So, what is different with an unknown consumer’s opinion and an unknown video creator’s ad?   I am only offering my personal opinion here, so take it for what you will.  Seem’s to me that people believe another human, that it is just a natural happenstance.  And that something about a video ( which features humans alot of the time ) ad turns them off. Let’s see, could it simply be that they know an ad is trying to sell them something?  That would be my best guess.

How do we get sales from videos then?  My thought is, the video needs to show a human talking in a regular believable conversation in order to get attention.   If it can look like a candid conversation, then I think this would be much more believable.   No one likes to be “sold”.  This is why Tivo is so popular.  And if we could all just avoid ads and commerce, we would.  Until we need to buy something. Then we search the internet like crazy monkeys hoping to get an opinion, and not only that, but a good deal, no scratch that, the best deal.  Maybe we just need to get it that people do not want ads mixed into videos. Maybe we are all simply spoiled and expect everything to be for free. Yes, I think that is it.

Ads served on internet searches is also listed very low on the trusted survey results.  Yet, we hear that Google has made tons of money with no end of domination in sight.  Enough people click on the ads to ensure that the advertisers have to pay Google.  Maybe they are just searching and not always looking to buy. Maybe Google just makes all their money from the advertisers? Well then they would not be able to stay in business for long, so it cannot just be that.

So, they want to just watch videos when they go to YouTube, and they just want search results when they use Google.  Hmm.  Maybe the only point here is, people are well aware that what is presented is an ad.  Awareness.

Recently the FTC has stated that bloggers are going to have to somehow let readers know that their “online opinion” has been paid for, or if they have received a free product in exchange for a review.   Will that totally change this survey?  I am thinking it will , after people really get it that internet marketers are, well, marketing to them.  It may take a while for them to let it sink it, see it a few times, hear about it a few times. In the meanwhile, marketers can continue to make a living online.

Twitter is usually the example given as the biggest hyped application, but the least responsive in return for the time spent.

Actually, one of the blog authors said that he received no response at all from his tweets, or from using FriendFeed, and that was the basis of his blog post. In other words, how could social media gurus give it the hype that it is all about interaction, when no one interacted with him? He did admit that he still finds value in social media applications, but he doubted that “main stream” users would get noticed enough to continue to find value.

The other blog post was from an “old school” copywriter’s blog, written by Troy White, on The Total Package. This guy and his followers know all the ins and outs of copywriting and have used that skill to make a lot of money on- and offline. They were not finding any monetary value (wondering what the ROI was ) in using Twitter, and wondered if others found the same poor results. Paraphrasing, there were responders who felt the same way, no ROI value for all their time spent, they just did not “get it”. And still other responders tried to explain how they found value in using Twitter.

My thoughts are varied. The simple 140 character limitation of Twitter completely obliterates the copywriting skills of people who have used headlines and words, lots of them, to drive sales for many years. The medium is not what they are used to, but, that doesn’t mean others have not found ways to market using Twitter’s 140 characters, as they have.

Also, considering how many millions of people are using multiple social media applications, people are apparently finding alot of value. But, I personally do not find value in some types of tweets. For example, tweets from well known internet marketing gurus telling us that they had a cigar and what kind of wine with their dinner 10 minutes ago is just not valuable to me. The value to me is the fact that I can send a direct message, if I wanted to, to a well known internet marketer, or a pro basketfall player – no red tape. I am not using that application for actually socializing with these people I do not know. But, I also am using the applications to be social with people I do know.

So let me be more clear. For my friends, I would send a short personal message. But following an “important” person, I find humor in seeing a silly personal type message go out to a gajillion people thinking they would care. However, it seems that lots of “important” people think this is what they should do. And you know, thinking about how isolated some of them are from all of us, I guess they have no idea how to interact anyway. Authenticity, yes, that is an issue. This way they can still dodge the autographs, and believe that they are interacting with their peeps.

There are hundreds of uses for Twitter. Some like it for social interaction, some like it for marketing, some like it simply because it is the new trend. You just can’t suggest the whole thing is useless if you are not getting your expectations met. It is still new. Keep looking for the value, it really is there.

Advice to others is a tradition which is ancient in concept. Within families, this advice has been the foundation of parenting – been there, right? Some, looking at the internet as it is now, want to figure out what is the next level that we can expect? Some want to know when new changes will start to take place, so they can jump on the bandwagon.

How do businesses take advantage of social media marketing, how do businesses do social media optimization?

My focus is on the social media marketing aspect of the internet.

If you are an internet marketer, or a small business owner who wants to get online and is not sure how to make that move, social media optimization is for you. Now is the time to understand why it is critical to you, and how to use
specific tactics and strategies online.

An example is using social bookmarking. By using social bookmarking websites like del.icio.us, stumbleupon, redditt, digg etc., getting targetted traffic to your website is easier than ever. And, people will bookmark your website if it is useful to them and has good content. Every person who bookmarks your website helps you in getting backlinks. Besides helping to increase the popularity of your website, this increases the chances that more backlinks to your site will take place as others are following the links at the bookmarking sites.

There are many great strategies you can use to increase “link juice” to your site, while also increasing your site’s popularity for others who need to know the information you are online to share.