Social networks are all the rage and many of my posts at OnlineMarketerBlog recommend social tools for businesses. However, there are potential pitfalls to consider before you facilitate interaction between customers and your business.
Here are 21 things your business should consider before starting a social network:
Internal (Your Business Capabilities)
1. Can you invest the necessary resources to run a social network properly? Can you afford the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars it takes to properly create and staff this resource?
2. What is the role of marketing, sales, IT, customer service, advertising, HR, etc.? Social networks often delve into all of these departments and more. Make sure all of your teams are engaged, enthused, and prepared. Read more

One out of five US email marketers send additional emails to subscribers after confirming an unsubscribe request, according to the new study
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Ok, perhaps the headline is a bit overdramatic, but the point here is that companies tend to focus far too much on staying within a set budget line for their online initiatives to the detriment of driving an acceptable amount of qualified traffic. This common, albeit myopic, tactic will drive marketers right out of a job.
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In the past, I’ve explored how
There are a couple extremely important components you need to have in place to achieve Web marketing success. Without them, your chance for failure is great. Make the jump over to this post to watch this video to learn what they are.


When marketing planning gets complicated, I always suspect that, somehow, the essentials have gone wrong. I’ve seen elaborate edifices of media buying, graphic design, brand strategy and more built on the most threadbare understanding of fundamentals: who your customers are and what they want.
