Welcome to this newest series of articles on Internet marketing for translators!
This one is long overdue , and I apologize for that. It seems it is high time to refresh our memories when it comes to all the definitions of social media marketing/Internet marketing, with all of the “marketing bla bla (words that sound awesome and make you sound like an intellectual genius, while meaning nothing at the same time)” going around, all these concepts can seem confusing. Over the past few months, I’ve spoken with a lot of translators who were feeling a bit lost when it comes to all these concepts, so I’ll try in this new series to help you gain a better understanding of the terms.
In a way this is also actually the article I promised here.
Today, we’ll cover the introductory aspect of the series by focusing on the big question: what is Internet marketing?
Enjoy the series and feel free to give feedback if you feel that I’ve missed something, or for any questions you may have.
What is Internet marketing (a.k.a Web or online marketing)?
It may be defined in many different ways but in simple terms, it is basically the art of using the Internet and any of its related tools to promote oneself and/or one’s products or services. These tools include platforms, email, etc. Internet marketing is the whole, if you like, and the methods involved are various and broad. I like to call these methods “subcategories” or “types of marketing”. Traditionally and typically, they are as follows
- Social Media marketing
- Inbound marketing
- Search Engine marketing
- Affiliate marketing
- Referral marketing
- E-mail marketing
- Display advertising
- I’m also adding Social Networking to this list.
In this series, we will try to translate these into down-to-earth and intelligible words that we, normal human beings, can understand.
Many of these are often tied together – social networking for example also goes hand in hand with referral marketing or social media marketing. Inbound marketing needs social media marketing to achieve search engine marketing. And so on. There are only a few terms on the list above that are “independent” and may be used as an “isolated” marketing strategy, namely email marketing and display advertising.
Following each category, you’ll find a hitlist of basic goals that can be achieved with that specific marketing category, to help you see at a glance what each can and can’t do for you. These goals obviously are related to business – what you do on your personal Internet pages is by definition personal and therefore irrelevant as long as these personal pages are not interfering in a negative way with your professional online presence (see some of my previous articles on this topic: here, here and here).
Last but not least, I will also give you my opinion on the relevance of each marketing type for our industry and when applicable, links to resources for those who do not fall under my skills/area of expertise category. This is obviously open to suggestions, ideas and experience-sharing from all of you!
Internet Marketing for Translators – Part 1: Websites, blogs, profiles
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