Presentation by ENTRA on the value of aligning marketing and sales strategies for better bottom line results.
How Do Google's New Search Options Affect SEO?
A great article by Chris Crum on the new Google search options and what it means to you. Check out the video below.
It appears that Google is starting to use semantic search capabilities. From going to Wikipedia, the definition of semantic search is really about reducing the ambiguity in the use of words. For example the use of bark, which can be the sound a dog makes or the covering on a tree. "Semantic search is a process used to improve online searching by using data from semantic networks to disambiguate queries and web text in order to generate more relevant results" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_search
Getting someone's attention can be difficult these days; people have so many interests and so little time that convincing them to swing by a website can count as a real victory. Unfortunately for Twitter, it's also important to keep people around, and in this respect, statistics indicate that the micro-blogging service is failing rather miserably.
David Martin, Nielsen Online's vice president of primary research, reported an almost startling number yesterday. "Currently, more than 60 percent of Twitter users fail to return the following month," he wrote, "or in other words, Twitter's audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month's users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent."
Which is actually worse than a two-steps-forward-one-step-back scenario.
The bright side is that Twitter's retention rate used to hover under 30 percent, so the number is at least improving. But compared to what Twitter's predecessors achieved, 40 percent remains sad.
Martin noted, "[W]e found that even when Facebook and MySpace were emerging networks like Twitter is now, their retention rates were twice as high. When they went through their explosive growth phases, that retention only went up, and both sit at nearly 70 percent today."
If Twitter can't match those levels, it's on track to meet with a whole lot of rejection and achieve popularity among only a smallish number of people.
In this example, Blendtec which sells high end blenders, used the iPhone 3G to gain attention for their blender to the tune of 6 million views for this add alone.If you visit Blendtecs web page you will see other great examples of viral marketing using YouTube in their “Will It Blend” series http://www.willitblend.com/
Steps to Be Successful with Viral Marketing
We are being asked on a regular basis by clients at both large and small companies " what can be do to be successful with viral marketing campaigns?"
While there are many viral marketing techniques and there is an abundance of reading material on viral marketing 1, we wanted to focus on one tool, the use of YouTube videos. There are many B-C and B-B examples where using YouTube videos has raised customer awareness and improved companies credibility and revenue. That said, to meet with success there are some simple steps that should be followed.
Step 1: Create an Article That Grabs Readers' Interest Once you have uploaded your videos to YouTube, you must heavily promote your videos if you want to sell more books, products and services online. One of the most effective ways to broadcast your message is by writing articles related to your videos and submitting them to the top article directories, websites and electronic magazines(ezines) that accept articles. While writing your articles keep in mind that the best result-producing articles are the ones that provide unique, high quality content that solves at least one piece of a problem puzzle. However, you must avoid a common mistake in converting readers to buyers, in not giving the reader all of the answers to the "HOW" to solve a particular problem.
Step 2: Suspects to Prospects With a Strong Call for Action and Make Them an Offer They Can't Refuse At the end of your article, you can promote yourself and attract visitors to your YouTube video page with a bio box. This is where most article marketers make the fatal mistake of failing to effectively articulate the essence of what makes you and your offering unique. For example, they may write something like: Joe Smith, is a keynote speaker, seminar leader and author. He has spoken in 26 countries on four continents. Check out his YouTube video at___________ While this is accurate it is also VERY BORING. The offer must be compelling and exciting Fitness Expert, Craig Pollon helps millions of busy moms lose fat while gaining muscle with just 3 short workouts a week. Watch his new YouTube Video at _________ and discover 3 new turbulence training exercises that will help you burn belly fat now! And as a special bonus, you'll receive a FREE special offer to receive Craig's Controversial Fat Loss Report revealing the most common exercise myths that are sabotaging your fat loss efforts. Hummm?.makes you want to at least take a look Step 3: Submit your articles to the top article directories to build links and improve your search engine optimization. Just like your website, to increase your YouTube Video page's search ranking on Google, you must increase the number of inbound links to the page. The higher you climb in search results the more unique visitors you will get. By submitting articles to the top article directories like EzineArticles.com, you will instantly receive a guaranteed link to your YouTube page as long as you follow each directory's specific editorial guidelines.
Step 4: Submit your articles to the top, targeted websites and ezines that accept article submissions in your niche. For best results and to climb higher in search engine rankings you can't just have any link. You must have links on high-trafficked websites with high Google Page Rankings. Also by placing your articles on highly-competitive, targeted websites like About.com, instead of just second tier article directories that will publish anyone's articles, you will win trust in the hearts and minds of your targeted audience before they even see your YouTube video. Follow these tips, and you will drive traffic to your YouTube video pages and turn suspects to prospects?. 1. Viral Marketing Links http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm http://www.baekdal.com/articles/Branding/viral-marketing-tricks/ http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Viral_marketing
Ok due to the numbers of questions, we should explain...What is Twitter?
Whas’ up with Twitter
I decided last weekend to play around with Twitter and then to briefly tweet about some of the concerns I had had before my initial visit to Twitter:
Twitter lacks security
Lack of E-mail Verification - I was surprised when I signed up that there was not an e-mail verification process. Yes, it did require you to enter the almost non readable string of characters to thwart bots, but no link was sent via e-mail to verify your existence. This seem like an obvious and easy issue to address.
Beware Spammer May Follow You – A issues with twitterers is that they follow anyone that follows them - without question. But that other person could be a spammer - and by letting them follow you, you have opened up a medium to them. This is a bit more troublesome.
Truncated URLs – If you really do not know the people who are following you, be careful with the links you're clicking. Twitter Tweets cannot be longer than 141 characters, long URL's are shortened with a shortening service like ShortURL. The problem with this is that if users click on one of these links, they don't know what exact Website they're going. This makes it easier for hackers to send out faulty links.
Twitter is only for B to C or networking communications
Unlike the security issues, many community ideas for grass roots marketing and extensions to existing marketing tools began to pop into my head. What a great light weight interactive and mobile forum for product research and enhancement ideas generated from customers. I was furthered encourage when an article was forwarded to me from Greg Coticchia from Marketing Profs Daily Fix http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2008/01/take_twitter_on_a_test_drive.html What became clear is:
It is great tool to quickly and easily capture real time impressions on new products and ideas
Provides and easy way to augment your message with streaming video or audio clips
Offers a channel for product or idea evangelism to flourish
So does Twitter have some security holes, yup and I am certain they will be addressed as the product matures. Is it only a B to C or personal networking tool, NO WAY…I am thinking of multiple ways to incorporate Twitter into existing clients projects today.
The DreamTwister....You've got to break some eggs to make an omlette
