In the end a small businesses with a good leader can swim nimbly through any situation whether it be economic, strategic, demand/supply related or anything else. So without further ado, here are the top reasons why the small fish rules the ocean.

ONE: Small Businesses Are for Everyone!
With low start up rates and your choice of business platforms, ideas, inventions, services and products the internet business world is for anyone and everyone with an idea. Innovative and ambitious folks as young as six and as old as… well, I guess as long as you’re not dead you can start a business. Website tools are designed for beginner and intermediate designers alike making website set up easier than ever. All you really need is a computer, internet and a little extra time on your hands.

Computer Economics Inc. of Carlsbad, CA, calculates that approximately 8% of all teenagers in the USA, or about 1.6 million are making at least some kind of income on the internet.

Young Michael Furdyk was only 10 when he started M&S enterprises with his friend, Sean to teach people in their neighborhood how to use their computers. At 16 he sold his first website, MyDesktop.com, for over $1 Million in 1998. Now 26, he is the founder of TakingITGlobal.org which is run by 15 core staff with the help of 50 contractors and “coordinators”. He also consults for several Fortune 500 companies including Microsoft and advocates heavily for Youth IT and Technology Education. Because Furdyk was able to think big, and go big without actually growing big, he was able to dictate where he put his efforts and resources. He was also able to remain flexible and make a quick profit on the turn around of his smaller, less meaningful projects.

TWO: Inexpensive Start up and Maintenance.
If you’re considering putting your business online, don’t think that it needs to be as big or profitable as Furdyk’s. Many online stores have an even less expensive start up and make their owners a reasonable annual living either as a part-time or full time venture.

Take for instance Jessica Jollota of Biddeford, Maine. She started MySilverCrown.net as a place to exhibit and sell her handmade jewelry and gifts. The website startup/maintenance cost is about $15 per month and the sales it generates act as a nice second income.

Worried about the cost of goods, or that wholesale distributers won’t sell to you because your order isn’t big enough? Even wholesalers who would prefer large orders from big retail names, have to recognize when shelf space is getting tighter as more products fill the market. The internet broadens their customer base instantly so it only makes sense to give small, online retailers a good deal on smaller orders.

THREE: Find your niche.
Big businesses need to diversify in order to keep up with business expenses and sustain their profit margins. Small business owners on the other hand, are able to do one thing really well and make a good living for themselves and then some. There’s always holes in the market that are too small for the large companies to deal with in a cost efficient way. Those small holes can mean big profits for a small business owner who is willing to pick it up

One such example is Jibbitz, those little decorative buttons for the popular Croc Shoes. They started out as a fun arts and crafts project for Sheri Schmeizer and her three kids and were soon in demand all over the neighborhood. They knew they had found a unique niche in the Croc market, so the Schmeizers officially launched Jibbitz and in one year they had sold over eight million of them. Since then, Crocs, Inc. has acquired Jibbitz and Mr. and Mrs. Schmeizer operates the wholly owned subsidiary of Crocs Inc. as the President and CEO.

FOUR: Less Stress in Hard Economic Times.
That’s not to say that an economic downturn isn’t stressful or even possibly catastrophic to small businesses. But, thanks to that maneuverability we talked about earlier, small internet businesses or businesses that at least have an internet presence are more likely to come out of those situations intact at least.

When the economy hits a downward spiral, big companies start downsizing and put most of their effort into saving money. Smaller businesses typically have cost effective strategies implemented no matter what the economy is like. The difference is that many small businesses have less overhead to worry about and therefore are running on a wider profit margin than those big corporations. While the big sharks are worrying about their next meal, the little fish is focusing on developing a new niche or territory.

FIVE: Self-Sustaining and Self-Generating Growth.
The amount of revenue a small business brings in determines the level of strategic growth it will undergo or the amount of cutbacks it will have to make. This “bootstrap” strategy (named for the old saying: “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.”) applies to staffing, outsourcing, physical growth as well as the acquisitions and sales of other businesses.

