Undertake extensive use behavior studies:
Most importantly is to understand that most successful digital marketing ventures are not based on innovation, but, through research, gaining knowledge of your customers’ likes and dislikes. Knowing this provides the vendor with an avenue of continued communication.

Use engaging elements to connect:
Secondly, do not just hope for a miracle by posting a batch of videos, selling your product or service on the internet in hopes that it somehow takes off. Television and Internet videos are both filled with an inexhaustible supply of people and genres. Viewing videos often leads to a less than engaging experience. The media of television makes it difficult for a business to make their customers feel that your brand is their brand.

Initiate conversations:
Thirdly, with social networking sites being the latest rage, it is of importance to never just join a conversation on a site such as Facebook . It is best to start your own conversation in such a way that people enjoy chatting about what is offered, not necessarily just talking to you as an individual. A brand has a better chance of selling itself if it is talked about with frequency by its consumers.

Tell an interesting story:
Fourth, one of the oldest rules of advertising is to not just sell your product or service but to tell a story about it, personalizing the brand. One should take care to fully explain what is offered, but by doing so in such a way that it is clear that you yourself believe in the product.

User Generated Content
Lastly, the old tried and true User Generated Content (UGC) method might not be the newest idea around, but it is a hands-off way to gain publicity for a ware or a service. No one person or team of people in a business can possibly spread the word of a business venture like UGC can, and has.

To best serve its members and provide excellent health care, NALTO and other similar groups need to be active in the online world with efforts such as SEO, SEM, data feeds and social media. This leads to greater familiarity and awareness as traditional printed media has taken a back seat to increasingly important and potent digital marketing services.

In today’s world, an awareness campaign (marketing is perhaps a better word) consists predominately of online efforts designed to bring an organization’s message and purpose to a much broader audience. And in doing so, a health care-based organization can reach out in a broader way to create a positive effect on health care as a whole.

Even to an agency that oversees the proper and ethical administration of health care such as NALTO, market share and return on investment are not seen as being inappropriate goals. In fact, they are part of the necessary efforts that allow their work to continue, all with the final effect being first rate, comprehensive health care to those who need physician’s services on a contract basis.

With digital marketing companies such as Avenue180 at the forefront of their efforts, NALTO and others will only benefit from an effective and increasing online presence.

Gaming developer Storm8 has been sued for allegedly collecting phone numbers of iPhone users who downloaded the company’s popular games from the iTunes app store.

“The wireless telephone numbers of users’ phones are not used or necessary to play any of Storm8′s games, yet Storm8 has written the software for all its games in such a way that it automatically accesses, collects, and transmits the wireless telephone number of each iPhone user who downloads any Storm8 game,” states the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Lynwood, Wash. resident Michael Turner.

Turner alleges that Storm8′s surreptitious data collection violates the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as well as California state laws. He is seeking class-action status.

In late August, news reports surfaced alleging that Storm8′s apps for the iPhone had a “phone home” feature that transmitted users’ wireless numbers to the company. Storm8 offers games like “Vampires Live,” “Zombies Live” and “Rockstars Live” through Apple’s iTunes apps store. The company responded to the reports by saying its system had a “bug,” but that it had since been fixed.

Turner alleges in his lawsuit that he downloaded Storm8′s games in July and August, after which the company “harvested his wireless telephone number without notifying him or obtaining his consent.”

Storm8 didn’t respond to Online Media Daily’s request for comment.

Turner’s lawyer, Michael Aschenbrener of KamberEdelson, says his client’s main objective is to ensure that Storm8 is barred from collecting private data in the future. Storm8 says that it no longer gathers wireless numbers, but Aschenbrener argues that promise isn’t sufficient to protect consumers. “A public admission is not the same as a legal representation or legal injunction,” he says.

One potential hurdle for Turner is that the section of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that he alleges was violated appears to require proof not only that computers were unlawfully accessed, but also that they were damaged. Aschenbrener says that Storm8 caused damage because it “impaired the integrity of the data stored on a protected computer.”

But some legal experts are not convinced. Venkat Balasubramani of Seattle says that while Storm8 allegedly engaged in some questionable practices, there might not be a legal remedy — especially because the data collected isn’t as sensitive as other types of information, like social security numbers or bank accounts. “iPhone numbers are not necessarily confidential,” he says. “Many people just give them out.”

