Do you finally want to get something back from all that social networking?

Have you ever heard of LinkedIn or maybe you’re registered user for years, already? MySpace and especially Facebook brought awareness of so called social networks, LinkedIn was one of the first.

LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. As of October 2009, LinkedIn had more than 50 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. (source: Wikipedia)

Well, pay attention to the term business-oriented as that’s what I want to point out. You probably know that social networking can be time consuming and just imagine if all the time you spend updating your profile, joining groups, asking all sorts of questions or just making funny comments, actually brings back value in money!

Yes, that’s right, you read it correctly: real money. Although all social networks can bring more exposure to your business, LinkedIn being business-orientated network makes it even easier as all professionals are already there, not mainly your neighbor’s kids and few of your relatives like on Facebook.

Any activity on social network can be highly viral, news travel fast there. If you’re ready to take action and receive bunch of very useful video tips explaining how to turn your LinkedIn account into a money maker, go ahead and visit this link, put your name and email address into sign up form and free video is there for you.

See you on LinkedIn. :)

How to increase the flow of traffic on a website is the recurring dilemma of webmasters. One of the methods that have spawned many success stories in driving traffic into websites is viral marketing. Viral marketing is simply making use of the tendency of a person to share something they find informative, entertaining of amazing and blogging is one of the ways that viral marketing is facilitated.

These days, everybody is blogging and you can incorporate blogging into your sales marketing and have a lot more success. It isn’t that hard to do. Just have your customers write diary entries about goals they have reached using your product, the good emotions it’s given them, the fears and worries your product has taken out of their lives, how bad their lives were before they bought it, how it has helped other people in their lives, how much better their lives are since they began using your product, and on and on.

Customers could update their blog daylily, weekly or monthly. It will depend on how often they use your product. If you are teaching them a skill, they can blog their progress. You must provide your customers with web space for writing their online diary (blog) or have them e-mail you the blog entries for you to publish. Your customer’s online blogs can be made extra persuasive by including personal profiles, pictures, online video of them using your product, net audio of them talking about your product, and so forth.

An online blog would likely outsell the common testimonial because it is updated on a regular basis and gives more personal information and since a diary (blog) is considered private, it makes people more curious to read it and believe that what is said is true.

In the Days Before Blogs ….

In the early days of online listserv or discussion groups, a company that launched a product or new technology without the proper testing could be literally crippled by these groups. There were instances where companies would discount the opinions of listservs as they watched their sales decline until they finally realized they couldn’t simply ignore it and continue with business as usual. It took a while, but companies finally understood that they had to go into the groups and communicate and manage customers and customer messaging with facts.

They had to be heard and they had to manage crises. A similar situation could occur today but we have the opportunity to build relationships with bloggers by giving them the facts that tell our story. The power of communication belongs to bloggers and they lead the way with word-of-mouth (or mouse) marketing. They are serious enough about communication that they sign up for RSS feeds that alert them when one of their favorite blogs has been updated or modified. It is a ‘reminder” to check the blog. I’m sure you recall that listservs or bulletin boards drew many “authorities” who were able to shape consumer confidence of newly released tech products by posting and positioning themselves with their peers.

Bloggers are positioning themselves as experts to their peers. If the value of your company is in the hands of bloggers, shouldn’t you know what they are saying about you? Blogging is communication in, perhaps, its purest form. A big debate is currently underway regarding the usefulness of blogs as advertising vehicles. The fact is that they are a very important channel through which we can reach our audience and one of the primary new ways we can effectively communicate brand messages in a genuine way to very specific groups of people who have hundreds of online acquaintances with those same specific interest.

Just turn on MTV or VH1 these days and you’ll witness Michael Jackson’s tribute videos. King of Pop died few days ago and left remarkable musical opus, even if you’re not a fan you have to admit: the man had a gift.

Being the largest pop star of our time Michael Jackson had big marketing machinery behind all his projects. Naturally marketing techniques used included viral marketing even long before this term was invented. Before Internet and social networks MTV was the place to concentrate your marketing efforts and successful musical videos made sure album is going to sell well and tour will be sold out. First of those videos was “Thriller”, zombies and good dancing produced great marketing wave and the album reached world sales record that nobody beat so far.

