I’m doing a series of workshops for the Center for Spanish Language Media at UNT.

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Contact Denisse Olivas (denisse.olivas@unt.edu) to attend multiple sessions.

There are some marketing efforts that just fall into the category of Gimmicks. Marketers use these cheap little “tricks”  to get an action out of people (purchase, share, whatever). These tricks range from taste-testing products to sappy stories made for a few heart-string tugs. Most of us are aware of these gimmicks. We allow them work on us occasionally, but usually we ignore them.

However, there’s a reason that these marketing tactics have endured. Sometimes, they work.

Twitter gives us a great example of a gimmick not only used by marketers but by parents of four-year-olds as well. You’ve probably even said it to someone in the pas month. It goes like this, you tell someone “don’t” when you actually mean “do”. In other words you tell people to do the opposite of what you want them to do, in hopes that they’ll do it just because you said not to.

Twitter hopes by saying don’t do it! More people will tweet and blog about their new Lists.

I’m sure you’ve gotten this little message on your twitter page. I’m not going to talk about lists because Twitter got exactly what they wanted, there’s a million blog posts covering it. But do check out the little highlighted section on Twitter’s notice.

Yeah, Twitter, way to use the oldest trick in the book.Oh and congrats, since its apparently working.

So what DO you think of Twitter lists? If you blogged about it, feel free to share.

Wanted to do a quick blog post. Last week I was a panelist at the Dallas SEO/SEM Meetup along with Damian Skinner & Erick Osia. We discussed a number of topics from social media to viral video to Blackhat SEO. I posted a recording of this event on the Meetup’s Upload section here.

Feel free to go listen to it. I know some of the questions are hard to hear but the answers are great. (If anyone knows how to edit audio, feel free to fix it!) Some examples of questions answered:

• How do I use social media to make money for my business?
• What should I use for my business on Facebook: a profile or a fan page?
• Does Wordpress index its pages?
• What does “Black-hat” mean?
• Should I use forums as part of my social media outreach?

Also wanted to give a shout-out to all the Twitters there!

Panelists:

@erickosia – Erick Osia

@damianstweet – Damian Skinner

@Veribatim – Kat Rice

Our Awesome Guests

@blueprintrealty – Bill Nicholson

@mktgmaster724 – Scott Saldinger

@smartacusguys – Rudy Lopez

@gushin – Dennis Guten

@natefalconer – Nate Falconer

@Andiqa – Andrea Duncan

We had more guests, so if you attended and would like to share your twitter, please leave it in the comments below! Be sure to check out the Dallas SEO/SEM group. Its a fantastic group. And I’m not just saying that because I’m an organizer. Check them out, and consider attending once a month with us.

Last week I was asked to do a talk for the DFW Social Media Marketing Meetup. They already had some great speakers cover Facebook and Twitter so I suggested talking about social media in the context of Viral Marketing. I’ve decided to post my notes here. A lot of this information is common sense, but that is, in fact, the beauty of viral marketing. The only difficult part is doing the research to make the right decisions.

Viral Marketing

1. Introduction: The “Holy Grail”

I refer to Viral Marketing as “the Holy Grail of the internet”. Most people aren’t sure where it is, how to get it, what it does, or what will happen to them when they find it. Much like crusaders of old, the journey to successful viral marketing is no easy task.

2. What is Viral?

Viral does come from the medical concept of a virus. If you have the flu, anyone you come into contact with may catch it, and then anyone they touch will get it and so on. Viral works the same way. You can connect with a few people and spread an idea which will in turn spread to possibly thousands of people you never came in contact with. It is Word of Mouth marketing, but online.

Some Aspects are:

• Word of Net: Like Word of mouth but faster and able to reach more people in a short amount of time
• The Power of NOT marketing: The goal of viral is in a sense, not to have to market. In other words you create the snowball and give it a push, but it will keep rolling down the hill and gaining mass whether you’re still running behind it or not
• Insider Phenomenon: Viral marketing should establish some kind of community. I like to use the example of Star Wars because its one lots of people can relate to. If I’m sitting with a bunch of people at a networking group who I may or may not know and I make an obscure Star Wars reference, chances are someone at the table will get it and laugh. When I hear that person laugh I know we have a connection even if I’ve never spoken to them before in my life. At that moment we are both “insiders” and part of the same community. A video or concept that goes viral will draw people together and create “insiders” who will network BECAUSE of your marketing.
• The Fluke Function: Unfortunately, there is no formula to viral marketing. There is no magic key, no map. There is only research and experimenting. In fact the majority of great viral campaigns went viral on accident. They were flukes. Sometimes, things just happen, and there’s only so much prediction you can do. A good example is TV series. Every show on television went through tons of market research, pitching to CEOs and TV network heads, focus groups and pilots, and even then, some shows don’t make it. They run one season or less and disappear forever. Others, run for ten years. We can only speculate so much on “why”.

