7 Unwritten Rules Of Social Media

Social media seems easy especially because the barrier to entry is low. You can be up and running on any social media platform in minutes, and usually for free. In reality, social media is hard for exactly the same reason. When the barrier to entry is low, the barrier to attention is high.

The fundamental path to succeeding with social media is to consistently contribute meaningfully—engaging with you should make the lives of those engaging more meaningful. The bonus would be to achieve this without adding costs to the others.

As you think through your social media strategy, here are seven unwritten rules of social media.

1. Connection does not imply permission
Many social networks make it easy for you to connect with anyone. You can follow someone on Twitter, Quora or Google Plus without needing their permission to do that. A small percentage of them might follow you back. If they do, you have a two-way connection. Don’t confuse the two-way connection as permission to interrupt them. You need to build a relationship and there is no shortcut for that.

2. Access does not imply entitlement
When you connect with someone on a social network and start engaging with them, you have access. Don’t assume that they owe you something because you are now engaging them on social media.

3. Activity is not productivity
The barrier to create content on a social network is virtually non-existent. This means that you can write whatever you want irrespective of whether it makes sense or not. You can get extremely busy with social media— trying to post anything and everything. In your enthusiasm to share, you might drop the quality of what you share and that’s when the problem starts—people will silently start to ignore you.

4. More is not better
When what you write about is a hit for some reason, you tend to end up doing more of it on social media forgetting that everything has a lifecycle of its own. What’s hot today may not stay hot tomorrow and what’s hot tomorrow may not stay hot. So trying to do more of what works does not guarantee success—you need to adapt all the time.

5. Reciprocation is optional
Don’t do anything with an expectation that someone will reciprocate back. Equal actions don’t create equal impact on social media. Say you have a 1,000 followers and you share something from another person who has 10,000 followers. Expecting him to share something from you would mean you are expecting someone to give back ten times of what you gave them.

6. Amplification without accomplishment is futile
Social media is a great amplifier. But fundamentals of mathematics are always at play. You can multiply zero with anything and the result will still be zero. You need relevant accomplishments as the foundation and social media can help amplify them. Sans accomplishments, it’s hard to amplify. Unless your business is to make money with social media, you have to get out of social media and spend time on building some meaningful accomplishments. Once you have them, you can use those to extend your influence using social media.

7. Engagement without enrichment is not effective
You are only as rich as the enrichment you bring to the world around you. When you enrich someone, you make their life more meaningful—at home or at work or in both places. Social media provides an excellent opportunity enrich people’s lives. Engagement for the sake of engagement can only make you get tired. Engage with an intention to enrich and you will not only win with social media but also makes this world a better place.

How do you contribute meaningfully to the social media-sphere?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/  

5 Simple Rules for Digital Marketers

1. Listen, engage, and participate.  Measure social media initiatives and tie these measurements back to business value, but keep in mind: it's not a one-way street.
2. Develop a mobile strategy, but realize that mobile is not a channel - it's a platform.
3. No mater the medium or technology, marketers still need to deliver relevant and engaging content to customers.
4. Heard the terms marketing and ROI used together lately?  Take it to heart.  With tight budgets, allocating spending and measuring its ROI will continue to be a running battle in marketing departments.
5. It's too tough out there to commit budgets without a clear return in sight.  Being able to demonstrate value of marketing initiatives back to the overall business objectives is paramount (i.e. what the CEO cares about).

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co  

*Branded* Content is King

According to a recent study by the Custom Content Council and ContentWise, 78% of U.S. marketers plan to shift investments from traditional marketing to branded content marketing. More specifically, 62% are “moderately” making the shift, while 16% are pursuing it “aggressively.”

The study found that branded content marketing spending reached its highest level ever in 2011, just shy of $2 million per company. This accounted for 26% of overall marketing, advertising, and communications budgets for the year, and 30% of marketers expect their content budgets to increase in 2012.

Why content?

The top-ranked reasons are:

1. To educate customers (49%)
2. To retain customers (26%)
3. To increase brand loyalty (14%)

Similarly, marketers believe content marketing is more effective than:

1. Magazine ads (72%)
2. Public relations (69%)
3. Direct mail (69%)
4. Television ads (62%)

Is your brand pursuing a branded content marketing strategy?

PHANTOM POWER

Marketing by Design

www.phantompower.co

Is the Secret to Twitter Success Link Sharing?

