Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Viral Marketing : Why should you care about viral traffic generation?
Why should you care about viral traffic generation?
Viral marketing is not just for the big boys out there. You might think that you need a huge marketing budget to take advantage of viral traffic, but that is simply not the case at all. You don’t need any flashy ads to be produced to benefit from viral traffic, and it should definitely be an important part of your overall marketing effort.
There are several reasons that you should be using viral traffic generation, so let's take a look at some of those right now.
It's Fast and Effective
We’ve already touched on just how fast it can be.
It's Inexpensive
Viral traffic generation does not have to cost you a single dime.
It Shields You from Any Negative Comments
As soon as you start making yourself known on the internet by offering a product or service, nine times out of ten it's going to be received very well.But remember, the internet is a voice box for everybody out there.
And there is always the chance that someone will say something negative about your site or service, probably for no reason other than to be nasty.
By utilizing viral marketing and taking advantage of viral traffic, you shield yourself from negative comments.
How? Because you're beating them with sheer numbers. If you’ve got so many positive comments out there, the occasional negative one will get lost in the noise.
It Can Find Customers
Viral marketing can find customers that you never knew you had. Your current marketing plan might target very specific niches, while viral marketing could open up your traffic income to whole other demographics you just didn’t even know were there.
How much will it cost me?
The 21 methods, click here, that we’re going to follow here range from free, which is the vast majority of them, to some that could start to cost you a little cash. But remember, the majority of the techniques we’re going to look at are free.
Once the message is out there, the message takes care of itself. The population of the internet takes care of spreading your message for you. The only cost that it may incur would be to pay for the extra bandwidth that you're going to need because of the huge amount of traffic you're about to receive!
Now that we've talked about the benefits of viral traffic let's get down to the nitty gritty and talk about some of the questions that you may have right now.
And first and foremost in your mind is likely: how do I make my message go viral?
Well there are no guarantees, obviously in life, and also in viral traffic generation. But there are things you can do that will increase your chances of success.
Successful viral marketing is a mixture of skill, timing, know-how and luck. You might get lucky right out of the gate and find the technique that works best for you. It might take you ten times to find the one that really works for you. But the key here is to keep at it because you will find at least one method that will drive quality traffic to your Web site.
The key to successful viral marketing is to be unique. We've probably all received emails (I know I have) from friends that point me to a YouTube video. And it's something that obviously caught the attention of millions of people because it's unique in some way. It's either really funny or it's a new take on something that’s been done before. Perhaps it's visually unique. Any one of these will cause people to pay attention and pass the message along.
If you can think outside of the box with your message, you're really going to increase your chances of success.
It's important, before we get started, to remember that internet users are pretty savvy. They're not gullible people (for the most part). Typically they're not the 12:00-flashing-on-the-VCR type of people.
If they’ve spent any amount of time on the internet, they’ve been exposed to a number of different things. Always keep that in mind; don’t assume that you're smarter than they are or that you’ve got one up on them in any way. Just always keep in mind that they're just as savvy as you are and therefore it's easy for them to recognize a cheap knockoff.
Why do I mention this?
Well, if you were just replicating and duplicating something that you’ve seen out there before, they're not going to waste any time on it. They’re going to skip along to the next email or Web site link or whatever. What we want to do in order to be successful with viral traffic generation is to give them something useful and unique. If we can do that, then as has been proven countless times before, the message will spread like wildfire.
If you can become skilled at viral traffic generation the traffic flood that results from this simply won't stop. Once your message is out there, it propagates and spreads and multiplies. The traffic might start as trickle at first but quickly develops into a torrent and it spreads to corners of the world that you never expected.
It's important to remember that there might not be any one method we’re about to discuss that will give you huge success. It's more likely that you're going to have to employ several of these methods to create that flood. One or two might bring in a trickle at a time. Others might bring more traffic. But added together the greater the likelihood you're going to succeed and drive a huge amount of traffic to your Web site.Find the ones that you're most comfortable starting with and give it a shot first.
And again, as I said earlier, think outside of the box. If you find an existing message out there, a Web site, or a YouTube video and it caught your attention, start with that. Work with that as a base, try and adapt it, make it unique, but there is certainly no harm in starting with an existing good idea, and taking it from there to create something that’s completely your own.
