Leadpile’s Blog

Being in the internet marketing industry, it is pretty common knowledge that there are huge benefits to utilizing the social networking site LinkedIn. However, have you ever thought of LinkedIn as a source for traffic to your site? Webpronews, referenced some good points about the business social networking site, and it’s huge advantages. “You need to take into consideration that LinkedIn has the highest average household income per user over any other social networking site (even NYTimes.com and BusinessWeek.com readers).” “That being said, these are business decision makers you are targeting with your traffic from LinkedIn. The network is for real, and it will only continue to grow in time as there are currently 60 million professionals.”

The steps you should follow in order to truly maximize the capabilities of the LinkedIn site:
1. Complete your profile.
2. Increase you connections.
3. Customize your website links.
4. Answer questions.
5. Update your status.
6. Join niche groups.
7. Post comments in groups.
8. Add RSS feeds to groups.
9. Create a group.
10. Add the blog application to your profile.
I find this information very helpful and am going to look at following these steps with my LinkedIn profile, but also with the Leadpile profile. In the age of competitive traffic, finding a “free” way to get more traffic to your site is very very important. LinkedIn seems to be able to help with that if we all use it to it’s fullest potential.

This week Google launched a test for the ‘Wave”, a new interface for communication that allows group discussions, email, instant messaging, picture and video editing and posting, blogging… there really is not much that this new communication tool does not do! A selected 100,000 people were invited by Google to use this new tool during it’s testing phase, and then to supply feedback and suggestions.
The Wave is set up in a real time format allowing conversations to transition from email to live conversation such as instant messaging. According to wave.google.com, the definition of a Wave is as follows:

• A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
• A Wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.
• A Wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a Wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

If the Wave is able to combine all of the forms of conversation that are currently available, how will this change an industry such as Lead Generation? Will this replace the need for topic specific forums, and blogs? If a demand for lead types is posted, and instantly a supplier is able to respond and make a connection and discuss in an open format for others to see, it could be a huge thing for brand recognition! Being able to edit content and rewind to see where posts are coming from, could be an asset when the need for “damage control” arises.
I have signed up to be on the list of hopefuls in the next rounds of invitations sent out, I can’t wait to get on this wave!

The longer the internet has been around, the more people become “internet savvy” with finding exactly what it is they are looking for.  According to DMNews, generally consumers would conduct searches with one, two or three words. However, queries with four to eight words are becoming more and more popular. Consumers are getting smarter on knowing they would want a more specific search result, therefore entering in more words is providing them more specific results to choose from. In previous years, consumers would enter in a brand they were looking for and then have to navigate through the site for the information they were looking for. Because of this, experts state that brands need to have some sort of way to extract that traffic by having things such as a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page and blogs. This would allow that brand’s site still to come up in the consumer’s search results. Leadpile Lead Exchange also understands this, therefore we are always looking for ways to optimize the traffic of those that are looking to purchase or sell internet leads. How is your site? Are you optimizing it effectively to get the most out of the search engines traffic?

Surveys & polls are often times a way to determine the public’s opinion on issues relating to politics, entertainment, business, and sometimes off the wall topics.  There is a website you can go to that allows you to see people’s opinion on literally ANYTHING you could imagine.   Buzzdash.com allows anyone to create a new survey (buzzbites) on whatever topic they want. Some of these buzzbites are about some really off the wall topics, but still very interesting to read about! Buzzbites can even be put on your own website to capture the opinion on any desired topic.

View real-time popular opinion on a range of timely issues.
Express opinions by voting or commenting on individual issues.
Post individual buzzbites to personal web pages, blogs or emails.
Create buzzbites for personal use, for submission to BuzzDash, or both.

Leadpile Lead Exchange should maybe come up with a buzzbite for our website, about various subject matters we are sometimes trying to determine amongst our marketplace.  So, is there anything you want to know the public’s opinion on?  This is the place to go to gather that information! Go take a look…. you might learn something!