When it comes to using Facebook to promote your business or blog, it seems pretty straightforward as to how exactly to use it. Sure, there are always things we can learn to help boost our Facebook fan numbers and interaction with them, but as far as structure goes, it’s pretty simple.

But what about Twitter? What’s the secret to Twitter success? According to this article, it’s link sharing. The article is rather long, but basically what it’s saying is that we have the same basic tool – 140 characters – but it’s exactly how you use those that counts.

A few interesting studies have been published lately that
all seem to point to the same conclusion –
the secret to Twitter success is driving links.

This infographic from Get Satisfaction shows the top reasons why people follow brands. For Twitter, it shows the third reason is interesting or entertaining content – so link sharing.

The article sums up Twitter success as seeing what works best for you. Do you get better results when you do one link a day, link to a video, say something before the link that grabs your followers’ attention?

What do you use Twitter for the most? Getting information, entertainment, interacting with your followers and do you think link sharing is the key to Twitter success?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

101 Small Business Marketing Activities

One universal small business goal is to sell the business's products and services. This is usually best accomplished by positioning the business in front of the target audience, and offering something they can't refuse or find elsewhere.

To this end, one of the smartest things a small business owner can do for their business is take the time to develop a small business marketing plan that will set them apart from the competition. A marketing plan clearly outlines how you will reach your ideal customers by effectively implementing your marketing strategy.

There are thousands of ways you can promote your small business. With the right mix of activities, you can identify and focus on the most effective marketing tactics for your small business. Here is a list of 101 small business marketing ideas to get you thinking about all of the different ways you can promote your business.

Do you have an idea of your own not listed here? Add it under Comments.

Marketing Planning

1. Update or create a marketing plan for your business.
2. Revisit or start your marketing research.
3. Conduct a focus group.
4. Write a unique selling proposition (USP).
5. Refine your target audience and niche.
6. Expand your product and service offerings.

Marketing Materials

7. Update your business cards.
8. Make your business card stand out from the rest.
9. Create or update your brochure.
10. Create a digital version of your brochure for your website.
11. Explore a website redesign.
12. Get creative with promotional products and give them away at the next networking event you attend.

In-Person Networking

13. Write an elevator pitch.
14. Register for a conference.
15. Introduce yourself to other local business owners.
16. Plan a local business workshop.
17. Join your local chamber of commerce.
18. Rent a booth at a trade show.

Direct Mail

19. Launch a multi-piece direct mail campaign.
20. Create multiple approaches, and split test your mailings to measure impact.
21. Include a clear and enticing call to action on every direct mail piece.
22. Use tear cards, inserts, props and attention-getting envelopes to make an impact with your mailings.
23. Send past customers free samples and other incentives to regain their business.

Advertising

24. Advertise on the radio.
25. Advertise in the Yellow Pages.
26. Advertise on a billboard.
27. Use stickers or magnets to advertise on your car.
28. Take out an ad in your local newspaper.
29. Advertise on a local cable TV station.
30. Advertise on Facebook.
31. Advertise on LinkedIn.
32. Buy ad space on a relevant website.
33. Use a sidewalk sign to promote your specials.

Social Media Marketing

34. Get started with social media for business.
35. Create a Facebook page.
36. Get a vanity URL or username for your Facebook page.
37. Create a Twitter account.
38. Reply or retweet someone else on Twitter.
39. Setup a Foursquare account for your business.
40. List your business on Google Places.
41. Start a business blog.
42. Write blog posts on a regular basis.
43. Start social bookmarking your online content.
44. Create a Groupon.

Internet Marketing

45. Start a Google Adwords pay-per-click campaign.
46. Start a Microsoft adCenter pay-per-click campaign.
47. Comment on a blog post.
48. Record a video blog post.
49. Upload a video to YouTube.
50. Check your online directory listings and get listed in desirable directories.
51. Set up Google Analytics on your website and blog.
52. Review and measure your Google Analytics statistics.
53. Register a new domain name for a marketing campaign or a new product or service.
54. Learn more about local search marketing.
55. Track your online reputation.
56. Sign up for the Help a Reporter Out (HARO) email list.

