Internet Marketing and eCommerce Expert – Nigel Burke's Blog

Have you seen Will It Blend? It’s a crazy series of videos by Blendtec, a small blender manufacturer. The series has been seen by millions of people. My favorite is Will It Blend? – iPhone. If you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor and take a minute to watch. This YouTube video has been seen nearly 7.5 million times.

Viral marketing is the phenomenon of other people passing along your ideas to friends via email or blogs or other online means…for free! Best of all, there is very little costs in setting up the costs compared to advertising campaigns. You could compare it to people handing out your business card to all their friends because they think it’s cool.

Here are some tips to make video go viral. Creating a video is easy and it is free to post onto YouTube. All you need is a simple $300 digital video camera, a YouTube account and an idea.

Most importantly: Your video needs to be funny or amazing or remarkable or have some fascinating information or be controversial. Basically the video needs a reason for people to pass it on. If you can find pass along value connected to your organization and its products, great. I’m not a fan of stupid contests or celebrity endorsements unrelated to a company and its products.

Tip # 1 – Homemade is just fine

You don’t need to hire a professional. A homemade quality video can work great. But plan ahead and shoot several takes to get it right.

Tip #2 – Your video should be no longer then 2 minutes (preferably less)

Think very short. You need to get to the punch quickly. Although YouTube will accept a video that is less than 10 minutes, smaller than 100MB try to make the video between 30 seconds and 2 minutes.

Tip #3 – Make your description clear and specific.

To best promote your video, you’ll want its text description on YouTube to be accurate and interesting. Use descriptive keywords and language that people will find when they search for videos like yours. And use the correct categorizations on YouTube so people will find it.

Tip #4 – Don’t attempt “stealth” fake customer insertions to YouTube.

Some companies try to sneak corporate-sponsored video onto YouTube in a way that makes it seem like it is consumer-generated. The YouTube community is remarkably skilled at ratting out inauthentic video, so this approach is fraught with danger.

Tip #5 – Try a series of similar videos to build interest

Sometimes a series of videos works great. The Blendtec Will it Blend? videos are a perfect example. The even sell t-shirts now!

Tip #6 – Tell everyone about your video!

When you upload your first few videos, you are likely to hear a deafening silence. You’ll be waiting for comments, but none will come. You’ll check your video statistics and be disappointed by the tiny number of viewers. Don’t get discouraged. It takes time to build an audience. Make sure people know it is there and can find it. Create links to your video from your home page, product pages, or online media room. Mention your video in your e-mail or offline newsletters, and create links to your video as part of your e-mail signature and those of other people in your organization.

Tip # 7 – make sure bloggers know about the video

Sending a link to the video to bloggers or commenting on other people’s blogs (and including a link to your video) is a good way to build an audience. If you comment on blogs in the same space as yours, you might be surprised at how quickly you will get viewers to your video.

Tip #8 – Experiment a lot to find something that hits

While I think it is difficult to purposely create viral marketing buzz, it is certainly possible. Create a number of campaigns and see what hits, then nurture the winners along. Think like a venture capitalist or movie studio and try a number of things in order to get that elusive hit.

Good luck. And if you do create a cool video, let me know.

Post Author: David Meerman Scott is a marketing strategist, keynote speaker, seminar leader, and the author of the hit new book World Wide Rave. His previous book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR is an award-winning BusinessWeek bestseller and is being published in 25 languages.

You can read David Meerman Scott’s blog here.

This book provides an awesome overview of the new rules of marketing your business in today’s connected environment.It is a must read for any business owner who wants to know what social media tools are available and how to utilize them in your business.

The book does not talk about the complexities of setting up these tools but discusses the concepts and letting you know what’s available. It really gets you thinking into how you can leverage these tools to create exposure for your business using social media tools.

Blogs
For search engine optimization – content is king. Blogs can be a powerful tool to create a high ranking website.

There are many reasons companies should use blogs such as they can put a face to your organization, used for announcements, putting ideas out there, creating a feedback loop. The book explains each of the benefits of having a blog.

News Releases
I believe that news releases are under utilized today. News releases have had a new lease of life thanks for online tools. You can publish your news releases to online news services such as PR Wire to get the word out there.

A great tip about news releases from Scott is including keyword links in your news releases to help your search engine rankings for those keywords.

Wikis
A wiki is site created so people can add content and share knowledge. Anyone can contribute to the wiki and they can work very well.

Creating a wiki about your industry can create credibility for your business. People love working with other successful businesses who are on the forefront of industry changes and knowledge. By creating a wiki, you too can have this creditibility and be known as an industry leader.

Viral Marketing
The beauty of social media marketing is the speed that ideas spread. By understanding the new rules of marketing, you have the knowledge to manage and grow these campaigns.

Scott provides some great examples of viral marketing and how the companies responded to these campaigns. Many of them were just created by the customers themselves. He explains what you need to do when this happens and to make it work in your favour.

Podcasts, Vlogs
Some people may not be great writers but they are create speakers. If blogging is not for you, could look at creating podcasts or video logs.

Buyer Personas
A buyer persona is the different types of personas of your customers visiting your site. When you built your website, did you create it for one buyer persona? Did you identify the different buyer personas and build a site that is targeted at each of these personas? Scott talks about how to identify them and how to create multiple call of actions for each persona.

Conclusion
This is a great book to get a general overview of the tools available for this new social world we are entering. Experienced Internet marketers can learn about the different tools available that are not often discussed in Internet marketing.

THE NEW RULES OF MARKETING & PR
How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing & Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly
By David Meerman Scott
Wiley; June 2007
$24.95; 978-0-470-11345-5, Cloth