10e20 Blog

Once it goes viral, you can’t control it - or can you? This session will study the targeting criteria of word of mouth marketing and viral marketing management.

Moderator: Todd Friesen

Speakers:
Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOMoz
Louise Rijk, Co-founder and Vice-President of Marketing and Sales, Advanced Media Productions, Inc.
Aaron Wall, Author, SEO Book
Lawrence Coburn, President, RateItAll, Inc.

This session is definitely one of the most crowded - with a lot of energy. Todd starts it out by introducing it as the linkerbation panel.

Louise Rijk, Co-founder and Vice-President of Marketing and Sales, Advanced Media Productions, Inc.

Turning Customers into your Best Advertisers
Consumers are gaining more control over the media they consume. Control of the brand, messaging & advertising is moving increasingly from the marketer to consumer.
Consumers are gaining more control over how they are delivered.

Consumers are gaining more control over the media they consume. Control of the brand, messaging & advertising is moving increasingly from the marketer to consumer.Consumers are gaining more control over how they are delivered.

Who do you trust?

We trust our friends and social networks more than we do a marketer trying to get us to buy their product or service. Consumers are becoming more skeptical about advertising. Traditional advertising is becoming more expensive and becoming less expensive.

What is Word of Mouth (WOM)?

It’s the act of consumers providing info and making honest recommendations.
WOM is driven by “influencers” with large social networks.
Organic WOM - occurs naturally when people become advocates
Amplified WOM - when marketers launch campaigns to accelerate WOM.

Word of Mouth Marketing?

Find and empower the influencers who are already successfully using their products and services.
Online Word of Mouth Marketing - evolved from spoken communications.
Does not dissipate after a conversation as in the offline world.
One WOMM is growing - 20% of all WOM is currently happening online.

Consumer Generated Media (CGM)

CGM is created through an online dialogue (forums, blogs, product review sites)
CGM is relevant to the product and service experiences of consumers/users
CGM is frequently archived online and indexed in search engines for access by other consumers
CGM can be influenced but not controlled by marketers
CGM can be monitored and measured

Online WOMM & Viral Marketing

Online WOMM relies primarily on targeting “evangelists/influencers” / requires excellent product / online and offline
Viral - relies on passing messages along from friend to friend / message needs to be cool, outrageous or very unique / online only

Making Online WOMM Work

Give influencers and consumers something to talk about
Place product or services in the hands of “influencers”
Target the right people - “the influencers”

Start with “listening” online about what people are saying about your product

1. CGM Monitoring (blog monitoring, news alerts, discussion forums, del.icio.us tag analysis) low cost
2. “Listening Services” - CGM Analytics Vendors (Cymfony, Neilsen BuzzMetrics, Umbria, BuzzLogic & Intelliseek) high cost
3. Customer service department (CRM system)

Listen, listen, listen

Lawrence Coburn, President, RateItAll, Inc.

RateItAll Background - social networking & consumer reviews. All word of mouth traffic. First site on the Web to syndicate AdSense to user base.

YouTube & Widgets

He feels that the single biggest thing they did was give away their embeddable player and points to their Alexa rankings before & after that.

Why Widgets?

Proven method for getting your site to go viral.
There is demand
Gives your users the tools to promote your business
Increasingly difficult to build critical mass for a destination site
Organic backlinks
If you have a website - you should have a widget strategy

Aggregrators - MySpace, TypePad, Bloggers

Edge Feeders - YouTube, Photobucker, Quizilla

Platforms - Widgetbox, Snipperoo, Google Gadgets, Spring Widgets

He grades widgets at sexywidgets.com and grades them on five points:

1. Accessibility
2. Customization
3. Content/Experience
4. Branding
5. Sharing

Widgets He Likes:

• ThisNext Shopcast
• Bitty Browser
• StreamPad
• ChipIn! - entirely widget based business - plugin can be built right from the widget
• iLike - his favorite one right now

Mashable.com just launched mashable stats - stats on what is being used the most on myspace. Source: mashable labs

Future of Widgets

• Analytics - this lacking
• Monetization - ads imbedded into your widgets
• Driven by implicit data
• Contextually aware widgets - ex of this now is AdSense
• Fully interactive experiences

Resources:

1. sexywidget.com
2. flyingseeds.com
3. widgify.com
4. avc.blogs.com
5. mashable.com

Todd gives the example of MarketLeap SEO Tool and what that did for them. And how it would load different link text each time the page loaded and how they dominated the SERPs from this.