Email Marketing

57. Create an email opt-in on your website or blog.
58. Offer a free download or free gift to make people willing to add their email address to your list.
59. Send regular emails to your list.
60. Start a free monthly email newsletter.
61. Use A/B testing to measure the effectiveness of your email campaigns.
62. Perfect your email signature.
63. Add audio, video and social sharing functionality to your emails.

Contests, Coupons and Incentives

64. Start a contest.
65. Create a coupon.
66. Create a "frequent buyer" rewards program.
67. Start a client appreciation program.
68. Create a customer of the month program.
69. Give away a free sample.
70. Start an affiliate program.

Relationship Building

71. Send out a customer satisfaction survey.
72. Ask for referrals.
73. Make a referral.
74. Help promote or volunteer your time for a charity event.
75. Sponsor a local sports team.
76. Cross-promote your products and services with other local businesses.
77. Join a professional organization.
78. Plan your next holiday promotion.
79. Plan holiday gifts for your best customers.
80. Send birthday cards to your clients.
81. Approach a colleague about a collaboration.
82. Donate branded prizes for local fundraisers.
83. Become a mentor.

Marketing with Content

84. Plan a free teleconference or webinar.
85. Record a podcast.
86. Write a press release.
87. Submit your press release to various distribution channels.
88. Rewrite your sales copy with a storytelling spin.
89. Start writing a book.

Marketing Help

90. Hire a marketing consultant.
91. Hire a public relations professional.
92. Hire a professional copywriter.
93. Hire a search engine marketing firm.
94. Hire an intern to help with daily marketing tasks.
95. Hire a sales coach or salesperson.

Unique Marketing Ideas

96. Get a branded tattoo.
97. Create a business mascot to help promote your brand.
98. Take a controversial stance on a hot industry topic.
99. Pay for wearable advertising.
100. Get a full-body branded paint job done on your company vehicle.
101. Sign up for online business training to revamp, expand and fine tune all of your marketable skills.

There are many more than 101 small business marketing ideas. Do you have an idea not listed here? Add your small business marketing idea to the list.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co  

Contributions by Alyssa Gregory

Online Audience Development for Content Owners

It is true when they say content is king. But "relevant" content is key to success. All publishers need to make sure they have the right content for the right people in their audience.

How is the online content consumed?

A pull strategy (bringing people to your online content) requires SEO/SEM or display advertising to acquire the audience. This can be expensive.

A push strategy (delivering content to the people) is likely going to be key in getting cost-effective results and ROI. The best way to do this is delivering relevant content in a timely manner via email. In this case content is targeted to individuals based on their preferences and behavior.

Here are some more on some /pull techniques:

• Search engine optimization and search engine marketing Seems obvious, but how many publishers do this? If you publish media in a given space, the huge number of topics that your publication or Web site covers makes SEO/SEM a totally different challenge.
• Co-registration This is easier said than done for publishers that sell advertising, but basically the idea is that anytime someone signs up for an e-newsletter subscription on another Web site that's topically related to your Web site, you negotiate a relationship whereby your newsletter subscription is offered as another checkbox on that other Web site's e-newsletter sign-up form. Not surprisingly, Marketing Sherpa uses this tactic on a lot of marketing vendor sites. One advantage: They have a paid content model, so there's no conflict of interest. I'd like to see an example of an ad-supported publisher doing this with suppliers in their space.
• Landing page optimization I know most publishers aren't using this technique. The idea is that the very design and layout of the sign-up page (for our purposes, called the landing page, the place where the moment of truth occurs, when readers decide whether or not to opt in to your site, newsletter, magazine, advertiser white paper, etc.) greatly influences the number of readers who "convert" or complete the form. By testing different versions of the page, you can increase conversion by up to several hundred percent.
• Tracking/Analytics This is the adroit use of Web analytics programs to give you feedback on metrics that are meaningful to publishers. How many people subscribed to which e-newsletter products, and which were the most effective sources of traffic, both internally and externally? If you're doing paid search, which keyword groups yielded the best ROI? Which should be scrapped? Anyone doing paid search without tying it to some ROI metric is throwing their money down the drain.

Do you have a system for determining the relevancy of your content?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/  

What is The Social Funnel?...

And Why You Need to Build One.

Social media channels increasing the venues of choice for consumers to collect information and connect with brands, presents a strategic opportunity for companies to create a “Social Funnel” above the traditional marketing and sales funnel – where consumers take the lead in finding information and content that ultimately drives brand preference and sales.
 