Most successful small e-businesses only have 1-5 employees along with (possibly) some contract workers. (Wikipedia was a prime example of this for a long time.) When your company starts taking on new projects and revenue then increasing staff to accommodate customer/company demands is reasonable. When times are tough it’s much easier (and ethical) for small businesses to let go of one or two employees if necessary, than it is for large corporations to let go of hundreds or thousands of employees.

This theory also applies to internet marketing, SEO and SEM tactics. Pay-Per-Clicks, keywords and other SEO/M tactics are not only inexpensive, but can easily be adjusted according to which keywords, PPC’s or tactics are bringing in the most visit-to-sale conversions. Although it’s always a bad idea to skimp on marketing, having a revenue-centered plan is always a smart idea so that you never go above your budget line.

SIX: The Anti-Growth Strategy
You’re small, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be picky. Sure, some folks think that they should take on every client that comes their way because “every little bit helps” right?”

Wrong! Customers who aren’t making you a lot of money, don’t pay on time or are taking time away from better paying clients aren’t worth your effort! They can actually take away from your bottom line and make it tough for you to operate a successful business.

This is sage advice for many small business: Don’t grow too fast. Make staying small your growth strategy.

CNNMoney.com did a report in October on a small company called “Incredible Foods” run by Jim Christy. About ten years ago Christy landed Starbucks as one of his new accounts.

“They were opening new stores in northeast Ohio and Pennsylvania in 1998 and wanted me to distribute a single product, a crumb cake.” Christy stated.

I think we all remember how fast Starbucks grew over the last ten years. Christy had to hire two employees just to cover all the paperwork and reports for his Starbucks account. Not to mention the fact that he had to dedicate five trucks for delivery to their multiple locations nationwide, pay for gas, insurance, employee benefits, workers comp and still turn out products for his other clients. Starbucks was generating about 48% of his annual sales. However, Christy was uncomfortable with putting 48% of his eggs in one basket. He felt that by cutting the chord with Starbucks, reducing his staff size from 13 to 6, working out of just one office instead of two and focusing on local markets he would be able to run a stronger company.

It was a risk to give up almost half of his revenue, but he was right for doing it. Last year his company made $2.2 million and he expects a 22% increase in revenue for 2009. Incredible Foods is another great example of a company that had the flexibility to take a risk, stay in control and become stronger by staying small.

SEVEN: More Freedom to Form Strategic Partnerships
Recently Yahoo and Google called it quits on their strategic advertising agreement since it may have possibly brought up some antitrust law issues. Even if corporations can steer around any legal issues that arise with forming a partnership, they still are faced with lengthy approval procedures.

Small businesses don’t have that problem since they aren’t big enough to be a threat to anyone. (At least that’s what we want them to believe, right?) Forming partnerships, whether it be for SEO and advertising purposes or just working on a common project or goal together, can be beneficial for everyone involved. Sometimes all it takes is exchanging a short write up and a links to increase each other’s traffic. Want to make a stir with your partnership? Put it in a press release. You can do it because small businesses have the freedom to create strategic partnerships with whomever (and however) they choose.

April O’Keefe, owner of AOK Herbals in Kittery, Maine, started up her small business for just $5000. Her ability to create strategic partnerships with other locally owned companies is one of her primary marketing and advertising resources – her second being word of mouth referrals from clients. Online, O’Keefe benefits from link exchanges and cross-selling of products and services. Offline, they reap the same benefits in addition to being able to work together as strategic partners with the common goal of educating and empowering their clients and the community they serve.

Because this group of local small businesses is able to stick together and form relationships without government regulation, they are stronger as individual businesses. It is a luxury that big businesses are not always able to enjoy.

EIGHT: A More Personal Approach.
This one is obvious. Small businesses often mean more personal service. Although buying from big businesses can have its advantages, most people are getting increasingly tired of becoming just another sale or number. They want to shop in a place (even online, believe it or not) where they can call or email someone with a question and get a “live” person on the other end. They want quick and reliable service from someone, not some company. You, the business owner, are able to deal with difficult situations and questions directly and immediately. Customers appreciate this and show it with loyalty and referrals.

