Internet Marketing Explained in Just Two Words

Let's face it: Internet marketing is confusing to most people.

And it certainly isn't getting any easier with the growth of new Internet platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, Ning, YouTube, FriendFeed, Blogger, iPhone Apps, and the like. And of course we still have Google advertising, SEO, Yahoo!, e-zine advertising, affiliate programs and contextual advertising.

With so many promotional tools and so much conflicting advice from different "experts", it's hard for you to know what to believe, what to pursue, and what to ignore.

In this article I'm going to teach you how Internet marketing has changed - in just two words.

This picture explains everything ...

OK, so by itself it doesn't explain everything, but it's the single most important thing to understand how Internet marketing works now.

I'll explain ...

When the Internet first came to public attention in the mid-1990s, it was a download culture. Only a few people could put stuff on the Internet; most people could only take (download) what was there. For example:

Business owners would hire Web designers to create a Web site promoting their products and services, for customers to download (just reading a Web page is downloading);
Musicians and record companies would upload songs - or fragments of songs - for fans to download;
News agencies would upload video footage to their Web site, for their audience to watch;
NASA would upload thousands of photographs from their space missions, for students and the public to download.

The point is: Most "ordinary people" didn't have the skills or the software to put stuff on the Internet.

That's now changed!

Now everybody can be a publisher.

In the last few years, ordinary Internet users have the ability to upload - or publish - their own material to the Internet. And they've used that ability to turn the Internet into an upload medium.

The content on the Internet is no longer in the hands of the few. Now anybody can be a publisher, a content provider and an uploader. Ordinary people build Wikipedia, YouTube, Blogger, iTunes, Flickr, Ning, eBay and Facebook. Sure, the basic infrastructure was built by experts, but these Web sites are nothing without contributions from millions of ordinary Internet users.

According to rating company Nielsen's 2009 report on Social Networking, social networking and blogging sites are now the fourth most popular activity on-line; and time spent on these sites is growing three times faster than overall Internet growth.

Don't get left behind!

The problem, of course, is that when anybody can be a publisher, quality suffers. YouTube is filled with amateur videos; most blogs get abandoned after a few posts; most Web sites are doomed to fail, but still turn up in Google; and so on.

That's why it's even more important to participate in this upload revolution. If you don't, you'll just get lost in the crowd.

This is no longer optional. It's essential!

So participate.
Frequently.
Regularly.
And with high-quality material.

Here's an example ...

One of my clients, Penny Burke, recently sent a newsletter to her subscribers, showing an excellent 10-minute video clip of her delivering a high-content message.

Sending this to her newsletter subscribers is excellent, but it's just the beginning. I'll show you ten ways to leverage that short video clip even further:

Put it on YouTube to make it more public.
Extract the audio from the video and publish that as a podcast episode, for people (like me) who like listening on iPods.
Combine the audio file and the original PowerPoint slides into a slide show on Slideshare, a presentation sharing site (like YouTube for PowerPoint).
Get the audio file transcribed and turn it into a high-value special report that she gives away in order to attract more traffic.
Submit the special report to Issuu.com, an e-book sharing site (like YouTube for e-books).
Split up the report into a series of articles to submit to on-line article directories.
Send these articles to her newsletter subscribers - which gives her on-going content for months.
Put these articles on her Web site and promote them in Twitter, one every few days.
Post these articles to her blog, one every few days.
Add the video to her profile on LinkedIn, Facebook, the eGurus Community and other community Web sites.

This is only scratching the surface - there are many other things she could do as well. But it's a pretty good start!

Key words: Internet Marketing, Web 2.0

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Gihan Perera is the author of "Get Active: Web Sites for Speakers, Trainers, Coaches and Consultants" and "Fast, Flat and Free: What You Need to Know to Stay Ahead in a Connected World". Visit http://GihanPerera.com and get your complimentary copies now.

I would also appreciate receiving a copy of the issue in which it appears, if that is convenient.