In Winning the Consumer Decision Journey, McKinsey & Company’s David Court shares that, in the new social and digital age, “the path to purchase and loyalty is now complex, iterative, and dynamic.” In this new environment, creating a Social Funnel allows brands to identify and have access to buyers long before the buying process begins.

The Social Funnel Defined

The Social Funnel is a dynamic collection of consumer activity across social media channels, which sits on top of the traditional marketing and sales funnel. Developing a Social Funnel requires a systematic process of identifying and capturing consumer interactions across a variety of social media channels, aggregating this activity in a social customer relationship management (SCRM) infrastructure, and continually mining this insight to deliver relevant content to the right social profile at the right time. The chart below describes the Social Funnel and its tie to the traditional marketing and sales funnel:

To be effective, Social Funnels need to be tightly integrated with traditional customer relationship management (CRM) systems to create a 360-degree view of a prospect to allow marketers to nurture this relationship over time using a combination of social and traditional, experts agree that this integration holds a lot of potential. “Integrating social deeper into existing CRMs is going to be very popular in 2011 – we expect to see a growing number of brands tying customer records to public social profiles and bread crumbs”, says Nathaniel Perez, head of social experience at SapientNitro.

The integration of social media with the traditional funnel is one of the key priorities for brands in 2011. Although only 6% of companies today report that they fully integrate social with traditional marketing funnels

David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation for digital marketing agency 360i, agrees but tempers things by saying that “we are still early in the process but tying social profiles to CRM systems will be big.”

We see a growing number of companies starting to tie social profiles to their CRM systems. As this process continues to evolve, we expect to see social media becoming more of a critical component throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Systems that support the integration of social with CRM will increase in adoption over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, giving organizations the ability to seamlessly combine data from multiple systems easily and efficiently.

 

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/


Source: MarketingSherpa Benchmark Report: 2011 Social Media Marketing

Achieving The Coveted:Viral Marketing

Viral campaigns yield the highest ROI... Information about your product spreads naturally, like a contagious disease... only a good one...

I once read up on the 5 C’s of viral marketing:Community, Compelling, Comedy, Charity, and Contest

Let's talk Community...

We all know that viral marketing in the social media space is all about communities. In fact, I would argue that communities play a larger role than most people think, both online and offline. They can build a brand, kill a brand, make a career, break a career, influence elections, etc. Think about it; from an offline perspective, life is community driven through PTA organizations, church groups, sports leagues, stay-at-home mommy groups, and various school organizations (sororities, fraternities) to name a few. And of course online, you have Myspace, Facebook, Linkedin, Digg, Stumbledupon and hundreds of other social media sites jumping in the scene daily.

Within each of these online/offline communities consumers are talking and having conversations with each other. And, they are sharing opinions, experiences, advice, recommendations and commentary about products, services and companies usually based on real personal experience.

THIS IS VIRAL MARKETING.

The challenge with viral marketing is that it’s not always viral, if that makes any sense... Often, marketers plan for and label their marketing plans as “viral” but 9 times out of 10, it never catches on. It’s the things that just happen by accident that become viral. Remember the Diet Coke and Mentos video? At first, Coca-Cola distanced themselves from the exploding Diet Coke and Mentos viral video phenomenon, fearing it would damage their reputation and brand; however, just recently that have fully embraced the concept and now there are over 7,000 consumer generated videos on YouTube, millions of pageviews, hundreds of comments, and favored by thousands of fans. The community here is not only the millions of YouTube enthusiasts, but also the micro-communities of people and their offline conversations about these videos.

So, while I do believe it is impossible to craft a viral campaign, you can certainly try to influence one:

• Formulate your marketing message.  Think about the product or service you are advertising and create a message that communicates the benefits and uses of what you are selling.  A website is nonnegotiable.  
• Make the content on your website sharable. For example, you can allow readers to embed a funny video from your website onto their own blogs. An "email this article to your friend" link is another way information spreads from one person to another.
• Use email as a viral marketing tool. Include a marketing message about your product or service in the tag lines of your emails and also include your advertising message in auto responder emails you send to those who email you.
• Post your content on other Internet sites such as message boards and blogs. However, do this carefully; many forum managers are now aware of this practice and may delete your messages if they think it's spam.
• Incorporate your marketing message into rich media. Video clips and Flash games are very popular on the Internet, so if you have a great idea for this medium your message will spread like wildfire.
• Spread your message off line as well. Tell your friends and colleagues about your product or service and hand them business cards with the URL on them along with a catchy tag line, perhaps the same one you use in your emails.

