Social Marketing Today

Here are some great posts from the Sphere on social marketing and social media.

Social Blogging Using The Facebook Dashboard Widget For WordPress - If you like to keep up with what is going on with your friends on Facebook then you may like this handy little social blogging plugin. The plugin requires WordPress 2.5 and above. To quote from this social blogging plugin’s homepage: …

More Social Bookmarking Sites To Consider - When we consider social sites we automatically think of Facebook, MySpace or perhaps Bebo. Social media sites include YouTube and Flickr. There are many social bookmarking sites that can be used to deliver traffic to your sites. …

Social Media to-do list for Flickr and Facebook - Flickr Social Marketing list for Metropolitan Area Children’s Museums Facebook Social Marketing list for Metropolitan Area Children’s Museums The benefits of using social media marketing to market your business online are described …

Twitter; Social Marketing or Just Social? - In her post, Social Marketing Pitfalls & The Twitter Time Suck, Lynn Terry’s definition of “social” explains exactly how I’ve tried to conduct myself in business all along; by being personable and not so personal. Lynn wrote, …

Direct Marketing vs Social Media Marketing - Thanks to the response received (@gyutae @AlbertMaruggi @AnnBernard @briansolis @martinbowling) from a Twitter post (follow here) on the topic of social marketing vs direct marketing, this post invites your opinion. …

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Absolutely Fascinating Interview with Dr. Ariely

His book, which is flying off the shelves worldwide, is called “Predictably Irrational.” His name is Dr. Dan Ariely. He’s a behavioral economist. And he provides a fascinating look at human behavior that completely debunks traditional economists assumptions about people and how they make decisions.

Dave Lakhani did an interview with Ariely recently (don’t ask me how he got someone who everyone wants to talk to right now to do an interview) and really got in depth with Ariely on the irrationality of people when making small to huge economic decisions in their lives.

To a marketer, this information is like pure, molten gold. I highly suggest you not only buy Ariely’s book, Predictably Irrational, but that you also listen to this interview Dave Lakhani just posted with Ariely.

This is incredibly good stuff. Its ground-breaking. It will give you a metric ton of new insights into how people think, decide, and act when making decisions on purchases of all kinds. It will make you a better marketer.

Tags: dave lakhani, dr. dan areily, predictably irrational

All Your Base Are Belong To Us!

Guest Post By Michel Fortin

If you played video arcade games in the late 80’s, even early 90’s, you might remember Zero Wing — a game in which a battle takes place in the year 2101, where you must defend the planet Earth from an alien invasion led by the dreaded warrior Cats.

Zero Wing may have been a favorite among teenagers, but like the Cabbage Patch doll the fad faded… Until Sega Genesis came out with their version of the popular arcade game in ‘98, giving Zero Wing new breath. But this time, one is offered an animated introduction in preparation for the space battle…

“In A.D. 2101, war was beginning.” And a dialogue between the ship’s captain and Cats ensued, offering these priceless gems:

“You Have No Chance To Survive Make Your Time.” “All Your Base Are Belong To Us.” “What you say!” “Someone Set Up Us The Bomb!” “Move ‘Zig’ For Great Justice!” And many more.

Now, what does a video game have to teach us about copywriting?

Obviously, this poor Japanese-to-English translation has made a few people grin. But in the summer of 2000, “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” started to make its rounds in message forums and email. Then graphically-altered pictures started to invade the ether: Billboards, road signs and even Bill Gates, donning “All Your Bases Are Belong to Us” insignias, populated the Internet.

“All Your Base spread from office to office like a benign virus,” writes Chris Taylor in a recent Time Magazine issue. This benign virus to which Chris is referring is a rock video (developed in Shockwave Flash), which is, essentially, a mini-slideshow of “All Your Base” pictures.

Then the “All Your Base Are Belong to Us” phrase, or AYBABTU, started popping up in the real world: Shopping mall windows, city building rooftops, even regular websites, you name it.

According to PlanetSeige.com, the ‘All your Base’ craze, which started as a tiny inside joke, has now become “an explosively popular Internet phenomenon.” National newspapers, such as the Ottawa Citizen, USA Today and San Fransisco Chronicle, wrote articles about the “conspiracy.” Even an online retailer sells AYBABTU memorabilia.

Is it really a conspiracy? No. Is it just a fad? Maybe. But one thing’s for sure: It’s brilliant viral marketing since it uses, as its springboard, one of three essential response-boosting ingredients:

Curiosity, scarcity or controversy.

Online, using one of these three elements can dramatically boost both readership and response. And viral forms of publicity can become tremendously effective — the news can spread very quickly and effortlessly if done right.

