Internet marketing :: Thinking Home Business | Practical Tips For People Who Work From Home

New Third Tribe community offers an interesting option for online marketers

It seems I’m not the only one who has been feeling less than comfortable about the options for promoting products and services online.

Hence the subject heading for this post, asking whether “ethical Internet marketing” is an oxymoron.

I am passionate about how the Internet especially now with the power of social media (but even long, long ago before even the Web! but that’s another story) helps us create and enhance wonderful relationships and link up with various communities of interest. I love the generosity and sharing I experience every day. Trouble is, all that relationship building does not of itself generate a lot of income. Which is ok if you have a well paid job or very rich and indulgent other parties – spouses, parents, etc – who cover your expenses. But not so ok if you would like to complement your love of being online with a nice, steady income stream.

But of course there are all those courses you can do to make money online.

The trouble with that option is that, if you are not one of those people who are born able to sell ice to people living in the frozen north, or if you baulk at telling lies and tricking people and don’t regard that as “just business”, you may have found a few of the lessons you’ve paid for not so easy, or practically impossible, to put into practice.

Now I hasten to say there is no question in my mind that there are actually quite a lot of very ethical, decent people who have become financially successful online and who are teaching how to make money online ethically.

But there is also no question in my mind that it is not easy for people new to the scene (or even, sometimes, for some of us who have been around for a while) to spot the difference, to be able to tell who is ethical, truly social and truly interested in providing quality service and products from the, shall we say, less ethically challenged players.

A new option: Third Tribe

So what if there was a community where you mingle and learn, with structured courses and useful resources, and forums to compare notes, a place where you could start to feel some confidence about doing business online and still be able to look family and friends in the eye and tell them proudly how you have managed to buy that new house, or take that long-planned holiday cruise?

Well, it’s early days, but from where I sit, The Third Tribe looks like the genuine article, and may even prove to be in due course the veritable bee’s knees and the cat’s pajamas.

The Third Tribe’s tag line is: Internet Marketing Strategies That Work – (Without Being Obnoxious) .

There are good people involved, some of whom I know and have met, including the legendary Problogger, Darren Rowse, also Chris Brogan the social media wiz, and Brian Clark of Copyblogger fame (I haven’t actually spoken with Brian but I did introduce a panel he was on at BlogWorld Expo in 2008, so I think that counts as having “met”, sort of – the point is, he is real).

As to the general body of members starting to gather to this tribe, I am already amazed and frankly somewhat in awe, seeing from the forums the range and depth of business and Internet-related experience of members. This is looking like a seriously interesting place to be able to hang out and have good, productive and enjoyable conversation, as well as learning from the courses and using other resources to be provided.

For the first week, which we are half way through, so until Feb 5th, there is an offer for Charter membership at $27 a month, with a 100% refund of the first month fee if you are not satisfied.

There is no affiliate program so there is no link here to earn me any financial benefit. (Update: an affiliate program was introduced after this post was written – it still won’t benefit me as I’m not part of the community now.)

I just believe this new community could make a huge difference, especially to people working solo or in couples from home and not sure whom to believe and whom to trust in the sometimes confusing world of online marketing. Here’s the (no affiliate) link: Third Tribe.

If you decide to give it a whirl, I hope you will comment here, however the experience turns out for you.

Everything Old is New Again

As the New Year gets underway, here at our Webarts company we are getting into serious rollout time for a couple of new business services.

One of those, which we have been developing over the past couple of months, is Webarts Online Marketing.

Webarts Online Marketing is basically about helping “offline” businesses engage effectively online with their customers and prospective customers, to gain new business and more repeat business from their existing clientele.

But it’s really just struck me today that when I say Webarts Online Marketing is a new service, it’s also very much in line with what we’ve been doing for years.

To make sure I was not kidding myself about that, I refreshed my memory this morning about what we had said when we first launched on the Web back in 1996. I was aided in this endeavour by the wonderful – and wonderfully named – “Wayback Machine”, on the excellent Archive.org site. (For those unfamiliar with the Wayback Machine, you can search for older websites, or older versions which might not be findable any more by just entering the web address.)

What I found was that the services we are offering now are essentially what we offered then, although after fourteen years there is inevitably some change of language and change of emphasis.

In December 1996 we offered “multimedia and Internet consulting and contracting services” (some will remember when “multimedia” was as much a buzzword as “social media” is now!). And about the kind of service and resources we would bring to bear we said:

To help our clients turn their dreams into effective communication, we draw on our skills in communication, coordination and project management, and the diverse talents and resources of an extensive network of associates.

So what’s the same and what has changed?

Our focus now, as then, is on helping mainly or wholely “offline” businesses get increased business and more repeat business through smart engagement in the online environment, so that hasn’t really changed. We use our skills in “pulling everything together”. And we have a network of very skilled service providers to call on.

One of the main areas of change is that we now include a specialized capability to help clients engage with their market through effective use of social media (which we hadn’t, to the best of my knowledge, heard about five years ago, let alone fourteen).

We hope the fact that we have been operating in the Web space for a long time will help us win business. We are also fully aware that there are plenty of very capable, very skilled competitors who are much newer on the scene.

No resting on laurels here!

But if you know of a business that would like some help in the online environment from people who are both experienced and up with the game, we’d be happy to have a complimentary consultation with them, to see if we can help them or at least give them some useful pointers for their search. Our contact details are here.