Being that this is a blog and we have an interest in other bloggers, I thought I would point out Time.com’s 2nd annual top 25 blogs for 2009.  Unfortunately, Leadpile missed the list this year, however this list is a very interesting list I thought I would share.

Many Leadpile Lead Exchange publishers are looking at monetizing a blog/website, or are looking for some new content for their sites.  These blogs might be a great place to take a look at for some ideas.

1.  Talkingpointsmemo.com- great source for news
2. The Huffington Post- political blog
3. Lifehacker.com- place to look for tips on making life easier
4. Metafilter.com- blog about anything readers deem important to share with others
5. The Daily Dish by Andrew Sullivan- very opinionated political blog
6. Freakonomics.com- economic theory and how it really relates to real life
7. Boingboing.com- geeks writing about wonderful things and presenting can’t believe it photos
8. Got2begreen.com- everything green blog
9. Zenhabits.net- blog about ways you can become more productive
10. The Conscious of a Liberal-economist with a lot of great views to share

and more………

Blogs, like all of these, are a great source for information and keeping up to date on current events.  Take a look, you might learn something new!

There is generation “X” and baby boomers that we all hear about, however have you ever heard of Generation “V”? Generation V is the generation of the future… the generation that is dealing with online EVERYTHING. Unlike the other generations, Generation V is not defined by an age, gender, social class or where they live. However, this generation is based on what they can and have achieved, accomplishments, and an increasing desire for the use of digital media channels to discover information and build knowledge. If you are a company that is not online… you better be soon!
According to marketingcharts.com, 80% of generation V will be “lurkers”. These are people that will reap the rewards of the online world. Others are trying to be apart of the online world by participating in the activites such as blog posts, forums, and YouTube. Those is previous years did not do such things to keep an online presence, however this is something that companies need to take a look at when dealing with how they market their company online. Defined demographics of consumers are a way of the past, because it is getting harder and harder to determine those that are online and buying the product.
Companies must change around how their online presence is represented, because so many people are using the internet as their only source for information and other key aspects to their daily lives. Why is it though that many create accounts in places such as dating sites, email providers and blogs, that is not themselves (anonymous)? Are they trying to protect themselves from people knowing who they really are? Not sure on why Generation V does this, but we will see how much more the online world really affects various things such as retail, dating, lead generation and other up and coming industries.
I have to say the publishers I work with in the Leadpile Lead Exchange are mostly going to be considered Genration V. These are people that live, breath and do everything around the internet.
We welcome all generations to our marketplace, but I have a feeling there will be much more Generation V making up the Leadpile Lead Exchange!

There has been some recent blog posts by myself and my peers, regarding the Affiliate Summit Boston we recently attended. After attending this particular show, I could not believe all the new companies that are becoming a part of the Affiliate Marketing world. Companies that you would not expect are getting into affiliate marketing. The fact is these publishers and advertisers are realizing they are going to reach more people through the internet, versus other advertising methods.

According to Jupiter Research, “In 2008, online marketers will spend $2.1 billion on affiliate marketing fees, with US online affiliate marketing spending reaching $3.3 billion in 2012.” Companies from Sandels Vacations to Overstock.com are getting in on affiliate marketing. Companies like the idea of getting involved in affiliate marketing because there is not much cost to them to do this, and the cost that is involved is performance based. This means that if you have an affiliate program and there is no success, than there is no loss of revenue for the company. This low risk advertising is one of the reasons affiliate marketing is becoming such a large part of the marketing world.
Unfortunately, with the greatness of affiliate marketing there comes some bad. There are some unethical affiliates who are not always doing the “right” thing. This sort of behavior is something companies will just have to continue to monitor, to maintain the greatness of their affiliate programs.
Searching forums, blogs and other online information about affiliate marketing is key to perfecting it. Leadpile Lead Exchange will continue to be involved in events such as the Afffiliate Summit, and other online affiliate marketing forums.

KNOWLEDGE = power
AFFILIATE MARKETING = building your business