This article is a follow-up to our earlier post How to Use Google+ to Promote Your Product or Service.

In social media, Google+ brand pages are the way of the future. Using Google+ brand pages, you can create an informative, interactive profile for your fans on Google+ to connect with you. Few companies today are taking full advantage of what Google+ brand pages have to offer.

The easiest way to access your brand page is to go to your own Google+ page. Just click the drop down menu under your username to switch to your brand page’s view. Here you can edit the page, add people to circles and post status messages.

Here are top 9 tips & tricks for using Google+ brand pages to their full potential.

#1 – Creating an Easy to Reach URL

By default, Google+ gives you a custom URL that’s fairly difficult to read or remember. For example, your URL might be something like “plus.google.com/8723570370197390157.”

To make this easier for people, create a redirect on your own website to your Google+ brand page. For example, people should be able to reach this page by going to www.yourwebsite.com/googleplus/

You can also use Google+’s URL shortener to create a better URL on Google’s domain.

#2 – Add Buttons to Your Site

Want to make it easy for people to find your Google+ page on your site? Want to put live feeds of your status updates on your sites? Want to make it so people can re-post whatever you said with one click of a button?

It’s easy. Just add the respective Google+ buttons or widgets to your site. Access these under the “Get Started” menu in your brand page.

#3 – Don’t Share Your Visitor Count for the First Few Months

If you see that a page only has a handful of visitors, chances are you’re not going to want to visit that page. In other types of social media, like Facebook or Twitter for example, there’s not a whole lot that you can do about this.

However, with Google+, you can choose to hide your follower count. While this isn’t a good long term strategy, it can be very useful in the short term.

#4 – Give Great Resources

Google+ gives you the ability to add as many links as you want to your profile. The links can point back to content on your own website or to other people’s sites.

Make liberal use of this feature to point your users to the best possible resources for their problems.

#5 – Upload Stellar Photos

Some people like to interact with brands through status updates, but a lot of people prefer to use photos. They get much more of a visceral experience from seeing photos of an event or of a product than just reading a description.

Upload professional photos to your Google+ page to create a more lasting impression

#6 – Scan Your Circles Regularly

When someone adds you to their circles, you’ll have the ability to then add them to your circles in return.

If you don’t add someone to your circles, they won’t see anything you post. If you have people who’ve added you but you haven’t added them back, you’re “wasting” social goodwill.

Make it a habit to check your friends list regularly and add people who aren’t already in a circle.

#7 – Segment Your Readers

Perhaps Google+’s most powerful feature is their ability to segment where each post goes. You can post different things to your list in New York versus San Francisco. You can say one thing only to newcomers and different things to long time followers.

Use circles to craft the most powerful message possible for each group of your audience.

#8 – Hide Tabs That You Aren’t Using

By default, Google+ chooses what tabs it displays along the top of your profile. If it’s using tabs that you don’t want to be there, you can choose to disable it.

Just click on the specific tab and uncheck the box that says “Show this tab on your profile.”

#9 – Post Regularly

Much like any other kind of social media, Google+ has a running feed. If you post often, you’ll ensure that your content will frequently land in front of your visitor’s feed. If you don’t post often, your page won’t be on your visitor’s radar at all.

These are a few ways you can make sure you have a top notch Google+ brand page. Spend some time perfecting your Google+ page. After all, Google+ is the fastest growing social media network in history.

By learning about Google+ today, you’ll put yourself ahead of the curve. Not only will you be seen as progressive, but you’ll be able to establish your brand long before others have even realized the importance of Google+.

Here’s how to use Google+ to promote your product or service.

Create Meaningful Circle Segments
Perhaps the most valuable thing Google+ offers that Facebook doesn’t is the ability to sort your market by different segments. Using Google+’s circles, you’ll be able to choose exactly who gets to see what messages.

So how should you segment your customers?

Ideally, you should create a different circle and therefore a different segment for each different kind of “mindset” of customer that you have.

For example, you might have one circle for people who’ve bought your product, one circle for people who haven’t bought yet, one circle for people who’re affiliates of your product and one circle for people who’ve entered into a contest but didn’t win.

