OPTING OUT…IS IT ENOUGH?

As nearly everyone knows, SPAM is "unsolicited bulk email". However, what some people may not realize is that just providing an "opt-out" to recipients does not qualify their message as "not spam".

Many bulk email systems used for marketing require what is known as "confirmed opt-it" addresses. Simply put, this is an address that has been verified and that the recipient wants to receive messages.

In may places on the Internet, by law, an "opt-out" link must be prominently displayed, along with company information from the sender, but sending an unsolicited email with the opt-out link and company information may not be enough if the recipient did not agree to receive such messages from the sender.

As succinctly put on the SPAMHAUS.org site (SPAMHAUS is one of the places that tracks and maintains "blacklists"), "Nobody must ever be required to opt-out of anything they did not opt-in to in the first place". Furthermore, the state as their "Golden Rule" : "Never buy email addresses from another company."

As tempting as it might be to circumvent the system, ISP (Internet Service Providers) and email hosting companies as well as some government agencies are beginning to seriously crack down on SPAM and the definition of what is considered SPAM is evolving. Ignorance is no defense.

If you’re going to send bulk email, send it legitimately.

You can read more about this subject at www.SPAMHAUS.org.

By the way – their suggestion is that when you receive unwanted email, do not use the "opt out" link because it validates that someone is on the receiving end of the message (and you might end up downloading something nasty). Better to mark it as "junk" and let your spam filter take it from there.

HANDS-FREE MARKETING: HOW TO TRASH YOUR ONLINE REPUTATION WITH EMAIL

Like your credit report and other government or privately tracked information, your email address is part of your online identity. There is no short-cut to establishing a good online reputation. It’s a bigger part of your business reputation than most people think, and it’s just as easy to trash.

Here’s how:

1. CHANGING IDENTITY: I’ve seen an increase in some unscrupulous sales people changing their email address slightly, thereby fooling spam filters. In order to do this, you need to own your domain name (ie mydomain.com) and control your email addresses. You send a message as dave@mydomain.com. Because it’s spam, eventually it’s blocked by most spam filters. The following week, because someone told you it was clever and good marketing practice, you change your email to dave2@mydomain.com and send another email. Many people’s spam filters are not set to block entire domains (ie anything that comes from any address in mydomain.com). So, if you’ve seen the same person sending you emails, even though you added them to your “junk” list, that’s probably why.





2. “SPAM: Yes, the old favorite and the one that started it all. Anyone who uses email knows that spam is “unwanted bulk email”. When I define it, I take out the word “bulk”. I never ceased to be amazed that many email senders consider it “okay” to send me a bunch of crap I never wanted and call it “business to business” messages to try and avoid being labeled. I see this a lot in real estate. Some agents swear by it, the theory being if you throw enough, something will stick. I guarantee that most of those listing emails are ending up with blocked sender rules in spam filters, and both an email and business reputation are being ruined.





3. MASKING: Making your email address appear from one address when it’s actually from another. This is a favored “phishing” method and many email systems are blocking this type of email. Yet they still come in. In order to mask your address you need some technical savvy, but it’s also possible to trash someone else’s reputation with it. I found that one of my own domain names was being used by someone to send out spam. As a result, I started getting emails from spam blockers and individuals notifying me about viruses that I’d attached on emails I’d never sent. Someone had “masked” a genetic address (ie email@mydomain.com), a address I didn’t even have a mailbox for. Unfortunately, I have a “catch-all” address in case someone misspells my name, so I was receiving anything addressed to my domain. Once your domain is “blacklisted”, it’s very hard to get back…





4. "EMOTICONS" : everyone’s seen these, the little happy faces or animations that you can “download for free” and make your emails a little more special. While I’m a big advocate of “free is good”, many of these email addons come with spyware that is difficult to remove. Some of these “freebies” track messages, capture address and other information and then spam the recipients. By sending these “laced” messages, you risk spreading malware (malicious software). Finally, many of these tools increase the size of the message substantially, taking up space that the recipient may not have.





5. SIGNING PEOPLE UP WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE: This happens quite a bit. Someone conversing with you doesn’t automatically give you the right to add them to your mailing list. Many people are too polite to say anything, but they never forget…







6. JOKES, "CHECK THIS OUT" ETC: On the heels of #5 comes this one. It’s bad enough to sign someone up for your emails without their permission, but when you start forwarding jokes, prayer requests or other unsolicited (yes, spam), I think you’re out of line. Personal and business emails should remain separate. You could end up forwarding a virus, or worse still, offending someone. Haven’t you received emails that have been forwarded dozens of times? See all those other addresses in there? Ever wonder how some people get your information? I still see a lot of “if you forward this to 10 people now, you’ll get rich quick” messages from people I thought might know better. Sigh.





7. ATTACHMENTS : Big attachments take up space. Some email routers won’t even forward them. Some may contain viruses. Repeatedly sending big attachments will get you added to junk lists and might even get your domain blacklisted.