Great Examples of Viral Campaigns:

• Got Milk. Even before the internet, the print marketing of milk has made an impact that we still imitate today.

• Wazzzzzzzzzzzup. Next step on the evolutionary ladder was video viral. Still a YouTube favorite.
• RickRoll. This is a great example of the Fluke Function. Rick Astley has made a ton of money off of people using his video as a joke. He was even asked recently to tour again (I think he also came out with a new record but I haven’t confirmed that). Either way, his song because part of an insider phenomenon.
• WOW Characters. The World of Warcraft videos using famous people as characters has a huge “gamer” following and is another example of the insider phenomenon.
• Anything to do with Apple. I’m not a huge fan of the Mac, but it has created images and symbols that have gone beyond branding and become a lifestyle.
• President Obama. Politics was not really considered a viral form of marketing until our current President broke the mold. Now social media and viral marketing are considered essential in a political campaign. His is a perfect example in the sense that he started rolling the snowball but other people continued to make him viral (aka ObamaGirl, JibJab, the ObamaRoll).

3. Is Viral Marketing a solution for you?

So who uses viral marketing? Obviously, big businesses do. But small companies and can be very effective with viral. Small companies who have a niche audience can really lean on the Insider Phenomenon. Who is your target market? 30 years old women in Dallas with a Deep South background who happen to like cooking apple dumplings as part of Sunday Supper? Imagine if you pulled all those people together with your marketing and created a community where those women would want to share with each other about your product/service. This is the time where I tip my hat to the Long Tail effect. Go read it if you haven’t. So if you think you have something that you can create a community around, than viral is a good bet for you. Great branding and good ideas may get passed along but a community gives people a value they can touch, that’s what really makes something persevere. The example I use, is again, a personal one. I know a lot of gamers and when things they think are funny or interesting hit social media then they all share it with one another. If they saw it last week and I haven’t yet then I’m told, “What? Where have you been?!” and I’m forced to sit down and watch some crazy YouTube video. Seriously, that’s how viral marketing really works.

4. Where to start?

Again, there is no real science behind why things go viral. But there are some things you can do:

1. Target market. Who are you trying to reach? Get the perfect client in your head (and in person if you can). Get this as clearly defined as possible.
2. Research. Research. Research. Find out everything you can about that target market. What medium do they like best? What kind of marketing has worked in the past? Is there a particular site or blog that seems to promote material similar to yours? What else are they interested in that you can connect to?
3. Branding. Make your message clear and tight. A video can be long, rambling or just plain spasmic but the message and the final burning impression should be flawless. If you make a great video and 100,000 people see it but you have not created any brand awareness, your efforts were useless.
4. Trial and error. After that its trial and error. I hate to say throw mud against a wall and see what sticks but in the end, that’s often how it goes. When you test ideas, make sure to track and get feedback on everything. When it doesn’t work go back to step 2 and start over.
5. Side note: hire a professional. I’m giving you tips and ideas but in the end, it does make a difference to have a specialist on your team.

I’m going to tell you that research counts way more than production on the whole. Think about all the random pictures of people’s cats seem to end up all over the internet. Sometimes a random video caught on someone’s phone makes it to the news. Your branding and message should have quality but remember the Fluke Phenomenon, sometimes things just “go” viral, for no reason. In other words, feel free to start small.

Final Thoughts

• The Players: Again, let me say RESEARCH. The players can be whatever medium your target market responds to but I have seen fantastic viral done with: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, email marketing, Blogs, Forums, Print, Video, podcasting, soundbytes…. and so on. Someone at the talk suggested Linked-In to me. Don’t get me wrong I’m a huge fan but I don’t have any good examples of a viral campaign on Linked-In, though I’d be happy to learn. Also, let me just note that video is the most powerful tool in a viral campaign. Most people are visual. Plus, video can be shared through any of the other mediums.
• Create a Champion: Look, one of the goals of viral marketing is to be lazy. Get someone else to market for you. Create people who will champion your brand because in the end, someone else saying how great you are matters far more than how great you think you are.
• Community: Don’t forget: the goal is to create a community. A community will perpetuate anything you market. It will breed champions. It will provide feedback and research opportunities and even expansion. Don’t underestimate its power.