What are you doing to boost your buzz factor?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co  

Google Instant Search and its impact on SEO

During Tuesday’s major search event in San Francisco Google announced a new search feature called Google Instant which will significantly change the way users search for information on Google Search.

Google Instant - Live updating search result page

This new interface updates as a user types in the search query. Not only will the regular search results update as a user types in letters in the search field, but elements from Universal Search (maps, news, shopping, etc) as well as AdWords ads will also update in real time. This results in a user seeing a much larger set of search results as the query is being typed in and refined. In addition, the query suggestions (Google Suggest) play a more central role in discovering possible queries and relevant websites.

Why Google Instant is cool?

• Dynamic Results  Google dynamically displays relevant search results as you type so you can quickly interact and click through to the web content you need.
• Preditions  One of the key technologies in Google Instant is that the rest of your query is predicted before you finish typing?  See what you need?  Stop typing, look down and find what you're looking for.
• Scroll to Search  Scroll through predictions and see results instantly for each as you arrow down.

To the Webmaster, Google Instant is cool because as users are shown a much larger set of search results, there is a higher chance of your pages being displayed in the SERPs.  In addition, users can now more easily modify their search which results in more specific query that will drive more relevant traffic to your website (See my post on The Importance of Longtail Keywords).  And relevant traffic means conversion!



Impact of Google Instant Search on SEO

In general this new feature won’t change the basic rules of SEO since Google’s algorithms will continue evaluating webpages in the same way as before. Webmasters should hence continue focusing on their content, traffic, and conversions.

What will change, however, is the way users will go about finding information, how they interact with search results as they learn to use more specific search queries, and how they review the results before making a choice.

• CTR is the new ranking. The click-through rate for organic listings becomes more important than pure rankings since users will see many more search results in each session.
• Creating relevant content which better targets specific queries will drive more traffic as users learn to perform better searches.
• Experimenting with page titles and snippets and tracking the changes in CTR becomes even more important.
• Universal Search listings (images, video thumbnails, maps, shopping, etc) will attract more clicks since dense graphic elements will draw more attention in a fast updating interface.
• The traditional Golden Triangle theory regarding the users’ eye movements on search result pages is no longer true. Earlier you performed a search, sat back and studied the results and the ads before either clicking on a listing, or modifying your query. This will now be substantially different as the users’ eyes will wander up and down between the query field, listings, Universal Search entries, and AdWords ads. I’m looking forward to the first eye tracking study for the new search page.
• Searches with short queries will fall considerably since people usually come to Google with a very specific goal in mind. The now interactive search result page allows users to dig deeper into a subject until they’ve found a reasonable set of search results which better fits their intent.

For those proclaiming the death of SEO, I would actually argue the opposite.  This is definitely a game changer but it does not change the way serious SEOs have worked for a long period of time. That includes focusing on important Key Performance Indicator’s other than rankings. Instant Search is however a massive headache for those who still treat SEO as a magic formula and have been focusing on optimizing for mere nuances in Google’s search algorithm. They will continue wasting their time focusing on the petty details in the algorithms instead of working on improving the overall value of the sites they are promoting.

All in all, no matter what some people wrongly proclaim, SEO is certainly not dead - it just got more interesting.

How will you change your SEO strategy given Google Instant?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Enourmous Benefits of Blogging

I am already on record as pointing out that if you want to raise your visibility and get in touch with your audience, it’s a good idea to blog.  It does take a little chunk of time out of your agenda, but it’s probably no more than you should spend on marketing, anyway.  Also, I’ve seen many outstanding blogs….most notably by Guy Kawasaki… that are all photos and captions.  But then Kawasaki goes to really interesting places like a battle ship or Red Square.  And if he photographs something ordinary like a tech company office, you can rest assured it is no ordinary office but an incredibly creative, way out there, in a class of its own, office.