8. BCC (Blind Carbon Copy): You send an email to recipient A and blind copy recipient B. That’s okay, we all need to do this from time to time. You send an email to yourself and blind copy your entire address book. Not so smart. You may not even be aware that many email systems won’t forward emails that have too many BCC’d recipients…and they don’t tell you.

So, if you want to trash your online “street cred”, try some of the above. You should start getting results pretty quickly.

Social Networking in 2009

The growth of social media has been explosive in 2008, there’s just no other way to describe it. Whether you use Twitter, ActiveRain, Blogger, WordPress, Facebook, LinkedIn or another or all of the social networking tools, you’ll have seen unprecedented growth in all of these and, with any such growth, come two very real risks: overkill and marginalization.

Email was hailed, and still is, a communication revolution. Like the telephone before it, email allows quick, almost instantaneousness transfer of information. Unlike the telephone, it can be more readily-accessible, in most cases free, allows the attachment of files and distribution to a wide audience in a relatively short time and can cause more headaches

Spam is to the emailer what solicitors are to phone users. Sometimes the two can be just as dangerous. Scams from get-rich-quick schemes to worms and viruses have been a constant threat and continue to fuel the security arms race that underpins the Internet. Unlike telephone solicitation, it’s not quite as easy to join a “do-not-email” list, although there are such things. Many emails come from parts of the world where local laws don’t apply. Email can come from many more channels that phone calls and the majority of email users have at least two accounts

Over 90% of email traffic is spam, according to many studies. I use that number conservatively because I believe it’s much higher. That means that 90% of the messages “out there” are junk, unwanted, unsolicited, wasting bandwidth and disk space. Some people predict(ed) the possible end of email unless we can get a handle on spam

Social media networking has the potential to follow the same route. Like email, and the telephone before it, when used properly, blogs, instant messaging and business relationship networking tools can be invaluable in building and maintaining connections. Social media has given everyone the opportunity to reach a potential global audience without the enormous cost of production or printing.

But therein lies some of the problem. At the risk of offending people: there’s a lot of junk out there. I remember a quote from a move (The Krays) “you’ve got nothing to say and you’re saying it too loudly”. When it comes to social media, there are many people who haven’t got a lot to say, so they flood the “e”waves with rubbish, often in the hopes that someone will pick it up and run with it.

Unlike email, we have an easier option when it comes to blogs: we can bypass and not read what we think isn’t worth it. On networks such a Twitter, things can be a little more difficult if one is “following” someone, because one is potentially inundated with tweets and retweets. But, environments such as Twitter give us the option of removing someone from a “follow” list and thus relieving our electronic ears of their babble

Sorting the wheat from the chaff can be difficult. When there is so much out there, how on earth do you find what’s worth reading? And, if you plan to be part of this growing phenomenon, how do you do so without being part of the problem?

The answer is: tread carefully. Many people filter their incoming phone calls and emails, ignoring, blocking and marking unwanted messages (or calls) as junk and blocking future messages. The same diligence is needed on social networks when it comes to picking out the worthwhile from the rest.

More importantly, what you say is just as relevant. There are whole books written on subjects such as blog marketing, guerrilla marketing, social media marketing etc that strongly urge you to get involved. If you want people to visit your site, your blog, you have to interact so they’ll know you exist. Trouble is, how do you do that? Leaving simple “nice post” messages isn’t going to get you readers or followers. Engaging in dialogue will

The leading bloggers have an ongoing discourse with their readers. The most successful engage in two-way conversations that address the good and the bad. It’s a dialogue and dialogue can be interesting and that interest can lead to new followers with similar, or differing, viewpoints.

Social networking takes effort. The results take time. How many emails do you see from mass-emailing sites that you either delete or ignore? Dozens? Hundreds? As social media evolves, people are going to get better at quickly determining what is worth following and what is not

I actively encourage my clients to blog. It can be one of the best and free marketing tools out there. For those that think that no one would be interested in what they do, I encourage them to write about something they find interesting that’s got nothing to do with what they do. Everyone has an opinion about something. A conversation that is genuinely of interest to both parties almost be default, builds a relationship

Write about what you care about. Start a blog. It’s easy and free. On places such as ActiveRain, you can select specific groups to post to. Just don’t post for the sake for it. Especially when replying and trying to engage others in a dialogue, be courteous. You don’t have to be a linguist, and it’s okay to say “nice post”, but tell the poster why

Imagine being at a social event, a party for example. You overhear someone talking about something that you’re interested in, but you have a different take on it. Do you say something? That depends on you. But it’s unlikely you’d just stand there and say “I agree” or “that’s rubbish” without having something to add as to why you feel the way you do. You’d probably also not stand there and shout out (to no one in particular) “hey, my website is cool, here’s the address…”

You may be shy and not say anything. That’s okay too, but remember you get back what you put in

That may not be the best analogy, but I think it makes my point

If you have an opinion, by all means share it. Engage.

In 2009, be part of the social networking (r)evolution. That’s what social media is all about