Personal Aside: I’ve fleshed out my notes a bit because I think my speaking was not up to par that night, I was was mildly drugged from a CT scan… so, needless to say, I was very entertaining!

Feel free to share your favorite viral campaign!

So… what do you call something that’s dead but still continues to move around and as though it was living? Zombies! Is that what news and print marketing has become? I mean, we constantly hear about how traditional news is “dead” and we’re moving on to a digital age. But if newspapers are dead, why do I still hear about articles in the Dallas Morning News and I see at least one person with a newspaper in this coffee shop right now. The living dead are among us (on tables, no less)!

What’s really going on is that more “traditional” form isn’t going away; its evolving. Sites like the NYTimes.com are just changing to meet with public consumption of information. This blog is not about predicting the death print or anything like that but to point out a small flaw in many online marketers’ logic.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

This post is based on #5 from How to Tell if Your Webmaster is Cheating on You: “Your website or social media or email or whatever is the only marketing your company needs.” I especially hear this about social media, but really anyone who seems to specialize in one form of marketing be it print, design, web or otherwise will spend a lot of time telling you how they are the best. The fact of the matter is, rarely will one form of media reach your entire audience. In online marketing, I constantly have to make sure that what I do for a client’s online presence works with and not against any other form of marketing they may choose to use.

Marketing is a Gem of Many Facets

I base a lot of my articles on knowing your target market. When deciding on a medium to use, this is key. Now, you may have more than one audience to reach, or that audience may vary greatly in how they find your product. There’s lots of ways to get out your message and measure its effectiveness but like my partner Edward says, “Roughly fifty percent of all marketing works, its knowing which half that’s the problem.”

So let’s say you target audience is small business owners in their forties in the Dallas area. A great many of these people still read the Dallas Morning News, on or offline. A lot of them commute, or are mobile regularly, so signage might also be a good way to reach them. This is also one of the fastest growing demographics on Twitter and Facebook (not to mention mobile browsing). All of these might be a great marketing avenue for you, and probably work best as a whole strategy and not separate pieces.

To clarify a little, I wanted to share a case example by Jeff Hasen about how he used traditional and new media to market a company. Its worth a read.

The Zombies Live Among Us

Now that we know that zombies still walk among us, we might as well embrace them. Trying new strategies that integrate with old ones can only increase your visibility (and hopefully your client base). I don’t mean don’t target, just be smart about where you spend your money. But don’t write off a traditional media form for being dead. I mean, if Shaun of the Dead can coexist with the living dead, than so can you!

Do you have an example of someone who used social media and traditional zombies together in a marketing campaign? We’d love to hear about them!

Everyday I meet people who ask me about social media. Each of these people have unique thoughts and experiences with online networking. Some of them are whole-heartedly involved, some don’t even want to consider it as viable marketing. But I’ve noticed a sort of pattern emerging. Much like grief, there seem to be five major stages of social media, they pass quickly or last years, but everyone seems to experience them.

1. Avoidance – People at this stage pretend social media doesn’t exist. If you ask them about it they’ll respond, “Oh, yeah, my daughter uses that site.” This stage usually involves lots of sticking fingers in your ears and yelling “lalalalala” at the top of your lungs.
2. Fear -Or “the excuses” phase. During this phase, you know social media is out there and that you should probably get involved, but you’re just too scared to try it. Some of the excuses I hear most often: “I’ll jump in when I know what I’m doing” or “It just confuses me” or “I don’t see how this service can help my business”. Hint: Just like crocodile wrestling, you can watch it on tv, study it, even take classes, but its never going to be the same as jumping on the back of a real crocodile and just doing it!
3. Paranoia – Okay, so you finally decided to take the plunge. You create an account. Now what? As with all new things, a little bit of fear continues to nag in the back of your mind. “Am I doing this right?” “What if I piss off all my personal friends by talking business (or vice versa)?” “I don’t know any of the terminology!” This fear of screwing up can be paralyzing. This is why some people never get past the -checking this out for the first time!- post.
4. Obsession – If you can get past the Paranoia stage social media suddenly becomes fun. Once people start connecting with you and commenting on your posts, the rush can be come addictive. This stage can be positive, the surge of activity can really put you on the map. You also may need to find a help hotline for your Social Morphine habit.
5. Comfort -Once the adrenaline rush fades, a regular pattern emerges of when and how you use social media. Perfect balance is next to impossible, but comfort comes very close. This doesn’t mean that you won’t slip back into one of the previous stages. In other words, once the social media cycle claims you, THERE IS NO ESCAPE.