If your storyline is unique, the offer focuses on a niche and the copy utilizes one of these three elements, not only will it increase conversions but also the knowledge of your existence will spread almost naturally. And using the Internet as a way to automate, leverage and increase the spread of that message can help to multiply your marketing… Exponentially.

Take my friend Mike Filsaime’s Butterfly Marketing launch. Or even John Reese’s Traffic Secrets. Sure, affiliates were promoting it. But they were controversial. Talk about these information products was buzzing all over the Internet. Both good AND bad. And people’s curiosity glands were kicking into overdrive.

But they used something else to help propel their sales: “Spy photos.” Blogs. Videos. Reprintable product reviews (both good and bad ones, and the bad ones often being the most controversial and magnetic in terms of traffic). Social proof. Samples. Contests. Downloadable special reports (like John’s MillionDollarDay.com PDF file).

You name it!

But let’s take a look at viral marketing for a moment.

Viral marketing, which is merely word-of-mouth, is called such because it propagates from person to person. Online, it’s also called “word-of-mouse,” because viral marketing often uses content, pictures and files (such as freeware, ebooks, audios and even videos, like AYABTU, which, in the case of information products, are screencam videos), which can be easily downloaded, copied and spread around online.

It can also be in the form of a web-based application and not just content (such as traffic generating scripts, referral systems, affiliate programs, quizzes, greeting cards, checklists, etc).

But videos, especially controversial ones (either by their very nature, or by piggy-backing on the coattails of a news item or certain recent event, while it’s fresh on people’s minds), are powerful because they engage all the senses. And the more senses you engage, reported by a University study, the greater the retention, comprehension and interest levels. As much as 224%.

A great example of a current promotion using this very strategy — and doing extremely well — is Brad Fallon’s new “explosive” video. There are three reasons: 1) It’s a great counter-strategy to the recent “Google Slap” (where paid advertisers have been hit hard by the latest changes at Google), 2) it offers the video first and pulls you in to know more (thus building a list), and 3) it offers some powerful content with tons of proof.

Nevertheless, one question remains: Is viral marketing limited to the electronic realm? Does it need to be web-based? Not really.

Word can spread online with results that are faster and more far-reaching than any other form of word-of-mouth advertising. Add an element of curiosity, scarcity or controversy, and your “message” will populate emails, message forums, newsgroups, blogs and websites — as if on their own, like a virus. Thus, if you can create a “buzz” about your business, site or product, or even any kind of buzz through which you are visible, you’ve got it made!

No files. No web-based scripts. Not even a website.

Here’s a case in point.

Nearly half a million people a day were calling a New Jersey investment firm’s voice mail just to hear the sound of a duck quacking. Their automated reception, which began with those typical corporate prompts, such as “To request a new account kit, press two,” included as its last option: “If you would like to hear a duck quack, press seven.”

The brokerage firm, which has a mallard as its mascot, decided to throw in the sound of a duck quacking as an option on their toll-free line — it was a joke at first. Being the last in a series of seven message prompts, they thought that nobody would notice or even care. But in a very short amount of time, people started calling the line to hear the sound of the duck, tying up the brokerage’s phone system in the process.

The message went something like this:

“To make a claim, press 1. To make changes to your policy, press 2. To talk to one of our representatives, press 3.” All the way to “…To hear a duck quack, press 7.”

According to an article in Canada’s National Post newspaper, writer Robert Thompson reported that, at the end of the first week, only eight people listened to the quack. But word spread so quickly that, with the phone number circulating throughout the Internet and particularly by email, more than 270,000 people called the number by the end of the first month. “We didn’t do anything,” said the brokerage’s CEO. “We just left it on our voice mail — the Internet took care of the rest.”

In a recent interview with Mike Bartlett of NewsBytes.com, one spokesperson said that, while the company did not do anything to promote the duck, the exposure the popular fowl has brought to the company is estimated to have resulted in a 75% increase in the number of new accounts opened in each of the past three weeks.

Nevertheless, the first step in viral marketing is to develop your unique selling proposition, or USP. Aside from all the other steps, if you master this one you will create word-of- mouth advertising as a natural byproduct, without effort.

Readership goes up. Interest goes up. And of course, sales go up.

If you want some help, then in order to springboard your viral marketing you should add an element of curiosity, scarcity or controversy to your efforts, and especially to your copy. (By the way, why do you think most “how to” types of information products are sold on the basis of “secrets” they contain? People are just plain curious — it’s human nature.)

For one, you can generate curiosity by adding a sense of mystery or the unexpected to your message, even an oddity or incomplete story — one that only you, your product or your site can complete.

Then leverage your marketing by using tools that can help the viral process — and you will multiply your visibility quite rapidly. In addition to referral traffic generators, strategic alliances and affiliate programs, these specific tools can be used to stimulate both curiosity and third party referrals.

