Welcome,

The Internet Marketing Association recently met with U.S. Senator Dean Heller of Nevada as well as U.S. Congressman Ed Royce of California. Several IMA members spoke with the elected officials about changes in privacy, Internet consumer use and the rise of social media.

Both elected officials are highly involved with IMA and have encouraged their staff's involvement with best practices, defining standards and working with Internet-based businesses to create effective public/private partnerships. One example is the City of Mountain View's use of WiFi to offer free accessibility to all their citizens. Another is the City of Anaheim's use of apps to modernized their communications with residents and stakeholders.

The Internet Marketing Association has tremendous relationships with elected officials throughout the nation. As a leading authority in the Internet marketing industry, IMA will facilitate more meet-and-greet opportunities with the country's leaders and technology innovators.

Sincerely,

Sinan Kanatsiz
Chairman
Internet Marketing Association
www.imanetwork.org
949.443.9300 tel

Save the Date!

2012 IMA Conference & Awards
September 20-22, 2012
Aria Resort & Casino
CityCenter, Las Vegas

The 2011 IMA Awards held this past September at CityCenter in Las Vegas was a landmark for the Internet marketing industry. This year, we're raising the bar to make the event even more memorable and valuable!

The 2012 IMA Conference & Awards will be a three-day event, again in the breathtaking environment of CityCenter, featuring distinguished keynote speakers on vital Internet marketing topics, a series of breakout sessions presented by the industry's leading experts, and the IMA Awards dinner.

The Internet Marketing Association (IMA) is one of the fastest growing professional organizations in the world. Its mission is to provide a unique knowledge-sharing platform where proven Internet marketing strategies are demonstrated and shared in to increase each member's value to their industry and their organization.

Don't miss this extraordinary event focused on innovation, education and recognition.

Kanatsiz Interviewed on Leveraging Facebook for Businesses
Source: The Business Journals

The Facebook phenomenon, started by a group of Harvard University students in a dorm room in 2004, has evolved into a social media juggernaut.

Facebook Inc. now has more than 800 million users, 3,000 employees and anticipated 2011 revenue of $4.3 billion. The company is expected to go public in early 2012, earning as much as $10 billion from stock sales - putting the company's value at $100 billion - in what promises to be the biggest Internet offering in more than 10 years.

"Facebook has become the largest marketing medium in the history of the existence of the universe," said Sinan Kanatsiz, chairman and founder of the Internet Marketing Association in San Clemente, Calif. "Any business that doesn't have a social media strategy including Facebook doesn't want to market themselves to 850 million people. And when you can do it for free, how can you not want to do it?"

Businesses from small mom-and-pops to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT), the world's largest retailer, use Facebook as a branding and marketing tool. It's a major way to direct customers to a product or service.

"With Facebook, you're listening to your customers' wants and needs… What's great is businesses of all sizes can use it," said Elizabeth Diana, communications manager at Facebook Inc. of Menlo Park, Calif. "It's their essential branding station."

Click here to continue reading this article.

FCC: Cybersecurity Is Crucial for America's Future
Source: Mashable

Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said Wednesday that failing to meet the "challenges" of cybersecurity will mean the U.S. will "pay the price in the form of diminished safety, lost privacy, lost jobs and financial vulnerability - billions of dollars potentially lost to digital criminals."

The FCC chair called on Internet users, providers and policymakers to address multiple "cyber threats," including botnet attacks, domain name fraud and IP hijacking.

Botnet Attacks

In a botnet operation, one computer can control millions of other computers via software called "malware" downloaded unbeknownst to the user. Those computers can then be directed to visit a specific website, overloading it with traffic in what's called a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. Botnet attacks can be devastating to the average consumer, said Genachowski.

The FCC is working to prevent them by teaching Internet users about botnets and the risk they present. Genachowski called on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to form a voluntary "industry-wide code of conduct" to help educate customers on identifying botnet attacks and on how to handle them.

Genachowski said such an ISP-sponsored program must be done "in a way that doesn't compromise users' privacy."

Traffic Highjacking

The second form of cyberattack the FCC has its eye on is IP hijacking. According to Genachowski, there's a weakness in the way the Internet was built that nefarious types can exploit, causing traffic to be redirected through a network it wouldn't normally encounter.

"The Internet is a network of networks," said Genachowski. "Connectivity between these networks is based on an implicit trust that is the Internet's biggest strength, but can also be a major weakness."

Genachowski highlighted the risk of IP hijacking by pointing to a 2010 incident, when 15% of Internet traffic was redirected through mysterious Chinese servers for approximately 18 minutes. That caused an "incalculable" cost in terms of intellectual property and data loss, he said.

IP hijacking could be fixed if ISPs voluntarily "adopted more secure routing standards," Genachowski said, adding that they could reduce the cost of these upgrades by performing them during other routine maintenance procedures.

"The benefits of ISPs taking these steps to eliminate accidentally misrouted traffic would be enormous," said Genachowski.

Click here to continue reading this article.

Emails with Discounts Shared Most Often
By eMarketer.com

Email sharing on Facebook and Twitter helps boost brand awareness.

Inbox clutter has made it seem harder than ever for email marketers to convey compelling marketing messages to even their opted-in subscribers. But at the same time, the popularity of social sharing has helped some messages circulate far beyond their initial audience.

According to Q4 2011 research from email marketing software provider Emailvision, more than a third of email marketers around the world said email promotions that included a discount got more shares than any other type of campaign. Humorous marketing emails ran a relatively distant second, with just under 21% of marketers saying these emails got the most shares. And email campaigns with direct incentives for sharing showed no higher success rate in terms of shares than email announcements with new information but no sharing incentive.

Respondents unsurprisingly named Facebook and Twitter as the two most important social networking sites for their brand, and a plurality considered building brand awareness to be their top objective for social media marketing.

This suggests that email "share with a friend" programs are not necessarily aimed at directly growing subscriber lists or persuading new prospects to opt in-just 7.4% of respondents said the primary purpose of their social marketing was to get new names for their database. Instead, email marketers are hoping that passed-along emails and other content shared through social channels will help build awareness or reputation, and, conveniently, the messages most likely to accomplish these goals are the ones with deals and promotions that should also help marketers increase sales and gain new customers.

Key Contacts

Tyler Holliday
Executive Director
949-350-3084 tel.
tyler@imanetwork.org

Vince Walden
Board Member
940-230-4648 tel.
vince@imanetwork.org

Visit Us Online
www.imanetwork.org

Stay Connected With IMA

Join Us on
Facebook Today
Click Here