Okay, without any further ado, let's start looking at the methods!
What is Viral Traffic?
Empower Network Viral Marketing
Rudy | on June 23, 2013
What is Viral Traffic?
Viral marketing on the internet has exploded in recent years. We’ve all seen the likes of YouTube and Facebook soar in popularity -these are great examples of viral marketing. What makes them so successful is the way in which they spread their content – through word of mouth (or the internet equivalent). When you consider that the population of the internet is 360 million people and growing, you can begin to appreciate how effective viral traffic can be!
So how does viral traffic work?
Well, in a nutshell, visitors to your site see what you have to offer, and if they like what they see they’ll tell their friends. They’ll either email their friends or post it on a site like Facebook. Their friends will see these emails or site postings and visit the site that their friend suggested.Chances are that they’ll also like what they see, and they’ll tell their friends. The message spreads like wildfire, just like a virus -it doubles and doubles and doubles every time. That’s viral traffic in action!
As you can imagine, the traffic potential here is limited only by the population of the planet. I mean, that’s outlandish and it’s not realistic but the potential here really is unlimited as the population of the internet grows and the growth in social Web sites takes off.
Word of mouth spreads incredibly quickly.
If we take the analogy that we spoke about earlier and you assume that one person tells two of their friends and they tell two friends and so on and so forth, it only takes 10 generations of that to happen for one message to reach over 1,000 people.
What would happen if you started not with one person but with 100 or 500 or 1,000 people?
Can you imagine how much more quickly your message will spread if you tap into this incredible resource?
Consider social networking sites like Fark, Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon. They are hugely popular, and the traffic that these sites get everyday would make you green with envy.
Visitors come to these sites because they’re looking for recommendations to find stuff on the internet. These sites have built a reputation of showcasing interesting web sites, and so when people visit these sites and find a link to your site they’re going to be far more likely to visit.
We want to use that trust element to our advantage when building our viral marketing plan. As you’re about to see, building that trust relationship between you and your visitors is key to successfully generating viral traffic.
This entry was posted in Empower Network
Saturday, June 22, 2013
THE BASICS OF BLOGGING AND ONLINE PUBLISHING
By Brandon Cox
Blogging is such a weird word. We never used it until people started keeping “logs” on the “web” of their life called “weblog” and for some reason, we dropped the “we” and were left with the art of blogging. And in a sense, it has changed everything. How? Because now, everyone is a publisher.
Every business, and every institution is now a publisher, and those who publish with the most gusto win. It’s the age where people with few connections and little resources can grow their voice in the marketplace in inexpensive and creative ways.
I’m writing this post for those who haven’t jumped in yet. I’d love to dialog about the latest developer’s beta version of WordPress or Google’s search algorithm, but my goal is instead to reach out to those who are on the verge of blogging and push you over the edge to take the dive. If you need to read no more, head over to WordPress or Tumblr and get started! If you’re still looking to rationalize your decision, read on…
Still with me? Let me give you some reasons to jump in.
Everybody is doing it. This is normally a stupid reason to do anything, but in this case, what I mean is that everybody is talking and conversing about everything, and your voice matters.
It’s easy. There was a time when you needed to know html or write the code for your own blogging platform. Now, with a few clicks you can sign up and from your smartphone, you can blog.
It’s cheap. In fact, it’s usually free, or costs peanuts, to get started.You can earn some income. Don’t plan on getting rich off of blogging. It’s been done before and will be done again, but don’t assume you’re going to be the next John Chow, who makes money online by telling people how to make money online. Most of the “six-figure bloggers” were in the game early, but you can still earn a bit of an income if you’re patient and consistent.You can expand your influence. Ideas change the world, and today, ideas are shaped by the conversation online.
In other words, this isn’t just for geeks and nerds anymore. It’s for you too (assuming you don’t fall into either of those categories).
Convinced? With me? Good.
Now what in the world are you going to blog about?
What does “blogging” look like for you? You can make blogging a time of personal journaling, but I want to challenge you to think a little harder than that. Let’s re-define blogging as putting your passion into words for the world to experience.