Each of these people might respond to different messages. For example, offering customer-only discounts to your past buyers could be a stellar strategy to get repeat buys. On the other hand, with people who haven’t bought yet, you might want to provide primarily trust building content.

Take Advantage of Google+’s Posting Features

One thing that’s inherently different about Google+ than Facebook is the length and style of your posts.

On Facebook, you can only post 420 characters in a status update. That really puts a limit on what you can post. Essentially, you can only post short thoughts, short content and links.

On Google+ however, the limit is well over 2,000 characters. (There’s no set limit yet.) In addition, you can link to several videos, links and pictures within your post.

That means that unlike Facebook, on Google+ you can post entire pieces of content for your network to see. You can use Google+ as a direct way to publish useful information to your circles without having to refer people to an outside link.

Use this feature liberally. If you want to build a brand as an expert, Google+ offers a much more suited style than Facebook does.

Take Advantage of Hangouts

Hangouts are Google+’s impromptu video sessions. It’s also the first major free video conferencing software.

Google+ hangouts really changes the game when it comes to interactive marketing. Instead of having to schedule webinars or teleseminars, you can easily just host an on-the-spot video lesson, without or without notice.

Here are a few ways you can use Google+ hangouts to promote your business:
•    Teach a class. Use the video conference to teach a class and let your students ask questions on video or chat.
•    Discuss videos on YouTube. Google+ hangouts allow you to share a YouTube screen, so you can easily watch educational videos and talk about them.
•    Host a Q&A. If your audience has questions, you can answer them.
•    Have a spontaneous meetup. Do unannounced hangouts so people who’re lucky enough to be online can get to know you.

These are just a few potential ways you can use the new Google+ hangouts.

Using the Google+ Widgets

There are quite a number of Google+ widgets you can place on your website.

You can place a widget to have someone add you to their circles. You can place a widget that publishes your Google+ stats. You can even place a widget that grabs a feed from your Google+ posts.

Integrating a Google+ widget onto your existing website will allow you to get more traffic from your website to your Google+ account. This in turn will allow you to promote to that viewer over a long period of time, rather than just having them come to your website and then leave.

These are a few of the many ways you can use Google+ to promote your business. Though this social network is still young, it has many competitive features that make it an ideal marketing arena for serious business people.

Getting Twitter to work for you is just like getting anything else in business to work: You need to first figure out a good system that works for you by testing a number of different things, then implement that system regularly.

Here are ten different ways you can increase your Twitter followers. Some of these might work for you, some might not. The only way to know is to try.

1. Springboard Your Followers With Existing Platforms

Do you have a blog, an email list or an active Facebook page? If so, springboard your Twitter follower base by posting something about your Twitter feed on your existing platforms.

Make sure you place a “tweet” icon or “follow” icon on each and every page of your website.

2. Give Away Valuable Content

The #1 thing people want on Twitter is valuable content. All the other marketing tactics really won’t matter if you don’t have valuable content being published on a regular basis.
Write your tweets as if you were writing a direct short message to your target audience. Make sure it’s packed with juicy tidbits or links to valuable resources.

3. Be As Controversial As Possible

Take on controversial topics. Explore the other side of the argument. Make statements that get people riled up.
While you might alienate some people by being controversial, you’ll also get a lot more exposure. Exposure means more followers.

The people who end up following you and becoming your fans are the people you’d want to attract anyway.

4. Retweet All the Time

Retweeting is a win/win for everyone involved. The person you’re retweeting will be ecstatic that you helped spread their message. Your followers will be exposed to new content that you like. And you’ll get more followers, as well as the goodwill of fellow tweeters.

5. Follow a Lot of People

Most active Twitter users watch their followers very closely. If you follow someone, there’s a very good chance they’ll follow you back.

In other words, if you want to get 300 additional followers, one of the fastest ways to do that is to simply follow 500 people.

6. Tweet Often, Many Times a Day

Twitter is a medium where you can literally tweet every 15 minutes and not burn out your audience. In fact, that’s the way Twitter is meant to be used.

Tweet often to keep your posts on top on your reader’s Twitter feed. If you don’t update often enough, your Twitter feed will get stale.

