As someone who works online I use Google and Facebook and Twitter and a dozen online social networks as tools. To me, at one level, they are the means through which I market my books, help clients find my services and advise companies and individuals to use correctly.
Disclaimer: I am really passionate about this aspect of the web. I believe it is instrumental in breaking down barriers of class and ethnicity and I believe that it can change the world. Success and opportunity, in every form, help to break down barriers and create more energy which leads to more opportunity. This is what really drives me on in much of what I write and many of the things I do.
It is no less a personality than Tony Robbins who said that we live in the entertainment age rather than the information age. Robbins was using the meme of the web and instant connectivity to make his assessment. A century ago, however, a stripper going by the name of Gypsy Rose Lee had made the same connection, mixed entertainment with information and succeeded in creating a brand which brought her fame and fortune beyond any expectation.
There is a perception in business, born out of real cases, that marketing and advertising are there to lie. Provided that the product or service being sold is of real value the assumption then is that consumers are incapable of making any decisions based on facts which means that in order for them to decide to access a service or buy a product they need to be told exactly what they want to hear about it rather than the truth.
Ever since Google introduced Google Instant the question has been how (and if) it will affect SEO. When it comes to search engine optimisation there are two schools of thought regarding this issue. There are those who say (quite correctly) that the introduction of Google Instant did not, in any way, change the Google search algorithm, therefore as far as SEO practices are concerned it should be business as usual and then there are those (who also quite rightly) say that Google Instant affects search end-user behaviour and is therefore significant.
Money, the pursuit, lack and attempts to gain it, is a motive force which makes many things happen, including the need for SEO and internet marketing for online business, so a it is only fair to quantify the context in which all this activity occurs. Analysis always has the capacity to provide insights which then can change our behaviour. I am going to explore here a couple of ideas which have been central in guiding my business help writing namely, that money is always a means to an end and that unless there is a greater framework guiding our work life, work itself gets to be pretty meaningless.
Before you start to raise your eyebrows, shake your head and start your eyes shifting left, right and left again, I am going to puncture your presuppositions by stating that I am actually looking at the business models employed by the porn industry.
There is a tendency by MBA course tutors to take past practices as gospel and serve it as the way to the future. The 80s (yeah, you know…sometime last century) shocked the business world because ‘jobs for life’ became a thing of the past as companies, facing a succession of recessions spaced every six or seven years apart shed staff, took on part-timers to do full-time jobs and introduced outsourcing in an effort to become more efficient.
We are all used to talking about SEO and thinking of keywords, blog posts and thematic linking across different parts of one website, but when it comes to a large scale online business, like Microsoft, the challenge becomes a lot more difficult and the solution which is applied can become a valuable lesson for those who may not necessarily have a business that large to optimize but who could benefit from the practices applied.
Just last week Google looked certain to buy Groupon in a deal which made sense. What no accounted for, of course, was Groupon saying ‘no’ to $6 billion. So far, the week began with a deal which looks set to fall through because the Groupon board cannot decide.