In the last 5-10 years there has been an increasing awareness of the importance of local economy and small business support. This is why putting an emphasis on your local area in SEO/M efforts is so important. Customers feel that they are contributing to their country or local economy somehow when they know their purchase is from a local or a small business owner. Put your face on the website. Let your clients know who you are and thank them for supporting your local/small business.

NINE: Adapt and Overcome!
There’s obviously an overarching theme here that large businesses lack the flexibility and control that small business owners have. Part of that is the ability to completely change the direction of your business at the drop of a hat. What you’re selling now, may not turn a profit tomorrow.

Today you may be selling friendship bracelets, tomorrow you could be selling ketchup. It’s that easy because you have the flexibility to flow with the market, and enough control over your company to make key decisions quickly without having to consult with anyone else. How, when and why you decide to go from bracelets to ketchup is completely up to you.

TEN: Strategic Marketing
I don’t know if you’ve ever been witness to a corporation who is either

a) Trying to rebrand itself
b) Trying to change their current online marketing strategy, or…
c) Trying to adopt an online marketing strategy… period.

It takes a team of marketing professionals to come up with an idea that has to be approved by some executive or board. Then of course some website designer, copywriter, consultant, board member or manager will always have an objection so in an effort to please as many people as possible they’ll make adjustments. It can take up to 18 months and it’s relatively painful to watch.

What does your small business strategic online marketing plan involve? You and your consultant. That’s it. Your consultant advises you and you make the final decision. The whole thing will take anywhere from 1-30 days to devise and implement. By the time that big corporation implements their strategic online marketing strategy you would have been reaping the benefits of your new online marketing plan for months.

Yahoo! President, Sue Decker stated that “Yahoo! continues to believe in the benefits of the agreement and we are disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw… rather than defend it in court.”

The agreement was an essential step in strengthening Yahoo! Corporation. It would have allowed Yahoo! to step up their investment, growth and general business strategies. Decker stated in a memo to her employees that although the Google deal would have helped to accelerate their strategy for growth, Yahoo! still has other deals and efforts in the works. She also went on to say that this fall-through does not change “Yahoo!’s commitment to innovation and growth in search.”

She cited the improvements that Yahoo! has undergone including “monetization and driving query growth.” Decker also noted that just in 2008, Yahoo! has added and developed new ranking models, index updates and expansion and fine-tuned their overall performance. “Not surprisingly, we are seeing results, with the company benefitting from strong RPS gains, as discussed in our Q3 earnings call. Further, we are adding search and contextual ad functionalities on a regular basis.”

At a 2.0 conference in San Francisco, there were questions about whether Yahoo! would allow Microsoft to purchase it under the current circumstances. Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang replied, “There’s no new news.” But he also stated that buying Yahoo! at the right price would be the best thing Microsoft could possibly do right now. When asked about a possible purchase of AOL, Yang said that he couldn’t talk about it.

Yang did however talk about his commitment to Yahoo!. “I don’t take my position lightly. It’s a very serious obligation… There has been a lot of change, a lot of people coming and leaving, but the plans we’ve tried to execute against have been done and I’m extremely proud…”

Despite their disappointment, execs at Yahoo! seem to be incredibly optimistic and seem to plan on moving forward aggressively. According to Decker’s memo, Yahoo! is stepping up the “efforts to create a more open, efficient and effective marketplace…” This will mean new tools designed for easier interaction between users, advertisers and publishers. Yahoo! also has plans to lead the way in cutting edge technology advances in order to provide better products, services and platforms for customers. As consumers, business owners, marketing professionals and developers we’ll just have to wait and see where Yahoo! really decides to go from here.

