You may or may not know but I’ve been involved, in some way, with internet marketing for about 7 years now. When I started back in college there was VERY little quality coaching available, nearly more than 2 or 3 “social” networks (they weren’t too social), only a handful of reliable marketing tools, and more rip-offs than anyone could count.

Starting out in network marketing was certainly an experience. It was a challenge to cold-call leads, get them to listen to your speech while trying to sell them a product AND opportunity without sounding like a recording.

Today, it’s a different ball game. You can nearly do everything (expect a true cold-call) directly through the internet. From generating leads to sending follow-up emails, to marketing initiatives – the internet has opened far more doors for thousands and thousands of people. But it has also opened opportunities to do more harm to yourself than good.

It would surprise me if you haven’t come across a “scam” opportunity (“program” is probably a better term) while surfing the web. There are plenty of them, in reality far too many. It’s in your best interest to be cautious with what you decide to get involved with because even though you may have the potential to earn a lot of money, it doesn’t mean it’s ethical, moral or legal, and that may come back to haunt you later.

People talk. Your name has a reputation that is important whether you think so or not. You could have 100 people join an opportunity with you but it only takes 1 of them to start spreading bad news about you, that of which can spread very quickly. Once something is written on the internet about you that is negative, it can be hard to get it removed or reverse the damage it will do.

Think of yourself as a brand. If people buy your products and share with their friends that your brand makes poor products, do you think their friends will buy from your brand? And those friends will tell THEIR friends. It’s a vicious cycle but in retrospect, it can be positive if you build a good reputation. No, you will not satisfy every single person 100% but if you strive to do good and focus on being careful with the promotions and opportunities you involve yourself with, you’re more likely to succeed than fail.

Is there one? No, sorry to break the news. The fact is there are dozens and dozens of advertising sources you can take advantage of right now to get your products in front of people. Whether it’s PPC, website ads, banner exchanges, email advertising, traffic exchanges, etc., there is no single “best” source to use.

You need to evaluate the advertising source for your purpose. Are you looking to tap into search engine traffic? Maybe PPC (such as adwords) is a good idea. Is your need to generate website views without having a budget? Free traffic exchanges may be your best bet.

The fact of that matter is, no ONE source is the “best”. Your situation may be different than someone else’s such as budget, time and need…or combination. So how do you know what will work for you? Testing sources for advertising will help tell you what works the best for YOU. Some people swear by traffic exchanges but since most manual traffic exchanges require lots of time to invest, that might not work for you.

Do your tests, record the results, make changes and try another sources.

Best of luck!

About a month or month-and-a-half ago Google released their latest communication platform called Google Wave. When I say released I mean that it was opened in an invite-only mode – yes, you had to be invited to use it. There were a limited number of invitations (100,000 if I’m not mistaken) to be sent out for round 1. On top of that, those 100,000 were eligible to send out to 8 of their friends/contacts. The catch was even if you invited your friends, they were not necessarily going to receive the invitation right away, or even in the next 3 weeks for that matter. In my case, I waited about 2.5 weeks before receiving an invitation…I was a little sad.

It’s now been about 1.5 months since they first let people inside their newest creation. Many of us have recently (for me, November 12th) been given the opportunity to invite 8 of OUR friends too, and to my surprise those friends got their invitations in a matter of hours. This is great news! Are we going to continue to see more and more people allowed to invite their friends, at a speedy rate? I sure hope so – better yet, I’m excited when this gets opened to the public. Right when the first 100,000 invitations went out, people were going crazy to get one, even bidding on ebay!

Now that I’ve been able to connect with several friends, communicating directly over Google Wave, I’d like to briefly talk about the usability. The platform is different, certainly. Like Gmail, it’s not your ordinary email system or chat program. Yes, it has similarities but far more powerful. As you converse, you can have multiple people in a “wave” (or chat) all typing at once without any rules. As someone types a message, you can watch every word they type, even if they erase a little to fix spelling mistakes – it’s mind boggling. On top of that, you can have threaded replies to parts of messages, go back to something said earlier and reply, and far more. In addition to just text, you can add plug-ins or bots which add more functionality such as emoticons, polling, games, maps, and the list goes on.

This may sound really exciting, and it is. Will this really become a popular method of communicating…probably so, but you will not find the majority of people using it because I don’t think it’s user friendly. It’s powerful, maybe too powerful. If you find Gmail confusing…don’t even bother with Google Wave, believe me.

It will be interesting to watch over the next 6 months. Do people adapt it in their activities? Does it replace instant message programs? Keep an eye out.