Internet marketers love their buzzwords. Whenever somebody comes up with a catchy one, they all stand in a circle, sing a song, do a dance, and beat it to death. And then they beat it into dust.

Then they beat the space where it used to be.

About that time, they start looking around nervously for a new one. When somebody invents it, everyone runs off to join their party and beat it into oblivion.

The latest buzzword that sounded ridiculous to me from the start was "loophole". All of the sudden, everyone was finding tricks that gave them a flood of traffic, a flood of cheap AdSense clicks, etc. And they all called them "loopholes".

Yesterday, Ryan Healy shared his thoughts on loophole marketing tactics, which tend to only work for a little while:

Next time you discover a little-known and little-used tactic for gaining a short-term competitive advantage, keep it to yourself.

It'll be better for you (because you'll be able to enjoy your slight advantage for a longer period of time)... and it will be better for the people who might have paid to discover the method (because they won't have wasted their money on information about to expire).

I've got a slightly different suggestion: share your "loophole", but only with your inner circle.

Don't make a paid product teaching it, and unless you're a proven, consistent loophole finding machine, don't create a "loophole of the month" paid membership site.

But when you find an ethical "loophole" (now I'm using the word!), if you've got a "mastermind group" or group of friends who promote each other (assuming the other people are worth promoting!), and share ideas with each other (guess what, that's your mastermind group), then by all means, share these kinds of things with each other so you can all ride the wave till it breaks.

If you need a mastermind group, check out NextGurus.com. It's a site I've built to help people build mastermind groups, and help the really exceptional members get the exposure they deserve to become the "next gurus" of internet marketing.