Last night I had a knee jerk reaction to a spam email I received on MySpace. The product he was promoting wasn’t offensive, but his timing caught me at a time where I felt the need to go into lecture mode (whereas I usually just delete and move on). Here’s the back story:

I was catching up on tweets on Twitter from earlier yesterday and saw a great conversation among some of my Twitter pals about Facebook Spam and building relationships and wished I’d been there live to put in my two cents.

Honestly, I thought relationship building was common sense, and said as much hours later on Twitter as a general tweet…

Then I get the “ca-ching” notification that I have email on MySpace from someone who isn’t even a MySpace friend 10 minutes later while journaling. The note reads as follows:

—-

“My name is *******, I don’t know your situation or anything like that. I would like to tell you a little bit about me. I work from home and sell discount health programs, my Company Ameriplan has been around since 1992. We have Dental, Vision, Prescription, Chiropractic, Medical, and many more plan that can save you hundreds of dollars a month. These programs range anywhere from 14.95 to 59.95 a month, We also have a 100% satisfaction guarantee that comes with membership….This is my ..web page.. so you can see the product and better understand the company and what we could have to offer you .

Thank you for your time,
XXXXXXXX”

To which I tersely respond:

“XXXXX, I hope you’ll take my advice. You might get higher conversions if you do:

Very Quick Old-School Internet Marketing Tip- Find your target market (do a key word search, use pay per click and article marketing), build relationships with them (by inviting them to a free 7 part e-course, for example), and then MAYBE, pitch your product to them.

I’m not in your target market; I don’t know you so your message is SPAM–but rather than report you, I thought I’d just educate instead.

Remember the metaphor: Most folks would rather date first before getting married!

Carol”

Dude is really clueless. His reply:

“explain to me please this is my first type of sales pitch”

Yikes. I guess I really do take for granted what people know (or more accurately, DON‘T know). I didn’t reply last night, as it was after midnight, though I figured I’d feel more generous this morning. But look at the presumption that he’s entitled to more education from me and I don’t even know him.

I had planned this morning to reply all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by just referring him to Stephen Pierce’s free internet marketing book, but guess what! His MySpace account has been deleted. No big surprise there. I guess someone else was even crankier than I was last night.

Hopefully he’ll do some investigating on his own. Those outdated sales techniques were obsolete even when they were popular for my personality (says the girl who suffered through trying to sell Electrolux vacuums door to door ages ago and hated every minute of it).

So that’s that.

–Carol Dickson-Carr

There are no easy answers to that question. I really believe it depends on your

• environment,
• framework,
• experiences, and
• level of expertise with the technology out there.

I’ve always been surrounded by some sort of technology guru since the early 90s, and while I’m not an early adopter when it comes to purchasing new technology (more like early majority), I will definitely check out a new tech toy that’s recommended to me from someone I respect if it’s free to see if it would be beneficial to me and/or my business.

I’m also not afraid of technology and I love to engage all my learning styles when figuring it out–mostly visual/kinesthetic–I hate reading the manuals on- or offline!

But it has to work for me psychologically as well, I’ve found–especially with all the choices out there (more on that in a forthcoming post!).  Facebook, Twitter, and podcasting do that for me.

About a month ago, I wrote about all the choices within traditional internet marketing and new media marketing and the only “comments” I got were on Twitter and they had a similar theme: “Too many choices to comment!” or “My head hurts! Let me think about that one for a while” That’s telling in and of itself!

So on the hindrance side, “overwhelmed by the choices” could fit right in. Another hindrance could be the “way too dependent on the technology” syndrome.

For example, I recently came back from a trip to the Mountains in Taos, NM and admittedly had a little anxiety about the fact that there would definitely be no cell phone service, and not knowing if I was going to have internet access nearby.  I was so afraid, even with my vacation auto-responder that I’d be so overwhelmed when I got back.

I was worried about what I would miss in the social networking world since it changes so quickly. And we won’t even talk about my potential Twitter withdrawals–I tend to learn the most about the latest and greatest updates there along with satisfying my need to connect with like-minded people!

So imagine my visible relief when we discovered that there was a computer lab in walking distance from the cabin that had wi-fi and actual desktop computers…and printers! I did have to cancel a webinar since I couldn’t be on the phone (land line was in the cabin) and on the computer in the same room, but other than that, I really have to say that my anxiety levels went back down to zero when I saw what was available.

I knew intellectually that unplugging for a week wouldn’t have killed me, but emotionally I wasn’t so sure! I really do see the benefits of the technology when you have a strategy in place (which I definitely have). You’ve probably heard the old saying, “Technology is great…when it works!” I really believe that.

So what do you think?

Do we depend too much on the technology?

Are we bombarded too much by all the choices? Or

Do you have a strategy in place so that the technology works for you rather than your being a slave to the technology? Would love to read your thoughts!