7. Use Twitter to Rank in Social Media

You can use Twitter to help you gain rankings on sites like Reddit, Digg and StumbleUpon. If you get ranked, you’ll get more visitors, which means more followers.

How do you do this? It’s easy: Just ask your followers to go to the post and click upvote.

8. Write Detailed Posts Every Once in a While

Short and snappy posts tend to be the core of Twitter. But every once in a while, make sure you use all 140 characters and stuff as much useful content in there as you can.

9. Tweet in High Traffic Times

What are the best times to tweet? Look through other people’s feeds and your own retweet history to see when people tend to be most active in your industry and location.

Make sure that you’re tweeting during those times of day, even if you have to use third party services to schedule your tweets. This will help get you maximum exposure per tweet.

10. Do Favors for Other Tweeters

There are many ways you can help other tweeters out. You can retweet their stuff, you can refer followers, you can repost their content, you can publically recommend them.

Doing people favors will help you get favors in return when you’re doing a promotional push. Start building your favor bank early, before you even need it.

These are ten powerful ways to increase your Twitter followers. Use a combination of these tactics to build your own follower-building strategy.

This was recently witnessed by the website SEOmoz.com, which not only got a huge surge in traffic after one of its posts “Beginner’s Guide to SEO” was tweeted by Smashing Magazine and then retweeted by followers, but it also reached among the top results (No. 2 in the 1st page as of today) in the Google search for the unusual term “beginner’s guide”. While the initial surge subsided after the first few days, the page nonetheless continues getting consistent traffic weeks after the initial tweet by a figure of authority such as Smashing Magazine.

The more number of times a particular page gets linked through the “Share” feature for various social websites, the higher the chances of a better search ranking. In fact, for the search engine Bing, the higher the number of “followers” or “friends” for a particular account or website on a social media site, the easier it is for the website to achieve a higher search ranking.

It is clear then that the importance of social media websites like Facebook and Twitter can no longer be ignored. SMO thus has to be a crucial component of your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. Let’s take a look at how you can optimize your activities on websites like Facebook and Twitter to get the best search ranking.

•    Stay Active
Having a presence on social media alone is not enough. You need to add meat to the bone of your online presence. This can only be done by staying active consistently, by posting or tweeting content, relevant images, and informative videos. You can also supplement this activity and stay active without too much effort by responding to comments, commenting on other relevant posts and pages, using the “Like” feature on Facebook, and retweeting. By investing a few minutes every day (as opposed to being online only once in a while) you can see really good, long-term results.

•    Yes, Content Is Still the King
For an optimal search engine optimization strategy, content is still king. Ensure the content you publish is good quality content. While posting often is good, ensure you don’t lose grip on the type and relevance of your content. If the content is interesting and informative, the hits will appear. For example, the Travel Channel has managed to make the most of their Facebook profile by asking readers who enrol as “Fans” to share their Facebook-related travel stories. Needless to say, the content is interesting, unique, and highly relevant to the readers themselves.

You also need to ensure your content is free from plagiarism, is 100% original, and does not violate any copyright laws. In addition, your posts need to reflect an optimal density of keywords related to your business for search engines to take note of your website. Make sure your tweets or posts consistently talk about your business and do not lose focus, subject-wise. Examples of the type of content you post could be updates from your business, changes on your website, offers, deals etc. This will increase your brand value as well.

•    Long-Term Content
A way of ensuring consistent, long-term top ranks is to have posts that are popular for long stretches of time. While having blockbuster posts and tweets that are popular briefly but intensely, i.e., immensely popular for a short time is great, it’s the posts that continue getting hits for weeks (even if the hits are fewer than the “blockbuster” short-term posts) that actually strengthen page rank. A way of ensuring this is to revisit, tweak, and update popular content regularly and post it every now and then for long-term benefit.
For example, for a health and fitness website’s posts related to healthy weight loss and good dietary habits can be created and published regularly since these topics are a universal concern.

•    The More (Followers) the Merrier
Search engines like Google and Bing take serious note of a website faster not only if the number of people following it is high, but also if the same people following it themselves have a huge following. Thus, when you share links across your long list of “friends” on Facebook, and they themselves have a huge set of friends, then the search engines will give far greater weightage to the link. To get the benefit of this search engine strategy, make sure you have at least a few friends in your list who themselves are trend-setters and opinion makers, and have a huge following.

