Social Media Marketing and Your Online Marketing Budget

Bob DeStefano over at SVM E-Business Solutions offers a great checklist that you should go through before deciding to jump into social media marketing. He says you should be able to say yes to all of these statements before you think about using social media to market your products and services:

• My Website is my most powerful marketing tool.
• My Website generates all of the leads I need to support my business.
• My company is on the first page of Google for every popular phrase my customers use.
• Email marketing helps my company nurture new customers and generate repeat business
• I know that I am generating a strong return on investment for every dollar I spend on marketing.

This checklist covers most everything you should be thinking about when it comes to online marketing. Where I differ with Bob is in timing: There is no reason that you should not work on your website and your social media marketing in parallel, provided your strategic objectives are clear and inform both efforts.

One objection to this line of thought might be budgetary: you want to establish ROI on your website effort before committing more of your marketing budget to extend your online effort. Such an objection indicates a reasonable and cautious attitude, but you need to weigh your caution against the exponential potential of integrating your website, email marketing and social media marketing.

Why Net Neutrality Matters to Online Marketers

Net neutrality is back in the news as the US Federal Communications Commisson (FCC) grapples with the issue. Not surprisingly, the FCC commissioners are polarized along political/ideological lines, with the Democratic commissioners, including chairman Julius Genachowski, committed to writing regulations ensuring net neutrality, and the Republican commissioners committed to keeping government from regulating business in any way, shape or form.

But what is "net neutrality," and why should we care?

Basically, it comes down to quality and equality of service. Net neutrality proponents believe that data streams on the Internet should be treated on a first-come-first-served basis, and that telecom companies should not be allowed to prioritize traffic or discriminate using techniques such as deep packet inspection. What they want, in a nutshell, is for the Internet to continue as it is now.

On the other hand, some opponents to net neutrality regulations think this may be a solution looking for a problem, while other opponents actually believe that such discrimination is a good thing.

Internet marketers should be concerned about net neutrality, because it poses the danger of turning the Internet into a tiered service. In a world without net neutrality, small- to medium-sized businesses could lose the ability to compete cost-effectively against larger companies, because the larger companies could simply buy prioritization for their data streams.

The principle of net neutrality has made the Internet a great leveler. Without net neutrality, the Internet would become just another tiered medium like television, where large corporations and wealthy special interest groups control the messaging, and small- to medium-sized businesses can't afford to compete.