My point is, blogging can take as much or…almost… as little time as you want it to.  And if you aren’t doing it yet, perhaps you should take a look at the following:

1) Blogs initiate dialog with web visitors

Blogs start a two-way traffic with web visitors. When you write about your products and services and write with authority, as though you are the master of your business and with in-depth knowledge about your products and services, you not only create awareness of the benefits and disadvantages about the product and service you deal in, you engage people’s attention. Your blog should also have a call to action, to make the readers of the blog interact with your website.

A call to action can mean asking them to leave comments, encouraging them to speak out. Comments left by the readers of blogs might include inquiries and leads that could lead to sales.

Blogs generate a prospective about your company. It silently speaks about the culture and vision of your company and even helps in building a brand image.

2) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Benefit of blogging

Blogs peppered with targeted keywords, keyword phrases and search terms related to your business puts blogs in plain sight whenever web visitors use related search terms. Instead of using long-tail keyword phrases, targeting niche keywords will help in attracting more qualified web traffic.

3) Blogs attract more links

Blog are meant to be informative and not advertisements. Informative quality, industry related articles that provide insight or a critical analysis of product and services you deal in helps you to get more links.

Links will get better search engine rankings for your website and will help in generating more traffic.

4) Fresh, original content for blogs

Fresh and original web content is the feed for search engine spiders. Websites that are updated frequently get crawled by the search engine spiders more often. Your website gets more authority and better search engine ranking.

By now, you should have enough reasons to be seriously considering blogging. For your interest and for the interest of getting more visitors to your website, blogging is the way to go. You can get started now by viewing the following tutorial videos:

How to Create a Blog on Blogger

How to Create a Blog on Wordpress

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/  

The Importance of Long-Tail Keywords

Those of you who have tried in vain for years to rank high for your head keyword of choice know what I am talking about. To those of you who are newly introduced to this wondrous world of SEO, I’ll say this: roll up your sleeves and prepare to wait. Or you can do the smart thing and just target long-tail keywords. You won’t have to deal with all that fierce competition for popular head keywords, and you will be a few steps closer to getting your site rank high.

It comes with one warning: the traffic volumes will be considerably lower than that from a head keyword. But then, the probability of your ranking high for a head keyword is less than unlikely, so the traffic from that keyword will amount to, basically, nothing.

It’s a quantity vs. quality argument. And when you do the math, you will find, the long-tailed keyword is the bird in the hand.

Last month, Google introduced an algorithm update and many webmasters saw a drop in traffic from Google for keyword phrases that are three or more keywords long. However, Google is now able to index longer keyword phrases more accurately. It seems that Google guessed the best pages for long keyword phrases until recently based on other signals and keywords on the indexed pages. The new Google patent indicates that Google now has the computing power to index longer keyword phrases on web pages instead of guessing them.

What does this mean to you? It means that those who have taken the time to anticipate the need of their customers and Google’s customers will be rewarded.

Still not convinced? Consider this:

• Ease When you try to rank for a head keyword, you essentially go into competition with millions of websites. And the odds of your ranking high for that term are very low. For example, if you try to rank for the head keyword “online learning” you’ll have to beat at least 36 million other sites to rank high. Instead, if you use a long-tail with niche terms relevant to your site, like, “online learning in South Carolina” the competition drastically drops to under three hundred thousand. And your odds of ranking high will improve too.
• Speed Thanks to the diminished competition, you don’t have to spend nearly half your life optimizing your site and building links before you can see your site ranking high for long-tail keywords.
• Relevance Since long-tail keywords are more often than not, specific strings of keywords with a niche term; the chances of then meeting the exact search needs of users are very high. This aids the target marketing methods of your overall mix and ultimately drives…
• Conversion The fact that search users will find sites targeting long-tail keywords more relevant contribute another point to chalk up in its favor. Reports attest to the fact that users with specific search queries know exactly what they are looking for and are more likely to turn into customers.
• Exposure This is perhaps the least known advantage of targeting long-tail keywords. Using long tail keywords over a period of time will eventually help you rank higher for your head keywords as well. As your site gains authority and builds its trust quotient, the long-tail keywords will help provide enough targeted traffic and also enough ‘exposure’ to your head keywords that your attempt to target them alone won’t prove to be all that disastrous.

A great thing about targeting long-tail keywords is that you can play around with all the niche terms relevant to your site and try and rank for a series of long-tails. You don’t always have to target “online learning in South Carolina,” “online high school in South Carolina” can help send an entirely different set people swinging to your site. However, targeting keywords on your site alone won’t help you achieve all this, and I doubt if I have to reiterate the importance of building credible links with the right anchor test. Try to have your targeted keywords in as many incoming links (internal as well as external) as possible, combined with your on page optimization efforts, it will do wonders for your ranking.

