FTC Rules For Bloggers goes into effect in a few days. It starts on December 1, 2009.

 Here is some info I found on the FTC site.

It tells you their rules and gives examples.

If you market online at all it does affect you.

Leave your comments about his and how you feel.

http://ftc.gov/multimedia/video/business/endorsement-guides.shtm

http://ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf

Until next time…

Joe

Social media marketing… Does it work for business.

Social media marketing was studied in a recent article from ReadWriteWeb.com . They discussed the correlation between social media marketing and financial success. What was found is exactly why small business needs to be engaged in social media marketing.

The overall results were… yes it does help. The study showed that there was up to an 18% revenue growth and up to a 15% gross margin growth. This to me is not surprising but what did surprise me were the results shown in the businesses net margin growth.

It appears social media marketing is making them money but businesses are losing it everywhere else.

ReadWriteWeb.com has provided us with some great information and did answer the question many had. Is social media marketing worth the time involved for the small business. And.. that answer is yes. To view the entire story click here: http://joe-marsh.com/tb/socialmediamarketing

Every violation of the Can-Spam Act could cost you $11,000 or more. Is this type of fine within your budget? If not you need to download this free resource.

It is a must read for anyone who markets online or is thinking about it. Claim your Free copy now.

Can Spam Act Made Easier- free can-spam pdf

Bankaholic, a blog ran by John Wu, which covers the financial industry has been purchased by Bankrate, a financial information provider, for $15 million.

Luckily the sale appears to have taken place before the recent Wall St. issues. Wu, the founder and individual creator of Bankaholic, has received $12.4 million for his blog and may also receive an additional bonus of $2.5 million for attaining certain performance results over the next 12 months.

Bankaholic provides information such as ratings of financial instruments like savings and (MMA) money market accounts, certificates of deposit (CD’s), they also insurance quotes and compare credit card offers. All of which are currently supplied by Bankrate. Visitors to the site also have the ability to comment on and rate the services of banks and financial promotions being offered.

Bankaholic is a log created on a WordPress platform. It receives income from affiliate commissions and Google adsense. In a recent quote, Thomas R. Evans, President and CEO of Bankrate, stated “We have been working with Bankaholic in a co-brand relationship since July and have seen first-hand the volume and quality of its traffic,”. “Bankaholic is ranked high in natural search for both deposit and credit card keywords. We believe their organic traffic will increase our deposit and credit card revenue, and with a high composition of free traffic, will help to improve margins,”.

Regardless of what your thoughts are about this transaction you have to give Wu credit He picked a niche. He committed and it paid off for him.

Here are the current stats, as of October 17, 2008, for Bankaholic. Quantcast registers 146,800 unique visitors with 216,000 visits and Compete registers 319,00 unique visitors per month.

So how do you feel about the deal? Was it a good deal for Wu, was it a bargain for Bankrate? Leave a comment and tell us your thoughts.