When marketing with business blogs, podcasts, social networks, or any other type of New Media Marketing tools, there are some commandments that must be followed. If you break them, you’ll die a horrible painful death being ripped apart by a gang of midget Ninjas, then you’ll spend eternity burning in hell!

OK, so they aren’t really commandments in the true sense of the word. They weren’t written in stone by the finger of God and you won’t be struck down by lightning if you break any of them.

And as far as I know… all midget Ninjas have been rounded up in the last few years and shipped off to Club Gitmo in Cuba.

Seriously though — much of what you’ll read about business blogging and New Media Marketing written by well-intentioned early adopters of the technology is laced with perwsonal opinions and common practices positioned as “rules.”

Now don’t get me wrong, some rules are good (and necessary)in many areas of life. But very often in business and marketing rules do nothing but hinder creativity and lock people into sub-par growth curves.

The fact is, my partner and I are big rule breakers. (It’s one of the reasons why we live in Hawaii and work with business owners around the world.) So these commandments are more guidelines than rules. Let’s call them “not quite commandments.”

Marketing success through failure

One piece of advice my Dad gave me when I was 12 has always stood out for me over the years, “Don’t just learn from other people’s success stories. You’ll learn more from other people’s mistakes, so you won’t have to make them yourself.”

When it comes to online persuasion and influence, there are things you can learn from the wins and failures of other business owners. This is what will give you a huge edge over your competitors who don’t know any better.

Now we’ve made a lot of mistakes ourselves over the last two years before we came up with these ten easy-to-follow guidelines. And over the next few posts, we’ll take a look at these Ten (not quite) Commandments for successfully marketing with New Media.

These guidelines come from over 3,000 hours of research and testing with our clients, as well as our own personal experiences. If you break them once, you may not get caught. If you break them over and over again, you’ll feel it where it hurts – your profits, pocketbook, bottom line, ego — or all four!

For today, let’s start with the first two ‘not quite’ commandments since they’re the easiest to follow:

1. Thou shalt be a market thinker, not a product pusher

This means you are going to be part of the marketplace without being engulfed by it. The goal is to look for problems people have and solve them.

Contrast that with the typical salesperson or traditional interruption-type advertising campaign. They’re all about pushing a product or service, with no regard for the end user. The focus is on one more sale. Like a crack dealer pushing a temporary high for a quick buck, these product pushers have no regard for the long term satisfaction of their clients and customers.

The market thinker defines his or her ideal audience, then looks to understand, interact with, and ultimately deliver what people in that ideal audience want, need, and desire.

2. Thou shalt participate and profit without becoming an evangelist

Observe, participate, and leverage the new-media marketplace without getting caught up in the hype or the technology. You want to always stand guard at the door of your mind while participating. Be careful not to get dragged into the sheep pen again. Many evangelists tend to be hammers and, therefore, see every problem as a nail.

Just like any other idea or technology, when enough people get going in a line, it’s just like a flock of sheep headed back to the pen. You need to stay outside of that herd mentality.

Instead, constantly innovate with lateral thinking, and continue to have an independent mindset.

In the part two of this series we’ll reveal two more ‘not quite’ commandments that will help you connect with your ideal audience… even if they’re a bunch of midget Ninjas. … Hey! Where’d those darn midget Ninjas come from again!?

Hopefully we’ll have those little buggers under control by the next installment.

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Discover the only strategic online sales and persuasion system guaranteed to unleash the maximum marketing power of the New Media in your business — BLOG Interactive 360™.

John-Paul is a published author (Secrets of Online Persuasion, Morgan James Publishing/Ingram, Fall 2006) and weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin. He is a New Media Marketing Consultant working with business owners and politicians to leverage online influence and persuasion for more clients, more profits, and more votes. He and his partner have developed a simple scientific code for maximizing personal performance and influence online and off-line. You can reach J.P. directly via [communicationcommando@gmail.com].

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