Like much of the more common, face-to-face business etiquette, online business etiquette seems to have gone by the wayside today. If you’re serious about succeeding in the online business world, though, you should pay attention to business etiquette even if no one else does.

It’s something that can set you apart and brand you as a true professional — but only if you know how to address it correctly and don’t go so overboard that you seem stiff, overly formal, and too hard to work with. You still have to be friendly and personable, or you’ll make people uncomfortable and actually lose business based on that instead of gaining business based on the polite way you treat people.

Using Proper Online Business Etiquette

No matter what else is taking place, there are three things that you should be sure to do:

• Address the recipient of your communication by name, instead of a greeting that’s too casual. ‘Hey, man’ is not an appropriate greeting unless you know the person well, and even then you might want to avoid getting too ‘friendly’ with business contacts. There’s a reason that business and social lives are often kept separate.
• Make the message personal by letting the person know a bit about who you are, and be sure that it’s clear why you are sending the message or why you have contacted that person. Don’t just assume they know.
• Request action. There’s nothing worse than reading an email from someone and not having any idea what — if anything — you’re supposed to do next. Sending emails just to talk is fine for friends and family members, but it’s not usually done in the online business world, so make sure the person who reads your message knows what he or she is supposed to do with it. Whether that person takes action is then up to them, but leave the metaphorical ball in their court.

What If You Make Mistakes?

If you make mistakes — and most people will — be quick to clear them up. Even if you do something wrong and seem impolite or insensitive, apologizing quickly and providing a brief and realistic explanation (the person you’re apologizing to doesn’t need your life history) can go a very long way toward keeping businesses intact.

Avoiding mistakes is obviously better than having to apologize for them, though, so think before you click ’send,’ before you respond to an email or other message in anger, and before you make a comment that you think is funny. That doesn’t mean that everyone else will share your amusement level, and with written communication it’s often hard to convey emotions. People can’t see your facial expressions or hear the sound and tone of your voice. Sometimes putting “:o)” after it is enough. Sometimes it’s not.

If you’re very unsure about how to proceed with online business etiquette or you feel that your skills are lacking, there are training courses that you can take and DVDs that you can buy to be more aware of business etiquette issues within the online community and in the face-to-face business world, as well.

Michi Beck is a YouCanSubmit writer. You can visit her on the Web.

When it comes to marketing your business successfully in a global and rapidly advancing marketplace, technology is playing a larger role than ever before. Emarketing, sometimes also called online marketing or web marketing, is becoming a larger and larger business because so many businesses are competing with one another for a limited number of potential customers.

If you’re going to hire someone to do your emarketing for you, make sure that you know what you’re getting. Different companies specialize in different things. You might not be sure which kind of emarketing will be the best for what you’re trying to sell and who you’re trying to reach, but good emarketing companies can tell you what will work best, if they handle that kind of marketing, and –if they don’t handle it — which companies would be more likely to be able to help you.

What Does An Emarketing Company Really Offer?

Most emarketing companies handle  search engine optimization (SEO), blogging, pay-per-click advertising, banner ads, affiliate marketing, viral marketing, and email marketing. That doesn’t mean that all of those options are right for your company, though. It will depend on your target market and your product or service.

Emarketing companies that are good at what they do also offer explanations of what they are doing and why, reports that show you whether the work that they are doing is effective and how they plan to change it if it’s not performing the way that they had hoped, and advice on other areas of marketing that might help your business. They aren’t there to tell you how to run your business, what to sell, what to charge for your products or services, or how to set up your Web site and populate it with content.

Don’t expect that from them, because there are other companies that are designed to do these things. Emarketing companies are only designed to effectively market your business so that you get the highest return for your advertising dollar. That’s very important, and even more so with the problems facing the economy today.

Since the recession appears to be global and not just confined to your home country, you can’t escape the financial difficulties by selling online, so you have to ensure that the money you spend on advertising is put to good use.

Get The Right Emarketing Company 

Obviously, finding the right emarketing company is vital to your business. Getting the wrong one could be very detrimental because it will just use up the money that you have to spend on advertising and won’t be effective in helping you sell your product or service. When trying to decide which company to use, it’s best in most cases to judge off of two factors: the track record and experience of the company, and your comfort level, or ‘gut feeling’ about that company.

Facts and logical reasoning are definitely important in business, but so is intuition. Even if a company has good credentials or comes highly recommended, if you don’t feel good about that company you might be wise to avoid it and look elsewhere. It just might not be the company for you.

On the other hand, don’t choose a company only because the people seem friendly, the logo is attractive, or anything like that. Those things are nice, but they have to be coupled with experience, reliability, and the capabilities to do the job. Take the time to find a company that offers all of that. In the long run, you’ll be glad you did.

Michi Beck is a YouCanSubmit writer. You can visit her on the Web.

If you have a business that’s either partially or completely handled over the Internet, you could likely benefit from podcasting. If you’re new to that term, a podcast is audio or video that’s designed to be played on an iPod or similar equipment, hence the name. However, most podcasts can also be downloaded to your computer and played that way, without any other equipment needed.

Podcasting Companies

If you’re just getting into podcasting, you might not be very clear about how to go about it. The good news is that there are plenty of podcasting companies that can help you. Some offer basic information and software, some offer services like podcast hosting, and you can even find companies that will create podcasts for you based on what you need and want for your company’s target audience and Internet presence.

Most of these companies have been in operation for a while now, and they know what they’re doing. They can create the kinds of podcasts that you need and want, help you to better understand what podcasting can do for your business, and make sure that your podcasts are doing the most good when it comes to bringing in traffic to your site and converting that traffic to paying customers.

Some of the most common and highest-rated podcasting companies are:

• Libsyn
• Odeo
• Podomatic
• Podcast Pickle
• Podshow
• PodcastAlley
• Podcasting News
• Podcast.net

Podcasting For Your Business

If you’re going to use podcasting for your business, it’s important that you do it right. If you’re not sure about how to handle podcasting, it would be better to take the time to learn before you start broadcasting yourself. If you don’t have time to wait, then getting someone knowledgable to do it for you is also a good choice. Either way, you’ll save yourself and your business some potential embarrassment.

It’s not just about doing something embarrassing, either. It’s about the current state of your company and the future of it, as well. If you aren’t offering something valuable to your potential customer base, those people will look elsewhere for what they need. When they do that, you lose business and your profits suffer. Especially in this economy, that’s not something that you can afford.

Move forward with podcasting with care and only once you’re properly prepared to do so. You’ll do more harm with bad podcasting than you will with no podcasting at all.

Michi Beck is a YouCanSubmit writer. You can visit her on her Website.