Marketing Pilgrim

On Tuesday, December 21, the FCC will vote on a proposal that will allow internet providers to better manage bandwidth by charging more to those users who use more and less to those who don’t. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Apparently, it’s not.

I spent an hour this morning reading over a variety of articles on the subject from the factual pieces from Reuters to the techie take at Crunch Gear to the twists and turns of The Washington Post. My favorite piece was written by Al Franken for The Huffington Post. Yes, SNL’s Al Franken who is now a Senator from Minnesota.

If you were to venture a guess about what gender would have a greater percentage of its members saying it couldn’t live without social media what would you choose. At the risk of being called a sexist (fill in the blank), I immediately think women. Well, girls, as my wife found out long ago, I can be wrong on more than a few occasions.

eMarketer reports on a study that was done by StudyLogic for Sheraton Hotels and Resorts. It looks like men are the ones who have more of a social media need if we were to base everything on this study (which we won’t but who’s counting?). The results are in answer to the question of if you were not able to access social networks for several days.

Some of the big news coming out of Facebook is their move into having full-blown stores by retailers inside their Fan / Like Pages. This is the new social commerce that many are talking about these days and it appears to be poised to bring a lot of money to retailers and Facebook alike: if it worked.

Before I share my experience with trying to “shop” at JCPenney on Facebook let’s hear the corporate view of what is trying to be done. Bloomberg Businessweek reports

Facebook is ramping up efforts to entice companies such as Delta Air Lines and J.C. Penney to sell wares on its pages and convert more of its 500 million users into online shoppers.

Running affiliate offers on your website can be a fun and rewarding experience, but there are quite a few challenges for you on your road to strike it rich. To help you on this journey, I’ve compiled a list of the top 7 pitfalls of affiliate marketing for publishers.

While this list is by no means comprehensive of all the challenges you’ll face in your campaigns, it’s a good place to start and might help you avoid some headaches along the way.

Also, check out my companion post The Top 6 Pitfalls of Affiliate Marketing for Advertisers.

1. Canceled transactions

You’re a failure.

Maybe not a complete failure, but you have failed at least once in 2010. I mean let’s face it, nobody is perfect, everyone fails at something every now and then. I know you don’t want to talk about failure. I know that it is hard to admit when you have goofed. Why is failure so hard to talk about? Because each of us fear that we are bound to repeat our failures if we admit they happened. Otherwise we can pretend they don’t exist and move on. But, it is important to face your failures and understand them. Because, failures are like history, if you don’t learn from them, you are bound to repeat them.

I can see it now. The black screen, the ominous ba bum sound and then the words, Law & Order: Privacy Division. They’re federal agents who put their lives on the line every day so that you, the internet user, can surf without fear of being molested by targeted Old Navy ads and free lunch coupons on your birthday. Sure they’re making it hard for the small business marketer to sell his wares, but hey, that’s the way the browser cookie crumbles. Get over it.

So, maybe it won’t be on next fall’s TV schedule, but it may be coming to a computer near you, if the federal government gets their way. Yesterday, the Commerce Department released the Internet Policy Task Force Privacy Green Paper which is loaded with recommendations “aimed at promoting consumer privacy online while ensuring the Internet remains a platform that spurs innovation, job creation, and economic growth.”