Aaron Wall, Author, SEO Book - Viral Marketing Management

Researching Ideas

Choose a target market (Who do you relate to? Why would they care? Salary.com Moms survey)
Find ideas:

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Recent news
• Blog search

Controlling Your Message

Have a main channel (official company blog or give a popular channel the exclusive)
Create common link point (book authors not making a book page on their site / voting scripts)
Build trust & attention before you need it
Be controversial but consider potential blowback ahead of time

Headlines

Be specific (salary.com WAHM $134,121)
Consider potential controversies
Write story to spread (not for keywords)

ME ME ME ME ME ME

People view themselves as important (blog search links to me / Digg homepage stories about Digg users)
Community involvement (Rand’s search engine ranking factors / ask for feedback / call out specific people)

Seeding Ideas

Ask for feedback
Make friends (email and IM)
Pitch bloggers or other media sources (make it seem like you are asking for feedback though
Social news sites (build accounts)
Announcement timing (Digg homepage at 3AM - not that good)
Announcement location (look at the sector - announce on a relevant site)
Buy reviews (ReviewMe)

Launching a Static Site

Give pleasures (Paris Hilton gives links / People will link back)
Call in favors
Spread out your ideas (interview partners / announce the launch / add linkbait later)

Formatting Link Bait

1. Make it easy to identify with
2. Make it polarized
3. Make it look comprehensive
4. Cite research & link out
5. Istockphoto (use pics)

Monetizing

Make your stuff easy to link at
Don’t over monetize

Bubbling Up

Social news popular
Meme trackers
MSNBC clicked

Don’t Compete with Yourself

SEO for Firefox (many links / Google SEO)

My Viral Beg for Links

Just like Guy - Aaron wants links to. Here you go Aaron: SEO Book and ReviewMe

Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOMoz

Rand starts off disagreeing with Laurence. Saying YouTube’s success was based on the Lazy Sunday video and not the embedded player.

Rand’s 7 Step List for Linkbait Success

1. Find the Linkbait Portals

• digg
• slashdot
• fark
• del.ico.us/popular
• reddit
• Boing Boing
• Techmeme
• Techcrunch
• Netscape
• Lifehacker
• Stumbleupon
• Shoutwire

2. Understand the Linkbait Audience

Driven by very specific passions
Dominated by a few key users who decide your fate
Often compelled by headlines, descriptions & content focus much than actual content quality

3. Brainstorm Effectively

Don’t lose focus on the target audience
Don’t force yourself to stay on-topic with your site
Invite contributions from folks who represent the target audience (young, geeky, urban)

4. Build Beautiful Bait

Graphic design & look/feel are important
Blogs, article format and/or unique visual interface all work well
Two goals - get on the portals (first) and attract the links (second)
Creating some room for controversy or discussion can inspire some more links

5. Create a Reputation

A strong profile at the social media profiles can make a HUGE difference (have someone really good internally or outsource it)
Once a site has been featured several times - it gets easier to get listed
Having a Top 100 Digger submit for you (almost) guarantees success

6. Submit with Style (ok, maybe style is the wrong word)

Use attention grabbing headlines
Describe the material in a compelling way
Highlight the interests of the specific audience

7. Don’t Shoot Yourself in the Foot

Don’t send too many “Diggs” from the same IP addresses
The same users “digging” the same material every time can be dangerous
If you’re in a small “tech” town be wary of sending more than 10-20 diggs
Keep your servers up - they’re never as secure as you think (database connections especially)
Follow your “bait” with several great posts/articles to help capture folks who might decide to stick around

Resources for the Dedicated Linkbaiter

• pronetadvertising.com
• seobook.com
• seomoz.org
• wolf-howl.com
• buzz.stumpleupon.com

Posted by Chris Winfield at 4:43 pm
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