more effective? Because after you’ve identified the perfect target market for your message, Google and Facebook will let you target like a laser beam and put your ad in front of viewers who are a perfect match. Google and Facebook know far more about us than we realize.

–A hefty email list used to be the gold standard for staying in touch with your followers. It’s still important. But a goldmine of data, ready to be accessed, awaits on social media sites. If you know where to find it and how to use it, you have another powerful way to communicate with your ideal audience.

–Facebook Messenger bots are one of the newest methods of digital marketing. Chatbots are automated responses when someone messages you on your Facebook page. It’s like email marketing but using Facebook Messenger. A tiny number of Facebook folks are using this–a perfect time for you to beat the millions of people who aren’t.

–Phone/text marketing. Using text messages to market has been around awhile, but it’s becoming more important than ever. By the year 2020, an estimated 9 out of 10 people worldwide will have a mobile phone. Mobile Internet usage is taking over desktop Internet usage.

–Cheap viral marketing methods. Quizzes, contests and offline content lockers have been around for ages, long before the Internet was even conceived. Now, because of cheap software and online technology, you have the power at your fingertips to send your info, products, and services all around the world and let other people spread the word for you for free.

The earlier you learn about these marketing strategies, the more likely you are to see results.

To do: My mentor, Tom Antion, will be teaching all five of these techniques, and dozens more, during his popular Butt Camp (sit on your butt in front of your computer, work hard and bring in the bucks) on Saturday, Oct. 27. He has presented it in 11 countries throughout the world. Once you pay to attend live in Virginia Beach or buy the video recordings if you don’t want to travel, you attend forever for free. Only $97 for early birds who register by Friday, Oct. 19, using this affiliate link. 

#InternetMarketing #ViralMarketing

2. 4 More Free Photo Sources

I’ve shared lots of free stock photo sites here, like Pixabay.com and Pexels.com.

Here are two ideas I discovered this morning:

–Online press kits. It’s easy to forget about these image banks. In an article or Ragan.com, writer Aiden Guilfoyle says you’d be surprised how many businesses have press kits on their website with high-resolution image banks accessible to the public and media. While searching for images of Swedish customs, food and daily life, she found an image bank on the official site for the country of Sweden. I’ve used one of those photos above.

–Social media. “Thanks to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram’s embedding capabilities, you can embed social posts directly into blogs and websites,” she writes. “This is particularly helpful if you are writing about a specific recent event or person and need a recent picture from the event to go in your post copy.”

To do: Read her article “4 tips for finding fantastic free photos.”

#FreePhotos #StockPhotos

3. What’s New at PhotoFunia.com

PhotoFunia, an innovative online picture editing tool, lets you produce animated and fun images instantly with ease, using your own photos and a bit of imagination and silliness. You don’t even need to create an account.

I’ve told you about it already but I’m sharing the tip again because since I last visited the site, they’ve added a bunch of fun images. The Publicity Hound found this one of a dog with a frame. That’s me inside! I created it in less than 30 seconds.

Ideas for more images you might like for Instagram or your Facebook page:

–Artists, the “Lab” collection has a new animated Banksy Shredder that will shred your photo.

–Need a photo of you on the cover of a newspaper or magazine? Check out the options in the Magazine category.

–Authors, here are some clever images for your book marketing.

–Check out the Halloween collection.

Even if you don’t have a picture at hand, there are many images you can create using text.

To do: Jazz up your marketing pieces, media kit or social media profiles at PhotoFunia.com. I’m writing a longer article on this and would like some examples of images created by authors for their marketing materials or website. If you have one, email it to me at JStewart@PublicityHound.com and tell me how you’re going to use it. I might include it in the article. (More publicity for you!)

#PhotoEditor #PhotoApp

4. Hound Video of the Week

The only thing better than a Hound video is a Hound video featuring a German Shorthaired Pointer. Watch as Sierra stars in “The Case of the Missing Cupcakes.”

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