Your passion.
If you are passionate about underwater basket-weaving, blog about it. If it’s vintage and retro living, go for it. If you’re all about the latest flip-flops coming out of the fashion scene, blog about it. The blogs I read are those written by people who are passionate, whose passion spills out in a contagious way. In words.
Blogging can include video and other forms of media, and will more and more as time goes on. What I’m getting at is that blogging is the act of allowing your passion to escape your heart and find expression online in a form others can consume.
For the world to experience.
I talk a lot about the experience of reading blogs because I’m a design and communications nut. For me, content is highly important, but so is its aesthetic surroundings. I’m not drawn to mere words. I’m drawn to the experience of reading them in their creative context.
So blog about what you know, what you love, and what you can speak authoritatively about to the world. Stay focused. I blog about an array of subjects, but they are mostly related to each other. If I started blogging entirely about weedrat recipes, I’d lose my readers, no matter how good weedrat stew might be.
Writing is good, but reading is better. Speaking is great, but listening is even greater.
Blogging isn’t simply the dissemination of information. Rather it’s the joining of an ongoing, developing conversation about a niche. The more people you help, connect with, and pour into, the more you and your blogging influence will ultimately benefit.
Don’t read them all – you’ll go nuts. There are too many of them.
But some of my own favorites are:
WeBlogBetter.com (I started this one, but Kiesha Easley has taken it beyond my wildest dreams).
ProBlogger (A lot about earning money, but a lot about powerful networking too).
Copyblogger (A whole lot of longer posts about writing, communication, and marketing).
Fuel Your Blogging (I used to be the Editor, but Christopher is much better!).
Kikolani (She gathers together some of the best resources on the web).
Social Media Examiner (Not all about blogging, but the broader topic of social media, of which blogging is one part).
Chris Brogan (An expert who blogs his expertise rather freely).
Danny Brown (Few understand blogging activism like Danny).
Michael Hyatt (He understands blogging from the perspective of a respected publishing executive).
For Bloggers By Bloggers (A steady stream of great tips).
Blogussion (Another great site with great tips).
Hubspot offers another list of great blogs too.
Here’s my step-by-step guide to getting started with blogging in a half an hour or less. Understand that if you can get hosting, a domain, and a custom-designed WordPress theme, you’ll be better off in the long run. But this isn’t the long run. This is the moment of taking the plunge.
So here’s my challenge:
Sign up for an account at here.
Pick a nice theme that reflects the personality of your blog. You can change later, and even move your WordPress blog to a self-hosted platform. For now, pick something pretty.
Create an “About” page where you tell the world whom you are and other ways to connect with you (link to your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social profiles).Write a blog post. No, “This is your first blog post.” doesn’t count. Craft a catchy, attention-getting title and briefly pour your heart out.
Post the hyperlink on Twitter, Facebook, and wherever else you hang out online. Don’t be shy. Do it!
Oh, and below, in the comments, tell me where you blog! What would you add to what I’ve said (for the soon-to-be newbie bloggers)?
Source: BrandonACox.com
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Step by Step Blogging System
If you’re a blogger, your most common problem is likely not knowing what to write. You open your word processor or editor to find a blank canvas staring back at you, which causes the same thing to happen to your mind — it goes blank.
Week after week, you struggle to pull together coherent posts that are just this side of rambling, and in the back of your mind, you know that you’re not doing the best job of managing your blog to ensure that it helps you reach your goals.
The solution?
Develop a system around your blogging efforts.
Here are the steps I took to create a system for producing and managing content for my own site.
About a month ago, I was approaching yet another week of blank canvases, so I set out to find a way to be more intentional and focused with my content. The first thing that came to mind was an editorial calendar. Big magazines and newspapers have used them since the dawn of the publishing industry, so I was fairly confident the solution would work for me, but I didn’t want to just throw together a calendar in spreadsheet form and think that all my problems would go away. I really wanted to approach this as a big magazine would, so I started by thinking in terms of a single magazine issue and how an editor might produce andmanage its content.