Plus, there’s more: Publishers installing Facebook share buttons can also get data back related to how many times that link has been shared, how many users have hit the thumbs-up “like” button or commented on shared versions of the story on Facebook, and how many people have clicked back to it through Facebook.

These Facebook “share” buttons had existed before, and the company said that more than 2 billion pieces of content are shared per week. But this is the first time that the counter and analytics have been available.

A post on the Facebook developer blog explains: “Anyone can add the Share button to their website with little to no technical experience, and style the button from a variety of options.” Accessing the analytics however, requires a bit more coding know-how.

This could spell bad news for Digg, as Facebook’s significantly bigger and more mainstream audience could make it a far more appealing choice for site owners that would prefer to display one prominent sharing button rather than two. As for Twitter, it doesn’t actually own the app that powers the “retweet” buttons. A move like this from Facebook, however, could push it to think a bit harder about a partnership or acquisition–or hasten progress on that “retweet API” it has in the works.

Related speculation: When are we going to see a “most-shared” ranking from Facebook? That’s when Digg’s execs would really have to start sweating.

The merger would give fourth-ranked carrier T-Mobile and third-largest Sprint a combined 78 million U.S. mobile customers and position the new entity as a more formidable competitor to Verizon Wireless and AT&T. At least one analyst welcomed the deal as beneficial to the entire wireless industry because it would mean less price competition.

“There’s just too many cooks in the kitchen in the U.S. wireless market right now, and the logical route to consolidation is a combination of Sprint and T-Mobile,” Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. told Bloomberg. “This is an industry that is calling out for consolidation.”

But news of a possible T-Mobile-Sprint merger comes at a time when the government is looking broadly into competition in the wireless industry. The Federal Communications Commission last month began a formal inquiry into areas such as exclusive deals between handset makers and carriers, wireless billing practices and whether current conditions in the wireless market allow for new entrants.

The major carriers have opposed increased regulation in large part on the grounds that there’s already robust competition in the wireless market, with consumers have a choice of four or five providers in a given market. But the merger of two of the four biggest U.S. carriers would undercut that argument, leaving only three national operators.

Given the heightened scrutiny the wireless industry is already under in Washington, it doesn’t seem regulators or Congress would look favorably on such a deal that would further limit competition. So even if Wall Street is cheering the proposed match, don’t expect the deal to get a warm welcome in the capital if it comes to that.

Three tactics that I feel that warrant creating that level of plausible deniability are link buying, buying hosted content, and paying to have negative posts removed/changed. Last week a site I’m involved in received an email similar to this at the webmaster account:

From:Jane@WellKnownDomain.com
Subject: Purchasing Direct Advertising

Hi this is Jane from from WellKnownDomain.com we see that you run a website in the widget area and are very interested in purchasing a direct text link from you. We would like the link to be placed directly in the content area of one or more of your posts.

Hoping to hear back from you.

Jane

There are several things wrong with this type of approach:

• If I reply to the email and it doesn’t bounce back, as long as the headers don’t look forged it’s very hard to deny it’s real.
• If I look at your backlink profile and see some suspicious behavior like really targeted anchor text, it’s hard to deny you aren’t doing this as a regular practice.
• Mentioning things like “direct link” and “in the content area” make it very hard to deny that someone with SEO knowledge or SEO guidance isn’t involved (the search engines call this intent).

If you are aware of the risks involved with these types of tactic, and still want to try them, at the very least put a layer of protection between yourself and the website. Try something like this:

From:Janet@gmail.com
Subject: Advertising Inquiry

Hi this is Janet I see that you run a website in the widget area. I have a client and would be interested in knowing if you accept advertising and what types of placements are available.

Hoping to hear back from you.

Janet

If you get a response and it looks promising then follow up with a SECOND email inquiring about placement within posts and if they offer on-site tracking or if you can use your own direct tracking URL’s. You really don’t want to give away the domain until as late as possible, and you are comfortable the person on the other end isn’t going to NARC on you. Until you give away the domain there’s no direct connection between you and the target domain and deniability is still an option. I understand that this way takes much, much longer to do, but IMHO giving up your domain and signaling your intent to buy links with an SEO mindset in a first contact email is a kamikaze move. If you use your noodle there are  other ways you can put barriers between the website you are buying links from, but don’t ask cause I’m not telling.