“The only problem with search is that it’s awful, but other than that it works pretty well.” Tom Chi of Yahoo! Corporation said of current search engines. He was referring to the fact that although search is a wonderful and useful tool, it could also be a little more user friendly and helpful. “People are still doing navigational searches for Ebay.com” he added. This is significant because not only are they getting relevant direct results on their results page, they are also getting lots of other stuff they don’t need – both in direct results and in the ads section. It’s become “flooded with too much noise” as Murphy puts it. People hardly know what to do with the millions of results they get.

As a basic internet instructor for adults I see it everyday. Students look up at the top right hand corner and see that there are millions of results for “Gardening” but I can’t get them past the first page for some reason. If what they are looking for isn’t right there in those first ten results, they just give up. They would actually rather try another keyword than venture deeper in to the website. Occasionally I can get them to page two or three, but that’s as far as they’ll go.

Another problem is unintelligent search results. When users search for “eby.com” they don’t get anywhere, even though what they’re looking for is obvious. Major search engines aren’t compelled to change this because those faulty search results yield the same profits that correct ones do.

Yahoo! has started to take steps to help its search platform evolve through SearchMonkey, which I’ve talked about before. It is essentially a mix between a wiki and a search engine in the sense that it allows website owners, developers and programmers to create applications that enhance the users search experience.

Other search engines like are working on vertical search systems that give more specialized results. Siderean is interested in developing a vertical search for business tools, networking and resources. Both Yahoo! and Siderean are taking a smart step forward since part of the problem, according to Tague, is that search corporations need to solve is how to integrate search with social graphs and networking.

So what’s the future of search? Will change come in an amalgam of search, wiki and social networking? Or in an evolutionary bang in proportion to algorithms? No one seems to really know what the gen-next of search will look like. But don’t worry. Users can rest assured that the experts are on it.

Back in September news started leaking out that Google may throw out its deal with Yahoo!. The two companies combined currently handle 80% of internet searches all over the world. It’s understandable then why the US Justice Department was bringing up issues of possible antitrust violations.

Although the US Justice Department had already hired an antitrust litigator, Yahoo! was steadfast in calling the deal lawful, stating that “We have been informed that the Justice Department… is seeking advice from an outside consultant, but we should read nothing into that fact. We remain confident that the deal is lawful.”

Google may have seemed hopeful at first too. However, early this morning Google’s Senior VP and Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond announced that Google would not move forward on the deal.

“…after four months of review, including discussions of various possible changes to the agreement, it’s clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement. Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners.” Stated Drummond in his blog.

Drummond also expressed his regret for having to pull out of the deal since the company felt that I would have been a win-win situation not only for Google and Yahoo!, but for publishers, advertisers and users as well.

Yahoo! had no comment on their Search Blog as of this posting. I’m sure there’s more to come though.

Sounds great, and it was. Unfortunately Google failed to get permission from the authors and publishers before scanning and posting their work. As a result, Google.com was sued (almost exactly three years ago to the day) in 2005 by the Author’s Guild, The Association of American Publishers and several other copyright holders for profiting from their work without properly compensating them for it.

Well on Tuesday, the two sides finally reached a settlement.

So what does this mean for Google, readers, publishers and authors? David Drummond, Google’s Chief Legal Officer stated in his Official Google Blog on Tuesday that

“This agreement is truly groundbreaking in three ways. First, it will give readers digital access to millions of in-copyright books; second, it will create a new market for authors and publishers to sell their works; and third, it will further the efforts of our library partners to preserve and maintain their collections while making books more accessible to students, readers and academic researchers.”

David Drummond, Google

Not only was Drummond pleased, but Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin expressed their excitement over the deal as well. All in all it was a very fair and beneficial ruling. Let’s do a more detailed breakdown of the settlement to see what Google, the copyright Holders and Readers can expect to happen next…

GOOGLE
The internet giant will be allowed to scan books that have a valid copyright which are also out of print. They can sell online access to individual books within digests and volumes, offer subscriptions to university databases. In the near future they should be allowed to let subscribers print the books that they search for and find on Google.com.