If you think about a single magazine issue, there’s generally a theme to it, a common thread that ties together the articles within it, so that was my first step — develop a theme. I decided to have “focus months” on my site to guide the content for a given month. This would help me accomplish a couple of things.
First, it would make my content more intentional. It would center my efforts around keywords and information that was relevant to my target audience.
Second, it would help me better anticipate the content I was going to create, which would allow me to line up guest experts and interviews that were relevant to the content.
I was immediately able to come up with themes for the next six months.
Step 2: Choose Your Sub-Topics
Once I had a theme in mind, I was able to think about sub-topics within that theme that would deepen my coverage of the content that month. At first, I just listed out the possibilities for sub-topics without thinking too much about them, and created a list of ten or twelve ideas. As I created the list, I noted possible guest experts who might provide greater insight into the sub-topics than I could provide on my own.
Step 3: Establish Your Schedule and Content Needs
With my topic and sub-topics ready, I had to decide on the frequency I would publish. I settled on publishing one content piece per day (could be an article, an audio piece, etc.). I decided to interview guest experts within the sub-topics and then spread out the content over the course of the month.
My plan would be to line up and interview guests the month before I intended to publish the content. That way, I would avoid last-minute scrambling to produce content and could instead focus on quality well in advance of publishing. This would also help when I got sick or took time off, since I would already have content on tap for the given week or month and could simply schedule it to be published (or, even better, hire someone else to do it for me).
I decided that the number of weeks there were in a given month would be the number of guest experts I would line up for that month (five weeks, five guest experts). And to make things simple, each guest expert would produce one week’s worth of content (five content pieces per guest).
My site has a mix of articles and audio, so I decided to do one-hour interviews with each guest (and then each interview would be divided into four shorter content pieces) and then have each guest contribute one article in addition to their interview. That made it really easy on my guests, since they only had to show up for a one-hour interview and create one article. Plus, that little bit of effort on their part would equate to weekly promotion for their businesses, since I would be spreading their content out over the course of the month.
The great thing for me was, instead of having twenty to twenty-five separate content pieces to create on my own in a given month, I would simply do four to five interviews (depending on the number of weeks that month) and knock out four content pieces in one hour. Of course, that meant a lot more planning on the front end, but then the actual content creation part would become very easy.
So, I knew how many guest experts I would have (the same as the number of weeks that month), and I knew how many content pieces I needed from each of guest (always five), so that let me know how many titles I had to create for the month.
Say, for instance, the month’s theme was “balance.” I knew I needed five content pieces, so I created five generic titles.
Stress-Reduction Tips
Personal Renewal
Food and Mood
Balancing Home and Work Life
Disconnecting from Technology
Then I could create more interesting titles from the generic ones:
60-Second Stress-Busting Techniques
The Importance of Personal Renewal
Is Food Affecting Your Mood?
Creative Ways to Balance Work and Home Life
Cut the Cord: How to Disconnect from the World
This part was surprisingly simple. While I normally could sit and ponder blog post titles for what seemed like hours, I was immediately able to think of several ideas when thinking about picking the brains of experts on a given topic.
Step 5: Create an Editorial Calendar
I had my theme, my sub-topics, and even the specific post titles for the content I wanted to create. All that was left to do was actually create the content, edit it, and publish it. That meant that I actually had to conduct the interviews and then lay out exactly when I was going to edit and publish the audio and articles contributed by the guests.
Why a System? Why Not Just Blog?
If you’re running a business blog, there’s generally an underlying purpose behind it. Maybe you want more clients or to create a fan base for an upcoming book. Whatever the case, there’s a reason that you blog, and the content you create should help you reach your end goal. By being more intentional and focused with your content, you’ll achieve greater success in a much shorter period of time and make sure that your content is, in fact, serving the audience it’s intended to serve.
My favorite things about having a system?
Content has become so much easier to create
My efforts are more focused and are helping me reach my goalsI’m more intentional when it comes to guests, which means greater cross-promotion, back links, and visibility with new audiences.
I’m no longer staring at a blank screen wondering what I’m going to write.
So, what’s your blogging system?
How are you staying on track and organized when it comes to your blogging efforts?
by amber singleton riviere
AUG. 26, 2010
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