What are some of your long-tail keyword success stories?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/  

Creating Word-of-Mouse

Let's get one thing straight... NOTHING is guaranteed to go VIRAL.

There are people who will tell you that it is possible to create a viral campaign that will certainly be a hit, and there are agencies specializing in taking money and making promises.

But I’ve noticed that when organizations (and their agencies) set out to go viral, the vast majority of their campaigns fail.  It is virtually impossible to create a Web marketing program that is guaranteed to go viral; it requires a huge amount of luck and timing. That’s an important point to remember as you work on viral marketing ideas, because it’s unlike the old-rules, numbers-based marketing techniques you’re probably used to. Consider a direct mail campaign: You could always count on a direct mail piece to generate a known number of responses, say 2 percent. So if you needed to have 100 people respond, you sent out 5,000 mailers. Easy, right?

Viral marketing is much different. You just can’t count on numbers in the same way. Many efforts fail miserably, and there are countless Web sites, e-books, and videos that only their creators’ mothers and bosses have seen. However, tomorrow those same marketers might get lucky and get a million people to view their content, driving tens of thousands of people’s interest in their products and services.

View PHANTOM POWER's list of

marketing strategies that tend to yield viral success

However, this importance of timing and luck shouldn’t discourage you from using viral marketing techniques; you just need to learn how to turn the odds in your favor.

Have you achieved viral status with one of your campaigns?  Tell us about it!

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

The Most Effective Viral Marketing Methods

I struggled with the title of this blog post.  I wanted something kitchy, something to subconsciously imply this is indeterminable... because anybody who tries to sell you a viral marketing campaign should set up shop with an SEO expert who tries to sell you the #1 SER.  It is just not possible to guarantee.  Doesn't mean you can't try...

By far I find narrowcasting activities have proven the most effective for me in terms of generating a viral campaign.  Below are 3 such activities I've implemented over the past year that generated lots of sharing.

Writing 'Special Reports'

• Special Reports work great because they allow you to go into more depth about the Topic or Problem in question where you'll then be able to lead them to how your Product or Service (or Affiliate product) can fix there current problem.
• They give you Instant Credibility, which builds trust in your customer that you are knowlegdable in your industry.
• Website owners are always looking for quality "Free Stuff" to give away or offer to there Visitors and/or Subscribers.
• And your Contact Information will always be inside, no matter what. Meaning, as your report is being passed around the Internet you'll always be able to lead your potential customer back to your website where they could sign-up for your newsletter and/or read up more about your Products or Services you offer.

Putting Together A 'Free eBook'

• Free eBooks work great as well and have the same benefits as I outlined through the special report. The only difference using this approach is, you can put together a free ebook in less time then it would take to produce your special report simply because it doesn't even have to be your own material inside, it can be someone else's.
• And they also allow you to target more then one Product or Service inside because free ebooks are usually a compilation of related articles targetting a particular problem leaving you room to diversify.

Writing 'Articles'

• Writing Articles is probably ONE of the Best and Most Effective Ways to produce a wave of Viral Traffic to your website because every website owner needs FRESH content to feed to there visitors and/or subscribers.
• They also allow you to Target your audience's problem specifically that they're dealing with.
• And at the end of the article you have a spot called the 'Resource Box' to insert your personal Bio and/or Website information. Just imagine if your article were to be picked up by some Newsletter Editor with a large list or High Traffic website and they use it as a 'Featured Article' in there publication, you could see an INSTANT surge of targeted traffic to your website overnight. That's where your 'Resource Box' comes in.

Package a 'Kit' on a Landing Page

• Just using the word 'Kit' sends a message that your prospect is getting something of value. 
• If you package your content of value into a downloadable package that you can store on a Landing Page, you've just exchanged a potentially viral offerings in exchange for lead data.

Perhaps you've noticed what these 3 'viral' methods all have in common...

They're in HIGH demand by website owners.

They're HIGHLY Targeted.

They give You INSTANT Credibility in your industry.

They are all INBOUND MARKETING tactics.

They have YOUR Contact Details leading to Your website.

...they're all FREE!

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/