Write an ebook. Program a mini-app. Offer a checklist. Record a video. And distribute them freely…

… It just might “set up you the sales.”

— About Michel Fortin —

Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter, marketing strategy consultant, and instrumental in some of the most lucrative online businesses and wildly successful marketing campaigns to ever hit the web. For more articles like this one, please visit his blog and subscribe to his RSS feed.

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You know you’re kind of a big deal when…

…people post videos all over the web about you.

Here’s a video I found on Revver from Dave Nielson about Friday Traffic Report and Social Power Linking. Thanks Dave for taking the time!

I had to re-post this one. Raimi rocks even if he hates the Authority Black Book.

And finally, the creepier ones like below. I don’t know who did this. It’s not my voice. It links straight to the proper URL. It’s my words from something I wrote, I guess. Sounds familiar anyway. I’m locking the door tonight.

Tags: videos about jack humphrey

Alexa Finally Changes Ranking Engine

…and by that I mean it looks like they’ve actually BUILT a ranking engine to surpass the feeble Alexa Toolbar as the only measure of a site’s value.

I was one of, if not the first, to caution people when Alexa started that the rankings were based only on people who had the tool bar installed. These were predominantly webmasters. So sites that webmasters frequented fared well, like mine, in Alexa while others had terrible rankings. (The sites website owners weren’t likely to ever visit but the rest of the web was.)

This is why huge sites could have surprisingly low Alexa rankings and heavily niched sites, like mine, could have incredibly good rankings with far less actual traffic.

It appears Alexa is now using different sources for their rankings. My ranking went from the 30,000 range to the 60,000 range as a result.

But that’s probably fair and I welcome the change because, if it is universal, my 67,000 or so ranking is still going to be remarkable compared to the rest of the web. This is given that I have such a specialized site which doesn’t get a heck of a lot of visitors compared to, say, Digg.com.

Want to read up on the latest reports on the Alexa rankings change? Let me whip out my Utility Poster software and grab the best stories for you.

Alexa Ranking News from the Sphere…

Alexa Changes it Up

Alexa, the white elephant metric site that everybody loves to hate, announced today that they would be making a change to the way that their metrics are compiled. We listened to your suggestions, and we believe that our new rankings …

Alexa Changes Rankings Criteria Announcement

I guess it is fair though and I’m still happy with the change despite it negatively affecting my rankings. I’ve said before that Alexa rankings were useless to some extent due to the bias of people using the toolbar; now hopefully they …

Alexa changes their rankings

I went to Alexa to check the ranking and they have an announcement on their website that they did change the algorithm that calculates their rankings. I never dreamed of making it into the first 10K websites in the world and although …

Alexa changes website ranking system

Alexa will no longer measure data based on users of the Alexa toolbar, rather ranking sites based on aggregating data from various sources. Alexa announced the changes this past week, noting that many websites will notice significant …

Alexa changes ranking system - More sources than the toolbar

Alexa is the Web statistics tool that everyone checks but no-one really likes very much. Mainly because the stats were only compiled from people who installed the Alexa toolbar. But that’s all changed, and Alexa has now overhauled its …

Alexa Changes Ranking System

Because they only used the toolbar to determine a sites’ ranking, they have been highly criticized and many people have discounted the benefit and usefulness of Alexa saying that it is inaccurate. People have been asking Alexa to change …

Alexa Changes it’s Ranking System

Alexa announced that they have revised their ranking system. There are lots of negative comments about the previous algorithm of Alexa that is why, others are not trusting their algorithm. Will this changes , change the perception with …

Alexa changes website ranking system

Alexa announced the changes this past week, noting that many websites will notice significant changes in their rankings. Although the service has been popular with smaller sites, which don’t qualify for Nielsen rankings, critics have …

Alexa Ranking Changes - What effect will it have for Bloggers?

Please find below a summary of the changes AU refers to the Australian Alexa rank and X refers to the global Alex rank. While I have calculated the changes to last update’s top 100, I don’t want to post that until I’ve had a chance to …

Alexa Changes Rankings, Goes Beyond Dreaded Toolbar

The folks at Alexa have announced that their ever so popular (but, many might argue, often inaccurate) ranking system for web sites has been altered. The official word on the changes is slightly vague: Alexa claims “better rankings,” …

Tags: alexa, alexa rankings

TrackBoost: 5 Minutes to Killer Backlinks!

Be honest. How much time did you spend last week getting relevant, keyword-laden backlinks from other bloggers in your niche?

10 minutes? An hour? None at all? Watch this video on a new piece of software that will change the game so you can finally take advantage of the kind of link building you SHOULD be doing without spending more time on your blog. In fact, you’ll spend less!