Michael Jackson did not use viral marketing for his music only, in 1985 together with Lionel Richie he wrote and recorded, along with all the popular musicians of the time, hit single “We Are The World”. The song and it’s video had purpose to bring world’s awareness to AIDS problem. The song was huge success and generated millions of dollars to help fight AIDS.

King of Pop left this Earth but his legacy stays for generations to be inspired by a great artist and a noble man. Michael always had a strong sense for charity and help many people in need.

Farewell Michael, we will listen to your songs and remember you for a long, long time.

Making money is exciting …. Right?

Now, here is the part that bores many people to tears.

But, just like any other type of marketing campaign, tracking your viral results and optimizing performance over time is absolutely necessary. Fortunately, current technology allows sophisticated e-mail marketers to track insightful and actionable data that can be used to evaluate performance. Important metrics to analyze are pass-along, click-through and conversion rates.

Marketers should separate the click-through and conversion rates by original customers from referrals and evaluate their respective performances. These metrics will alert a marketer to which offers their customers like and respond to the best.

Another concern is; how do you handle the customer dissatisfaction that comes from late, mishandled, and ignored email? With the volumes of inbound email correspondence to service, marketing, and sales organizations increasing on a daily basis, the chance for a misconnection is growing at an exponential rate annually.

If you’re running a marketing program, with a solid combination of advertising media plus direct mail and e-mail, chances are you’ve got leads and responses coming in from just about everywhere.

So how can you tell which of your marketing tactics are stellar performers and which need to be replaced? Tracking your marketing responses is easier than you think, and it’s the smartest way to save marketing dollars by cutting the fat and eliminating any non-performing media and tactics.

There are many programs out there that can help you track your viral e-mail marketing campaigns and do so at a pretty reasonable cost. GetResponse might be the service you’re looking for. Try it as it’s not that pricey and does the job very well.

There are others, of course. Search the Internet and find one that will suit your needs and provide you with the information in a form that is most helpful to you.

Concerns over sending unsolicited email is at the heart of the legality issue of using viral advertising. By using viral marketing tactics carefully, however, marketers can avoid the negative reactions and gain an excellent return on investment (ROI) t as they increase the reach of their marketing message to a targeted group far beyond their original audience.

Here are a few insights on how to execute a viral marketing campaign most effectively.

1. Offer an incentive. Viral marketing works best when a valuable and tangible incentive is offered that will encourage people to forward an e-mail message to their friends. Marketers should, however, cap the incentive to a specific quantity to avoid spam-like distribution of the message.

2. Do not consider the referral an opt-in. When a customer refers a friend, the referral shouldn’t be considered an opt-in. A name and e-mail address given by a person’s friend does not constitute an opt-in by the individual, so the data should be deleted immediately after the referral email is sent. The referral email should provide the recipient with the option to opt out if he or she does not want to receive future mailings.

3. Personalize the referral e-mail. Response rates increase dramatically when users can see that a message is coming from a friend, so it is always best to personalize the e-mail message to show that it is coming from a recognizable source. The subject line is the key component in a viral marketing e-mail because it can immediately identify the e-mail as friendly. A good subject line might read, “FYI: Jane Doe thought you’d like 20% off at ABC.com.”

4. Continually promote friendly referrals. Marketers who would like to have their messages forwarded frequently should place a viral marketing offer in every relevant outgoing e-mail message.

]]> http://viralmarketingwiz.com/viral-marketing/how-to-make-viral-email-legal/feed 0 http://viralmarketingwiz.com/viral-marketing/get-your-viral-email-forwarded http://viralmarketingwiz.com/viral-marketing/get-your-viral-email-forwarded#comments Fri, 22 May 2009 20:21:38 +0000 admin http://viralmarketingwiz.com/?p=335

Getting recipients of your viral advertising e-mail to forward it to their friends and coworkers isn’t as hard as it sounds. The whole trick is to make them WANT to share it and thereby share your advertisement. Neat! Cool! Free! Because entertainment has value, interactive content like a quiz or test can inspire forwarding, especially if it’s fun. Personality tests, fitness quizzes, or compatibility questionnaires are all things that I have received and sent at one time or another.

A really cool, multimedia experience is always going to achieve some pass-along action. Rich media email is getting a lot of press of late. Someone is always touting the benefits. It does take more time and a little money but the messages have great appeal. Rich media has the advantage of being new and therefore has the novelty and tech factor. That alone is often enough for the message to be seen as valuable and worth forwarding.