I will add, however, that there is a stage outside of the five that some social media users fall into. The unfortunate post-stage:

6. Apathy – Apathy can creep into any relationship. You loose the spark and have to work to regain the love. It happens for lots of reasons: not enough time, not fun anymore, negative experiences… Unfortunately this reminds us that not every social media experience is positive, and it does take work. However, like any marketing strategy it should bee taken seriously. Besides, the reward tastes better after you wrestled a crocodile to get it.

What stage are you at?

I realized after attending the Microsoft SparkStart event that I often repeat the same advice over and over again, just with a new angle. So instead of doing that today, I’m going to point you to posts I wrote over the last year that still make sense right now! Believe it or not, the social media game hasn’t changed that much in a year. In fact, marketing as a whole hasn’t changed that much, we just use a different medium.

So here are some posts that might be relevant for you today:

Why Social Media is important:

• Social Media: Personal Touch in a Virtual World
• The Business of Social Media

The Facts:

• Facebook: Making the Rest of Us Look Bad
• Tools for your Belt: Demographics & Surveys

The Etiquette:

• Top 5 Ineffective Social Media Accounts
• Social Media Compared to Offline Networking

A lot of the truths of marketing still exist in the digital age. Are there any principles you use over and over again in your own marketing (online or off)?

Last week I had the opportunity to speak on a panel for Microsoft BizSpark’s first event: SparkStart. I sat on the Marketing Panel with two fantastic names you may know: Giovanni and Sean Jackson. I had a great time and every person I talked to said that they got even more out of the day than they expected.

However, though social media was spotlighted by the marketing panel we did discuss other ways to market. I want to share some quick thoughts that I thought should be repeated:

• Consider your sales funnel: There is a gap between the intent to purchase and actual purchase, do everything you can to help people get through it.
• Don’t scatter shot: Focus your social media efforts, but make sure you grab your real estate with something like NameCheck
• Social Media Tip: Have the heart of a servant
• Twitter: To quote Giovanni “its the shiniest thing out there right now” but know your target market, they might not use Twitter; go where your clients are.
• Branding, branding, branding: Do this FIRST! Don’t get on Facebook til your brand is completely ironed out.
• Email: has not gone out of style and is still a cornerstone of any online campaign.

If you missed SparkStart, I heard that due to the overwhelming positive feedback, there will be more of them! Feel free to contact them at their website or their twitter profile: @Sparkstart

Did you attend? What did you take away with you?

Ever since Facebook’s little privacy policy backlash, more and more people have approached me with concerns about privacy. Who can see what you put online? How safe is your personal information? Anytime you put information on the internet, you take a risk. However, you can take steps to protect yourself and your secrets.

CNET wrote an article about a company called Rapleaf in 2007. I went and investigated this company.

Rapleaf makes its money by conducting research for companies interested in social media demographics. But what’s more important, is that they offer a free service: showing you what information about you exists on the internet. We’re going to walk through how RapLeaf works by showing you how to set up an account.

• Go to the Rapleaf personal page and register.

• Make sure to verify your email.
• Discover all the information about you that is open to the public.

• Choose what information you want to share with RapLeaf.

• Make sure to read the privacy policy, just because you’ve hidden your information from Rapleaf, doesn’t mean that information can’t be found.

• If you want to delete something, you’ll have to go back to the original site to change it.

If you sign up for RapLeaf, let me know what you think of them!

This is my very first Vlog. I’ve not done it for lots of reasons, but because I’m speaking more and more I decided to share it with you!

I’ve been looking for a simple analogy to social media for a while. Then I realized that most business people are trained at some level to network in real life. Social media uses those exact same principles, just online! So the point of this video was to compare offline networking to your online presence.

The poster in the background looks like this: