“Like gravity, karma is so basic we don’t even notice it.” – Sakyong Mipham

That little golden rule of treating others how we would want to be treated is a simple yet revolutionary concept in our current era of beating celebrities and politicians to a pulp in blogs. In media and marketing, we stand in line to hop on board the latest bash fest of whatever product or person has made a bad judgment call or seen better days. This little billboard campaign out of Denver made headlines this week for making fun of Domino’s. Domino’s? Really? While it provides some chuckles, the old “kick the big money competitor in the groin” tactic is pretty exhausted at this point. Nevertheless, our current snark-as-default-setting climate got us thinking about using our marketing powers for good. After all, small businesses rely on positive word of mouth and feedback, so shouldn’t we take positive actions to insure good marketing karma?

The road to marketing enlightenment is one paved with little, selfless acts of kindness that over time prove your company has heart, integrity and a good sense of humor. For instant karma in action, take a look at Twitter marketing. On Twitter, by re-tweeting blogs in your same industry, you’re giving props to your comrades while winding up in their newsfeeds. Things like “Follow Friday” and mutual following are other ways to get good Twitter juju. Another great way to perhaps gather more followers is by doing an old-fashioned Twitter shout-out. The shout-out consists of naming an author of a blog or an entrepreneur who has posted something worthy that deserves more than a simple retweet. By name checking folks with big followings, I have found almost immediate retribution wherein the person in question either follows me in return or returns the name-check in a separate tweet. Think of it as tweeting how you would like to be tweeted.

E-mailed newsletters are another outlet to increase your marketing brownie points. Slipping a quick customer questionnaire into your newsletter that in turn offers free goods or discounts is a nice way to reward your readers while gathering their thoughts about your company. It’s another old-fashioned mutual back scratching technique that also builds goodwill.

You also can show that your business gives a damn by providing links to causes and non-profits that are important to you on your website and social media pages. No, we can’t all be Bono — but we can do little things to help out fellow do-gooders. Plus partnerships of this kind are PR gold that almost always yield new customers.

With all of this spreading of happiness around, let’s not forget to have a laugh, either. Infusing (ahem, clean) humor in your Facebook pages, website and blogs is doing a good deed. First off, everybody loves a good laugh. Secondly, posts with humor and the “you gotta see this” factor get forwarded like nobody’s business. This can be in the form of a great video or weird news story — whatever. Have fun with it and your readers will, too.

Now it’s your turn to tell us, gentle readers: How have your acts of kindness helped your business? Enlighten us in the section below (and increase your good comment karma)!

It happens to all of us sooner or later…. we fall in love with a brand or a brilliant mind or an addictive product, and after searching high and low, we finally find the website dedicated to it. Thrilled to have more to fuel our new obsession, we devour the content on the site. Or we start to. But our appetite and interest are replaced with disappointment as more…

Happy Earth Day! There has been many a blog this week discussing all things green and going paperless and whatnot. Blogging itself, after all, is a pretty green concept when you think about it. There’s no paper involved or cars used to distribute the darn thing or child laborers forced to write about Kate Gosselin for more…

Always on the hunt for inspiration and ideas, I am constantly searching for and reading lists. Whether it is the ten best this or worst 50 of that- I am list obsessed. I blame my childhood ritual of listening to Rick Dees and the Weekly Top Forty for this obsession.  Anyway, I stumbled upon a provocatively and somewhat hilariously titled list called The 100 Must Read Blogs… by Women! posted last year on Blogtreprenuer. As I perused their choices (Ann Coulter and Michelle Maklin?!?) I noticed what all of these blogs should have in common besides the whole being created by women thing is that they should all contain that kind of more…

When blogging first came on the scene it got a lot of flack as being a useless mouthpiece for individuals that had nothing better to do. But time has proven blogs to be useful resources for individuals and businesses. Now more than ever, blogging offers powerful benefits for entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes. So as a business, why should you blog? Here is

1. Establishes you as an expert in your field. When you write on a regular basis about what you know, you can’t help but deliver what you know about your business. You may take it for granted that your manufacturing technique for making widgets is unparalleled. A blog can be a great platform to educate potential customers about your expertise.

2. Gives your brand a voice. A blog is like a story. Every company has one. By offering up an inside look into your day-to-day operations, you are able to humanize your brand in a way that you really couldn’t do in a brochure, television commercial or print ad.

3. Content enhances SEO. While you may have a great SEO or SEM strategy in place, great content updated on a daily basis can really help make your company more findable on the internet. The more content you write that utilizes strategic keywords related to your business, the better your chances are ranking higher on the SERPs for those keywords.

4. A chance to connect with other industry specialists. Many bloggers start off as lone writers, but find there’s a larger community of bloggers out there writing on similar subjects. Tapping into this community by commenting on other blogs can offer relationships that would not otherwise be available.

5. A chance to initiate a two-way conversation. A good blog invites conversation with the outside world. This affords you the opportunity to get first hand market research on how your company is doing, what you can do better and what your customers think about your brand.

6. Link Juice. Getting other related sites to link back to you can help with SEO. If you are a shoe manufacturer, you may want to link to sports related sites to further legitimize your site with the major search engines.

7. Incubate new ideas. Good bloggers ask their audience for their advice on any given subject matter. Or better yet, you can use a blog to crowd source new ideas for products or services. You already have the attention of an audience that is clearly interested in your brand. Why not let them take part in create it with you?

8. Instant feedback. Blogs can be used to beta test new products or services to fans of your blog. By collecting data on who is following your posts, you can reach out to people interested in your brand instantly with an email or a direct invitation right on your blog. In the past, companies would have to hire special focus group companies to find potential customers and gain valuable market research information after an interview. Blogging can help you bypass all that.

9. Self-promote. OK, this one may be obvious. But you really don’t need to hard-sell anyone with a blog. The mere fact that you are offering up content related to your industry will put you on the map. Blogging great content on a regular basis will keep people coming back for more.

10. It helps you focus. Blogging forces you to focus your ideas and to really evaluate why your brand is unique. Do this on a daily basis, and you won’t be able to help but hone in on your company’s unique selling point.

If you have a company and you don’t have a blog, you may want to consider getting one up and running. If you don’t have the resources or time to create or manage a blog, you may want to consider hiring a company like Brandsplat to handle it for you. Either way, blogging can offer lots of great benefits for any size company.

What makes good content? I can wax on and give you the latest ten tips for making great content, but instead I’m going over simplify it because I’m in that kind of mood. Content is just like art. There’s good art and there’s bad art, depending on your perspective. My perspective is I like the kind of art that takes an everyday object and gives it a twist that in turn gets a reaction out of me. Any reaction will do. Here’s an example; I came across a post that documents unique street signs in Lyon, France.   I’ve passed street signs with the international cross-out symbol like these in my travels abroad and here at home as well, yet I have never stopped to take notice of the design. In a matter of milliseconds, my eyes see the sign, synapses fire off registering it as a sign, I may or may not heed the instruction, then the eyeballs get bored and find something else to feed off of. Poof, forgotten seconds after the experience. But these French signs are memorable. There’s a lesson here. Content should be thought of in the same way. Why not approach your next article, newsletter, video, social media campaign etc., with the same kind of goal? Take the everyday concept and put your own personal spin on it. Recycling the same old information that anyone can find on the intertubes is easy. Coming up with a unique angle on a concept takes a heck of a lot more effort and creativity. Do the latter. If you do it right, people may just stop and take notice.