There are vendors like RidicalMail and AdTools that have “Forward to a Friend” capabilities built right into their technology. Right now this works but eventually marketers will still rely on the value of the proposition in their message to be enough to distinguish it from the rest.

So should you try to capitalize on viral marketing? Absolutely!

At the very least, it would be unwise to leave out factors in your e-mail advertising campaign that would inspire forwarding. After all, don’t you want maximum penetration into your target audience? You need to stretch those advertising dollars so hard you make George cry. You do, however, need to understand that viral marketing is a tactic that works toward achieving your campaign objective.

Oh…one more thing. No matter how brilliant you craft the offer and no matter how great the message, if the customer visits your site and has an experience less than what was promised, it will come back to bite you.

]]> http://viralmarketingwiz.com/viral-marketing/get-your-viral-email-forwarded/feed 0 http://viralmarketingwiz.com/viral-marketing/the-viral-marketing-value-of-email http://viralmarketingwiz.com/viral-marketing/the-viral-marketing-value-of-email#comments Fri, 08 May 2009 20:22:53 +0000 admin http://viralmarketingwiz.com/?p=328

Viral Marketing using e-mail is not an objective. It is part of a campaign strategy that is used to achieve objectives. In order to achieve greater branding success exposure, you craft your e-mail message or offer in a way that it encourages pass-along.

Viral marketing is all about producing a message with a quality offer or incentive for pass-along. Just suggesting that email recipients forward your message to their friends is not viral marketing. Just a message at the bottom of your email that says, “Feel free to forward this message to a friend” is certainly not viral marketing at its best. You must offer something worthy of being shared… a valuable discount, vital and timely information, a bit of humor, or a quiz or personality test. Offer an incentive for sharing like additional entries into a sweepstakes or an added discount. Viral Marketing happens naturally. It is very often quite successful.

Let’s say that you receive two e-commerce offers in your in-box. Both of them are for an electronic product that you are interested in buying yourself or know that a friend is shopping around for. One offers a discount…a good one of maybe 25%, and the other offers free shipping. Shipping costs are high today but free shipping is pretty much expected. A 25% discount is certainly attractive. Of the two offers, which offer are you more likely to forward to a friend?

Relevant information, research, or studies are all examples of content that may be viewed at possible Pass-along material. Interactive content like a quiz or test com inspire a recipient to forward an e-mail… especially if it is fun. I have forwarded personality tests, fitness quizzes and compatibility questionnaires myself…haven’t you? Entertainment has value.

The bottom line is that the message must be perceived as having value in order to get recipients to forward your message.

Recently, forum marketing has been touted as a kind of free, organic, viral marketing. But because so many marketers go into forums purely with the intention of marketing products or services, their actions and attitude unwittingly causes the exact opposite of the desired effect.

Forums aren’t marketplaces but when used as such, the marketers’ actions become offensive and will only inspire the wrath of fellow members and marketers, not to mention moderators who can ban them from the site with the click of their mouse. In order to be effective, this kind of marketing carries a certain degree of commitment, responsibility and respect. The first requirement is to take a personal interest in the main topic of the forum. Not only does that mean visiting it regularly, but it also means developing a good relationship with both other members and the moderators, as well as taking an active interest in helping others. Of course, it also means abiding by and all rules that exist. By doing this, one can develop a reputation and, since it is human nature to work with a trusted colleague, business will naturally develop from this.

This type of marketing has already suffered some abuse and because of this, many forums have recently developed stringent rules designed to protect their members from abusive or overly-aggressive marketing tactics. One forum grants .sig files only after a member has created one hundred valid posts and another has disallowed ads in sig files altogether.

Marketers must respect that the purpose of a forum is to be a platform to exchange ideas on a given topic. It is not there to advertise products and services. By focusing on the topic and posting questions and answers, a marketer’s reputation will grow and this creates the potential for sales naturally.