Trackbacks are a pain to remember each time you do a post. Yet there are likely a lot of people talking about the same topic you just posted about out in the blogosphere. People who are more than willing to to link back to YOU talking about THEM.

And not only that, but they will gladly link back to you using your post title as the link. Think SEO. Think keyword anchor text links.

Then think…Trackboost.

Everyone is in a hurry once they’ve finished a post. No one wants to get done with a post and then have to go out and search the Sphere for relevant further information and posts that their readers would appreciate.

Everyone knows the value of a good link. People spend a TON of time trying to get them. Yet bloggers rarely spend enough time on trackbacks, some of the best linkage you can get for direct traffic and SEO. This is because it extends the amount of time you have to work on each post doing the research, grabbing trackback links, and setting the links to the posts you recommend in the post you just made.

The entire mess has been corrected. Watch this video and you’ll see. Bloggers are gaining a new best friend this week.

Trackboost comes out this week. Watch this spot for the release and then grab it and get all your posts linked up with no sweat!

Tags: getting links, how to do a trackback, trackboost review, trackboost video, using trackboost, what are trackbacks

Utility Poster Makes Blogging SO Easy!

I just got a video done giving readers a sneak peek at our upcoming software release called Utility Poster. Blogging is about to get a lot easier and faster with this software!

In 10 minutes you can have a quick yet hyper-optimized and relevant “speedlinking” post your readers will appreciate and Google will love while you get to all the other work you have to do on days where you aren’t doing big, long posts.

Utility Poster will be out soon. Watch Friday Traffic Report for release!

Tags: blog content, content development, easy blog posts, optimized blog posts, speed linking, utility poster

Friday Traffic Report Radio

Here’s the first show on BlogTalkRadio.com! You can always tune in every Friday at 2 p.m. Eastern for my recap of the best traffic tips and internet marketing news each week. I will also feature answers to questions posted by FTR members about social marketing and other internet marketing related topics.

-Jack Humphrey

More information on great shows and using Blog Talk Radio for marketing…

Jim Cobb and Blog Talk Radio

How Blog Talk Radio Can Help You Get More From Your Day

Use Blog Talk Radio To Promote Your Business

Internet Talk Radio And The Reason Behind Its Growing Popularity

Tags: blog talk radio, friday traffic report radio, jack humphrey

Today in Social Marketing

Here are some posts I picked up with my cool new tool called “Utility Poster.”

Sorry, you can’t have it. (Yes you can!  Grab it Here!) Suffice it to say I spent a heck of a lot less time on this utility post than anyone else doing a post like this today!

What’s going on in social marketing news in the Sphere?

Reverse Psychology And Social Networking

I notice many individuals, when they first decide to try social networking or social marketing, simply trying to hard. The end result is that they lose all credibility before they have even started. Sometimes, a little reverse …

Web 2.0 Expo Sneak Peak

Greetings from very chilly San Francisco where the 2nd edition of the SF Web 2.0 Expo, organized by O’Reilly and Techweb, is going strong. Yesterday was the kick-off to the geeky celebration of all things surrounding social computing, … …

Tools For Engaging In Social Media

We all know Social Media Marketing can be pretty time consuming. There are numerous social media communities, each requiring you to sign up, make a profile, and participate, in order to have any success with them. …

Tags: social marketing, social marketing news, social media, utility poster

Have A Beer On Me at World Internet Summit!

I will be attending the World Internet Summit in Dallas, TX in May. I don’t do conferences much anymore.

So Why WIS?

Because a lot of friends will be there. Stephen Pierce, for one. He spends so much time in Australia and Asia that a chance to meet up with him in the States is getting more and more rare!

And because I believe Brett McFall, Tom Hua, and Pierce really deliver the goods.

Oh, and because registration is only $97. I hate paying thousands for conferences as much as the next guy regardless of how much is in the ‘ol bank account.

So, if you live in Texas, I’d love to meet FTR readers in person at the World Internet Summit. I’ll buy you a beer! (Or a suitable substitute for non-hop heads.)

If you don’t live in Texas, like me, I really believe this conference will be worth the trip. We just surveyed our big list and found that many readers are just perfect for this kind of training.

They even have a “newbies” day, the first of its kind, where they really break down the basics of internet marketing and making money online so that rank beginners can understand and not be intimidated by esoteric geek speak.

So, I’d love to meet as many readers as possible, including clients of ASC or SPL! The price is right and the “goodie bag” they are giving attendees is worth 100 times the cost of flying, hotel and registration.

Click here to learn more about World Internet Summit, Dallas, May 22-25, 2008

Tags: brett mcfall, internet marketing conference, stephen pierce, tom hua, world internet summit

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