•    Popularity and Interactivity
A measure of popularity for any website or post is the number of times it is retweeted or “Liked”. Retweets can greatly increase the search rank of a page. This works because search engines typically view a post or tweet linked again and again as significant enough for a higher rank. Interactive responses such as retweets on Twitter and “Like” labels on Facebook rely completely on the quality of the content to become popular, which is noted by the search engines. Also, once again, the popularity of the individuals themselves retweeting also helps get a better rank.

It can also happen that a URL posted by a business itself counts for less than the same URL posted by people from other than the business itself. The greater aspect is the popularity of these very people posting, tweeting, or retweeting a link. For that reason, many businesses get popular stars to “endorse” their products on these social networking sites. Not only does this directly help sales, but it also affects the search ranking of their websites. For example, when Hollywood actor Charlie Sheen recently endorsed and tweeted for the website Internships.com, the first tweet generated over 95,000 clicks in the first one hour itself. In the next 48 hours, it generated over 400,000 clicks with responses from 181 nations around the world!

A variant of popularity is the weightage given to “reputed” opinion-makers and authoritative figures. Tweets by well-known journalists and public figures, for example, stand to hold higher weightage for search ranks. For example, on the Bing Social Search or the Google real time Search, posts and tweets from these opinion-makers will move to the top of search results.

•    SMO: Side-Benefits
A good social media optimization strategy has other benefits too. Not only does it guarantee more hits on your website’s pages and more publicity and sales, but it also takes you closer to your target audience. By maintaining an active and creative online profile for your business, you also invite users and your audience to share feedback and other important information. For any business, this type of highly specific data can be a rich resource.

Plus, by getting closer to your actual users through these social networking websites, you can ensure greater interest and customer loyalty through continued and quality interaction. You can also share with your audience and users the business’s plans for the future, invite recommendations and input, and solidify the customer relationship. This continual interaction can be extremely rewarding for any business.

The Road Ahead for Social Media Optimization…
As you’ve seen, a carefully created social media optimization strategy needs to give the necessary importance to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter if they want to get ahead in the race to get good rankings, increased exposure, brand building and improved traffic. Fortunately, social media marketing through Facebook and Twitter is not very difficult and can, in fact, be a lot of fun. As more and more people across the world begin sharing information, queries, and updates through these social networking websites, the importance for businesses to be active and SEO savvy on these social networking sites in the correct way cannot be stated strongly enough.

It’s no big secret that Facebook can help you in online marketing. However, I know there are many of you who believe that just registering on Facebook is enough… it’s not. Your Facebook success story ends before it even begins!

There is much more to marketing on Facebook than just creating a profile.  Keeping your fans engaged is the key. Don’t be a brand, but be a community they love being a part of. In this article, I’m going to tell you how you can use the medium of Facebook to increase your customer base as well as retain the ones you have!

CREATE YOUR PRESENCE ON FACEBOOK

1.   Facebook Profile: By creating a profile for yourself or your business, you are establishing your identity. This will take you a long way in developing relationships with fellow users and in positioning your business. You profile lets you interact with people on a personal note, more so if it’s a local business. Here are some aspects of a profile page:

o    Profile Picture: Always put your best foot forward, which means use the most flattering picture as your profile picture.  No matter what they say, a book is judged by its cover. I came across M.A.C makeup’s profile and thought it was really catchy with the colors used on the face. Hundreds of indifferent people with little time to spare are going to decide whether to add you based on your picture. So, make sure you get this one right!

o    Add Friends: After creating a profile, don’t wait for things to happen. Add new friends every day and the word will spread that you’re on Facebook. Before you know it, you’ll be starting your day by accepting friend requests! However, make sure you don’t add more than 25 – 30 people a day as excessive adding can get your profile removed from Facebook.

o    Wall: This is your main platform to interact with Facebook users. Post messages on your wall and also comment on members’ activities, though, only when relevant. A cafe once commented on my status when it was something about food. And there! A personal connection was built in a second! I knew that I was going to visit this place more often. However, make sure you don’t spam people every other day or they may remove you from their friend list.

o    Photo Albums and Videos: Photos and videos are a great way to showcase the latest collection of your product. I know many people who love to see what goes on behind the scene during a photo shoot or while a baker does his magic in the kitchen. Moreover, the first thing most Facebook users check are photo updates. So take that camera and start shooting!