Google is also expected to fund and help to establish a new Book Rights Registry which will be managed by copyright holders. The purpose of this new registry is to “address the orphan works problem” by locating and representing copyright holders, make old and out of copy books more available to the public, and to distribute all royalties that Google pays out.

Of course there’s always the matter of money. Under the settlement Google will be paying out a total f $125 million as an upfront payment and an additional $34.5 million to fund the new registry.

Google Hands Over $125+ million in Settlement

PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS
Obviously the new Book Rights Registry will be beneficial to all copyright holders since it allows them to be paid fairly for the use of their work. Aside from cashing in on 63% of Google’s book search profits, publishers and authors are getting about $45 million up front – or about sixty bucks per book.

Copyright holders will be able to have more control of how their work will be used. Google will be allowed to give non-subscribers a look at about 20% of the content in each out of print book. Subscribers will have full access to Google’s scanned out of print tomes. In order to offer the same access to in print books, Google will need permission from copyright holders.

Drummond notes in his blog that although the settlement only covers United States users and copyright holders, Google will do it’s best to respect everyone. International authors and publisher will be able to register themselves in the new Book Rights Registry so they can be paid fairly. International users will be able to search and view the full content of out of print texts, “but will not be able to preview or purchase access to books online unless these services are authorized by the rights-holder of a book.”

READERS
Under the agreement, readers will need to subscribe to services in order to view the full text of these books. They will also have greater access to more texts that they wouldn’t have other wise, which was Google’s and the copyright holders’ ultimate goal.

Thanks to a part of the agreement that allows Google and participating libraries to develop new technology and services, users and subscribers with disabilities will also have full access to these books.

For more information on the deal, you can go to Google’s press release.

Nick Cox of Yahoo! Search states in the YSearchBlog that although guidelines for submission are pretty clear, they are willing to bend the rules a little for experimental apps that at least function as intended and don’t have any “major issues.”

Users who are looking for the newest beta applications can go to Yahoo! Search Gallery Beta and select the “Show Experimental Enhancements” link at the bottom. Right above that link it will tell users how many new experimental apps are available. From there you can play around, provide feedback directly to the developers, make feature requests and even get automatic updates on your favorites.

It’s pretty slim pickings right now, but if it’s anything like Google’s App Gallery, (and it kind of is) then I’m sure it will take off pretty quickly with the Yahoo!-lover crowd.

Yahoo! has once again proven why they are Google’s top competitor. For small businesses, Yahoo! will provide real time “enterprise level data” on their e-store including products and marketing. The Custom Microsite service provides tools to track and analyze how visitors spend their time on a merchant’s website and give owners a better idea of how to plan online branding and make their website more user friendly. The third part of Yahoo! Web Analytics, called “Yahoo! Open Strategy” (YOS) is for the developers. It was designed to provide API users with “analytics-enhanced reporting” in order to better understand user engagement and habits. These will be custom made reports and allows developers and e-biz manager follow the latest trends and visitor behaviors.

Yahoo! Web Analytics boasts ten specific services and benefits:

An Executive Dashboard which allows managers to customize the metrics, benchmarks and gauges in order to track progress, identify issues and set achievable goals. What I like about this feature is that every employee can have their own dashboard if you want them to. Personally I would stick with strictly management access, but the point is that you have a choice.

Custom Reporting Wizard allows managers to organize reports and include/exclude data according to what your business needs are.

Advanced Campaign Management measures CPC, CPM, CPA and ROI of each form of advertising. Because it’s real-time information, managers can adjust their budget, and organize reports as needed.

Real Time Segmentation analyzes each customer demographic and segment individually. This will permit managers to view how website visitors are responding to landing pages, campaigns, layouts and calls to action. It also enables managers to identify target groups of visitors so that they can better utilize their marketing budget.

The Live Cost Analysis compares search engine prices from Google, Yahoo! and MSN and integrates the data from revenue on your website, measures your paid search ROI and analyzes keyword effectiveness.