 –Carol Dickson-Carr

I certainly can’t take credit for discovering this cool little diddy. But if you’re among the folks in the Twitterverse who likes to keep up with what folks are saying about you when Twitter is in one of its moods, you can check out tweetdeck at tweetdeck.com.

It integrates a number of tools like Summize.com (Twitter’s Google equivalent) and allows you to create groups, follow your time stream with your Twitter buds, see your replies and direct message right on one panel.

Thanks @shermanhu and @dewaldp for hipping me to this very cool tool. Watch the video below for a little more on how it works and where you can make suggestions on its continuous improvement! –Carol Dickson-Carr

I’ve had a few people ask me recently who are brand spankin’ new to the concept of marketing their businesses on the internet exactly what tools are out there. I begin to tell them…

And for some, their eyes start to glaze over and they say they feel safer with the “devil they know” when it comes to getting the word out about their brick & mortar business (yellow pages, inserts, postcards, etc.). I still take that response as a “Not yet!”

At the same time, I’m watching in various forums different debates about which marketing strategies are the best on the internet alone. What do you think? Is it…

Traditional methods like SEO, SEM, Article Marketing, AdSense, PPC, etc.

or New Media such as blogging, podcasting, video, internet radio, etc.

Or…

some combination of the strategies?

Please share your thoughts. My inquiring mind would LOVE to know!

This is important.

–Carol Dickson-Carr

“I don’t want to,” my eight year old daughter said sadly when I asked her to clean her room. I asked her why that was her typical response. Her reply, “Because no one ever seems to want to help me.” I’d asked her that same question three years ago and her reply was, “It’s [the task] too big!”

In each instance, my thought immediately went to her being overwhelmed. Even though the payoff would be an allowance, she often wanted to forgo the money to get out of doing it! That is, until I reminded her of strategies to getting it done without the task feeling as daunting, with the biggest tip being: take baby steps and prioritize by working on one area of the room or category at a time (i.e., school papers, then shoes, then stuffed animals, etc.). But truth be told, she has no real passion for cleaning her room.

When we coach our adult clients, or sometimes when we are being coached or mentored ourselves, there is also often a similar trend of resistance in some cases. This can be true whether we’re dealing with grunt work that doesn’t light us up (One word to that: Outsource!) or if we have been presented with quite a few cool tools that can help our businesses in the long run.

Let’s stay with the Web 2.0 theme: Introducing blogging, podcasting, video creation, talk radio, and social networks to people who are totally new to it in a six week period have sometimes invoked these types of interjections:

“I feel like I’ve been sprayed with a fire hose of information!”

“How can I incorporate it all?”

“I don’t have enough time.”

“I am not a techie!”

“AAAAAAHHHH!”

The baby steps and prioritizing come in handy again. And so does breathing. If rotating between using all the tools while learning them doesn’t float your boat after getting introduced to them, try this: Figure out which tool interests you the most and carve out a specified time daily or every other day to become one with it until you master it, and then move on to the next favorite and repeat the process.

And remember, you don’t have to take this journey alone. Take advantage of all the resources out there. The ones I listed in the previous blog post are just a starting point.

So tell me, if you have a favorite Web 2.0 tool, what is it and why?

If you haven’t tried out any of the tools, I’d also like to know why?

My inquiring mind wants to know!

–Carol Dickson-Carr

The video clip below shares the remaining seven of ten tips to maintaining balance while learning about or currently employing any or all of the Web 2.0 technology to your business model.

Once you dive into the tools (Bea & I can help you with that too!), here are a few more resources worth checking out in the Web 2.0 community–these are people I’ve built relationships with in a social networking framework:

Facebook Goddess: Mari Smith

For Business Blogging Experts: Denise Wakeman & Patsi Krakoff of The Blog Squad

Twitter Experts: Deb Micek and Warren Whitlock

Video (and integrating all the tools): Sherman Hu

Wordpress Expert: Kim Beasley

Folks who know me know I am the hugest advocate of storytelling. Check out Carla Young’s program for more on that!

And for more on time mastery, check out Ann Rusnak (The Time Diva!).

And the list goes on!

This clip will share three of ten tips to maintaining balance while learning about or currently employing any or all of the Web 2.0 technology to your business model.

Check out our comprehensive multimedia Business Pulse library!

 

Blogging, podcasting, vlogging, internet radio, social networking, internet media–all of it, we believe is here to stay and will only become more popular and mainstream over time. This is what Bea and I talked about in our preview call for an hour.

So listen in as Productivity Coach, Carol Dickson-Carr and Executive Coach, Bea Fields, lead a group of modern day biz leaders on the topic of how to grow their businesses through the power of Web 2.0!

Yahoo and Time Warner stepped up talks on creating an alternative to Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo. A possible deal would fold AOL into Yahoo. Who do you think will prevail in the end? Read about it here.

According to an article by Jessica Vascellaro in today’s Wall Street Journal, MySpace plans to step it up a bit and add more cool features and activities to their site to combat its slowing growth rate. Check it out here!