2.   Fan Pages: Facebook Pages, known as Fan Pages, are designed for businesses, brands, companies, products and celebrities. It enables public figures, organizations and other entities to create an authentic and public presence on Facebook. You can encourage users to become fans of your page and share information with them by uploading pictures, videos, status updates, hosting discussions and displaying wall posts. Unlike Facebook Profiles, Pages are visible to everyone on the internet and are generally better for long-term relationships with your fans, readers or customers.

3.   Groups: Facebook Groups allow people to come together around a common cause or activity to express their views. One of the best features of groups is the ability to send messages directly to members’ Facebook inboxes.  It’s a great way to form a community and help your brand image.
Nowadays, it’s almost a necessity for movies to establish their presence on Facebook during its post-release period as Facebook users look for movies here. The good thing here is that you can send bulk invites to your friends, while it is manually done on Pages.  Groups are generally better for hosting quick active discussions and attracting attention.

4.   Events: Simply put, Facebook Events can help you connect with your target audience and invite them for your events, even if they aren’t on your friend list or one of your fans. Events can be created individually or even from Profiles, Pages. What I like is that Facebook gives you a choice between making the event Public and Private.
Let me explain the difference. I got an invite from Alanis Morissette Unplugged Acoustic Performance for a show next month, though I’m not a ‘friend’ or a ‘fan’. This is an open invitation for a public event where anyone can access the page and RSVP to it. However, if you want to maintain an exclusive guest list, choose the ‘Private’ option and the event page won’t be visible to anyone except those you choose. If you’re planning a launch or celebrating a landmark event, the ‘Private’ option lets you selectively invite people and give details on a page that can’t be accessed by anyone else.

The Next Step: HOW TO USE FACEBOOK FOR ONLINE MARKETING

Social Media Marketing is still in its infancy. I consider this as an advantage because there are not many set rules, you can try & experiment with different methods & techniques. However, if you don’t want to experiment, here are some tried and tested methods that will ensure success:

5.   Be Unique and Keep Updating: There’s nothing more boring than bland Facebook pages. Add lots of personality and fun to your profile. If possible, try to create applications just for your page. Offer something different so that they keep coming back, instead of letting them wait for updates from you. If you check Dell’s Facebook page, you’ll see that it keeps updating its status and gives new information on their products and about technology.

6.  Use a Big Profile Picture: Who says size doesn’t matter? Using a big profile picture is one of the best ways to brand your Facebook page. Facebook allows images of up to 200pix wide x 600pix high to be used as profile images Pages. This way, you stand out in a crowd.  Check out Bob Marley or Johnny Depp’s page on Facebook and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

7.   Tag Fans in Photos: You can tag your fans in pictures of new collections, or even ask them to tag themselves as a part of a game or contest. Musician Lenny Kravitz uploaded pictures of his concert in Italy in 2009 and asked everyone to tag themselves. This gave him good publicity as the update on being tagged appeared on the fans’ walls.

8.   Exclusive Landing Page for Users: Use different pages to target different sets of people. Take new users to a page that encourages them to ‘Like’ you or to a page they would find interesting enough to keep coming back. Members/fans can be directed to the wall or a game page that might interest them. Red Bull’s profile page is designed in a way that users are given a hint to ‘Like’ the page, while fans are taken directly to the Wall. You can get innovative in designing landing pages and targeting different people. 

9.   Reward Loyal Supporters: Encourage loyal supporters to join your Page and reward them. Tabs or badges like ‘member of the month’ that can be placed on their profiles for visibility can be awarded to them. A happy customer on Facebook can get you lots of attention.  Remind users to Like and Share information about you. When their friends see the updates on the News Feed, it’s highly likely for them to do the same.