Managers can also analyze purchasing patterns, track product and product combination sales as well as preview their carts and suggest additional items they may be interested in with Yahoo!’s Merchandise Reporting feature. Reports can be created to track cancelled or changed orders and calculate your campaign’s profitability.

Scenario Analysis actually allows mangers to track visitor paths, behavior, and task completions allowing managers to redefine processes for the future as well as how those would have worked well in the past. This goes hand in had with the Advanced Path Analysis feature which allows managers to view popular user paths as a branched map.

Yahoo! Web Analytics allows managers to view and compare multiple reports side by side with their Comparative Reporting feature. Managers can bookmark reports and analyze their history to improve future processes and campaigns.

Marketing Workflow Management allows internet marketing managers to monitor the website and manage reports. This feature allows you to see how random and planned events (such as power failures, website changes or holidays) can affect website traffic. It will also send out an email alert to bring any changes to the manager’s attention. Colleagues can communicate, share notes and reports on their dashboard as well.

But that’s not all. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but here in the USA teenagers have astronomical amounts of buying power. Not only do they hold their own part time jobs, but they also have tremendous influence over their parent’s purchases. According to the US National Center for Education (2008), there are approximately 15 million high school students and 8% of them (or 1.2 million) own an iPhone. In spring of 2008 about 9% of teens who did not already own an iPhone wanted to buy one. In six months that number jumped to 22%. Out of all the students who planned on purchasing a new phone in the next six months, 33% of them specifically said they wanted an iPhone.

Anyone in the marketing field knows that technology such as smart phones and the internet have become important parts of teenage life. They are incredibly dependent on these as an intricate part of their lives in school as a learning tool, socially outside of school and for recreational browsing. Granted they aren’t the only customers that businesses should cater to, but they are the immediate future of internet browsing and purchasing. Their habits are the future habits of America.

So the question remains: Do you have an iPhone friendly website?

With phones being so much more than just phones, it’s important that websites and bloggers ensure they are iPhone compatible. By either making your current website iPhone compatible or setting up an additional iPhone compatible website, you are making yourself more accessible to customers. Not only that, but your original site will collect more quality links for it.

There are two problems that iPhone users face when using their mobile browser. The first is a download speed that is slightly slower than their desktop counterparts. The second is the small screen resolution of only 320×480. Website managers need to develop a site that loads quickly and doesn’t force users to scroll through the page as much. They can do this by reducing (or eliminating) any unnecessarily large pictures, Flash or “heavy” content from the new/updated website. Also, many websites are optimizing, coding and configuring themselves to work with iPhones accelerometer so that different content can be displayed by holding the iPhone different ways.

It’s also a good idea to start developing some relevant iPhone apps. Applications for the iPod are relatively inexpensive and they are a huge market right now. In economically hard times, the iPhone apps can be considered a small, affordable luxury and provide the user with news, games, weather, music or whatever. Creating your own application not only helps to drive traffic to your website, but can make you a little extra on the side as well.

There are websites that can help you build apps and configure your website for use on the iPhone as well as other smart phone brands. However, you may at some point reach a point of difficulty that a professional becomes necessary. Whatever you decide keep in mind that the iPhones have been and will most likely to remain the most popular mobile browser in the world. But after the iPod phenomenon, did we really expect anything less from them?

“These highly relevant news stories and videos are being posted to the hackers’ fake blogs to increase the site’s Google search rankings.”

Webroot went on to state that “These fraudulent blogs contain several video links about the news story for which the users were originally searching. Once a user clicks on one of the video links, they are prompted to download a video codec that downloads a rogue antispyware program designed to goad the user into purchasing an illegitimate program that may put their personal information and data at even greater risk.”