]]> http://viralmarketingwiz.com/viral-marketing/the-viral-marketing-and-online-forums/feed 3 http://viralmarketingwiz.com/viral-marketing/what-to-do-with-your-viral-ebook http://viralmarketingwiz.com/viral-marketing/what-to-do-with-your-viral-ebook#comments Sat, 07 Mar 2009 15:36:00 +0000 admin http://viralmarketingwiz.com/?p=300

Once you have your eBook written and checked and re-checked and checked again for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and that the links all work, you are ready to put it to work for you. Be absolutely certain that the links to your pages and especially to your sales page all are working links.

The object is to get your eBook to as many different places as possible. Some of your readers will help you to get it to different places and each place it goes it becomes a new salesman for you.

Post your eBook to as many of the eBook directories as you can. Many will let you post it for free or will let you post a link on their site to your eBook. To find these sites go to Google and type in “ebook directories”. This is now your personal viral marketing system.

Once it gets going, you can’t stop it…..not that you want to stop it. It is certainly not a requirement but it is a good idea if you can create a cover for your eBook. Some sites offer free eBook cover templates. You just choose a pattern and then add the text. You can buy cover templates. There are even sites that will create a cover just for you and do it for free. Statistics prove that an eBook will be downloaded more when a nice cover is displayed. Search the internet for these sites.

The traditional book is here to stay. Advertising on paper is here to stay, as well. The marketing eBook as a viral salesman is here to stay, too. Don’t discount the value or underestimate its worth to you and your online marketing. It can be one of your best marketing tools and it is free.

Buzz marketing is the vehicle that will take your new business to a new level. Here are a few suggestions to help you make that happen.

1. Pursue what’s happening now.

James Dean made rebels out of all of us and Madonna caused nice girls to wear a bustierre. So…how did that happen? It happened the same way that Rosie’s Tickle-Me Elmo happened. They started a commotion. A commotion can send the world on a buying spree. You need to get the right person to “sneeze” to spread your viral message. For instance, sell the president of the Realtors Association on your house-painting service or gets the urban kids to make your streetwise electronics cool. Just get your message to the influential people who can start the buzz.

2. Give them something to talk about.

It makes people feel smart to know something that others don’t know. “I know where you can get a terrific deal on software” or “My carpet guy can get those stains out”. They know the answer. Give your first customers a great product and you become their brag. In order to get them talking, you must fill a need. Remember the first time you saw a Walkman? What IS that and where can I get one? Now you’ve got them talking.

3. Package your product or service tightly.

Your buzz or viral blurb needs to be short, sweet and make the point. “They sell beautiful shoes” or “You’re kids will love this” are the kind of things that don’t get lost on the tip of a tongue. Make it easy to remember. Describe what you do right now until you say it virally right. If you can’t do it, your customers can’t either.

4. It’s like a cold in kindergarten.

The best way to spread your message is to “sneeze” it in the right direction. It needs to be aimed at your target customers and in the places where they can be found. Once you get your “sneeze” aimed in the right direction and at your general pool of potential customers, the next thing to do is identify the “Typhoid Mary’s” in the group.

5. “To register your own (whatever), click here”.

You have just received one…now buy one yourself. From Bouquets to “gifts for the fisherman”, “share-me” products give you the opportunity to spread your message inside what you sell. The product becomes the pitchman. Brilliant! You can find marketing services on the Internet that can create a customized e-newsletter package that will spread your business message to target users all through the Internet grapevine. Your customers will continue to love your product because they will tell and sell others.

6. Pay it forward.

You can generate more sales pretty easily. “Thanks so much for your business. Share this coupon with a friend and she will receive a complete facial at 20% off. To receive your free gift, please sign below.” That’s business author Jan Norman’s magic. She just helped you land a customer you’ve never met, and rewarded another one to boot. Just little things like “remember to tell your friends” at the bottom of an invoice are simple, easy and free ways to boost sales and start a buzz. On your web site offer something free for new names on your mailing list and your customers will join your sales force.

7. Because she’ll tell two friends and they will tell two friends, and so on and on….

Forget the fancy marketing theories. Buzz marketing works because it is heard from a friend who liked it and not from some paid pitchman who will sell anything for a buck. If your customers are happy with your product or service, then devise a way for them to share that joy with their friends. Help your customers to tell each other and your product will sell itself.

8. Overcome their resistance.

Problem solving guru, Jordan Ayan, points to persistence as the key ingredient to championing your business idea. Like that winter flu that some people don’t get until May, some customers will need many exposures before they “catch” it.