The motivation behind all this is not surprising. There’s a lot of money to be made and according to Dancho Danchev, an independent security consultant and cyber threat analyst, ten or more malware blogs can start to appear in the top ten result pages in less than an hour. “Upon clicking the link, the user is exposed to the typical ActiveX Object Error message that is attempting to trick them into installing TrojanDownloader:Win32/Zlob.AMV with 10 out of 36 AV scanners currently detecting it (27.78%).” stated Danchev.

Granted, black hat is nothing new. What is unique is the fact that by using this ongoing research technique cyber criminals actually have a better chance of increasing their traffic and getting users to purchase their malware-ridden products.

How can you protect yourself? Webroot gives these five tips:

1. Always have a current version of antispyware, antivirus and firewall product;

2. Never download free product or purchase them from unknown Web sites and vendors, or peer
to peer networks;

3. Download videos and other multimedia files only from known and trusted Web sites or blogs;

4. Make sure the computer is up-to-date by always installing the latest Microsoft or Apple
security updates; and,

5. Use a credit card that has sufficient fraud protection when shopping and never use a debit
card online.

You are a part of one or have seen heaps of buzz about them. Social networks are here to stay and are only going to get bigger.

From an advertiser’s perspective it’s pretty hard to grab someone’s attention and keep them focused on your adverts. So many times have I seen companies pour millions of dollars down the drain on social network advertising, in the hope that people will buy their products or services?

So why doesn’t advertising work on social networks?

All the online marketing gurus say it’s about building brand awareness, and it is to some extent. But if you have been in the business long enough, you’ll know that measuring brand effectiveness can be very expensive and time consuming. There are a lot of companies out there that provide these services such as Nielson Buzz Metrics, but be warned – only if you’re willing to spend the big bucks.
Don’t get me wrong, BRAND is important, but like any sales or marketing person will say “Show me the money!”

So how can we leverage off social networks and actually take some ROI?

I have a theory and as cliché as it might sound, it’s about getting personal and understanding the “4 core elements” of personality groups and targeting them based on their characteristics.

If you are a marketer or not, most companies target their databases into areas that are functional, beneficial and emotionally appealing – which is mostly known as the value proposition. But before that is concluded they break their databases down into segments which are usually based on primary and secondary research.

Online segmentation is however measured differently as other elements come into play such as time spent, bounce rates, etc. This can be very difficult to do and is also extremely time consuming.
But what if there were another way to segment and target a core set of consumers online based on your value proposition? I believe you can – through social networks.

I strongly believe that the future of online targeting will be based on a person’s characteristics.

Here are some advantages:

• Personalised communication strategies for campaigns
• Greater understanding of behavioural patterns
• Making each experience relevant, personal and engaging

Now here comes the cliché part, based on astrology (I know, for all you men out here banging your heads against the wall, there is some logic behind this) you can “assume” all people share common characteristics based on their element sign.

These are broken down into 4 elements:

• Fire = Leo, Aries & Sagittarius
Are known to be; irresponsible, impatient, boastful, positive, extraverted, active, creative, ingenious, dynamic, highly energetic, outspoken, fiery temper, passionate, emotionally intense

• Water = Scorpio, Cancer, Pisces
Are known to be; deeply intuitive, imaginative, emotional, reserved, not gregarious, exceedingly passionate, self pity, sensitive, pessimistic, overly vague, secretive

• Earth = Capricorn, Virgo, Taurus
As known to be; stable, practical, realistic, cautious, hard-working, dependable, highly materialistic, inhibited, introverted, down to earth, calm

• Air = Gemini, Libra, Aquarius
Are known to be; free spirited, philosophical, intellectual, open minded, idealistic, adventurous, restless, unpredictable, interactive, extraverted, emotionally aloof, opinionated

Even if you don’t believe in astrology – it’s about finding the right set of ‘people characteristics’ for your product or service. Understanding the personality that wants or needs your products or services is important and knowing how to leverage on that.

Because at the end of the day, they will be your distribution channel when it comes to word of mouth or recommending your product or service to other people online and offline.

So having the right personality representing your brand will be just as important as the way you communicate across all channels.