10.   Use Contests and Polls: Holding contests encourage fans to interact directly with you. Domino’s ‘Show Us Your Pizza’ is a contest where people can send pictures of Domino’s pizzas they’ve orders. The best picture will be chosen by Domino’s and the photographer gets a prize of $500 and a chance to get his picture featured in an ad. This has received a lot of attention from Facebook users.

11.   Actively Participate Outside Your Page: Find other Facebook pages related to your industry or topic using Facebook Search & start actively commenting on their posts & updates. This is a great way to build relationships in your industry and even adds credibility to your business. If you’re willing to offer free advice on communities and discussions, it will encourage people to check your website out.

12.   Integrate Facebook Social Plugins to Your Site: When I go to CNN’s website, I can see what stories my friends have ‘Liked’, or what movies my friends ‘Recommend’ on IMDB. The Like button on your site enables users to share pages from your site back to their Facebook profile and the Recommendation button gives users of your site personalized suggestions for pages that they like. There are many more buttons like LikeBox, Comments, Live Stream etc that you can add to your website. With this, you can see for yourself what your target likes and design your product/service accordingly.

You can also integrate Facebook Connect Plugin in your blog which will enable Facebook users to leave comments on your blog without registering. The comment they make will be put up on their wall instantly which will be visible to all their friends. So, you effectively get a lot of exposure without doing much!

13.   Marketplace: With Facebook Marketplace, you can buy and sell anything using the listing service. The Marketplace application page displays all the most recent listings in your networks. The difference between normal listings and the Marketplace is that you don’t see another boring list of business, but they show up as the site’s own updates. For example, a sales listing would show up in news feeds as “John is selling Abstract Art.” In this case, John can be a ‘friend’ of your or even a friend’s friend. You can find out what people want, what they are offering and also how you are connected to these people on Facebook. This is what the page looks like:

14.   Don’t Just Write for an Audience of Teenagers: It’s time we free ourselves of this misconception. Facebook isn’t filled with youngsters. Though Facebook has many youngsters who belong to the age group 16 to 25, we see an increase in the number of people from other age groups who use Facebook regularly. According to Pingdom, 61% of Facebook users are over 35 years old. In fact, the 26 – 34 age group rivals the 18 – 25 age group in both the US and the UK. So, make sure communicate to your target the right way.

INNOVATIVE CAMPAIGNS

You can check out some of these pages for ideas:

•   H & M: Very interactive Facebook profile. Shows all of its new collections and is easily maneuverable.

• Victoria’s Secret PINK: The pink challenge: Design your own look.

• Lacoste: Simple, yet elegant, approach to displaying products on a catalog on Facebook.

• Red Bull: Keeps track of sports people on Twitter, action sports, motor sports on Red Bull Web TV.

•   Digicel: A game where you pop balloons. Top ten players win credit and one player wins a phone.

•   Starbucks: Manage your card online.

•   Disney: Watch trailers, old clippings, status updates on news about Disney’s movies.

As a marketing tool, Facebook is here to stay. Many people give up as they don’t get the desired result immediately, i.e. a huge increase in sales. However, consider marketing on Facebook as a step by step process: you first build trust, traffic and eventually – sales. I hope my tips help you to see that day soon! Do you have any ideas that you can add to this article? If so, let me know by leaving your opinion in the Comment Box.

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Though a highly competitive medium, YouTube helps you reach your niche – whether you’re an aspiring film maker, makeup artist, politician or a comedian. Lately, we have seen many new ideas coming up in this medium and there is no limit to how creative or even eccentric you can get in grabbing attention.

Why It Works

When you see an interesting video on YouTube, you tend to post the link on Twitter, Facebook, or share it by emailing it to friends. They pass it on to their friends and the effect just multiplies and your message spreads rapidly, resulting in massive exposure. This approach, also known as viral marketing, doesn’t even have to be expensive. The reason we connect with these campaigns is because we understand the product better and the brand has a face. We identify the brand, making the whole experience personal.

Here, I have listed out some of the most innovative viral marketing hits on YouTube that you can learn from!

1. Will It Blend: The first campaign cost Blendtec, a company that produces blenders and mixers, less than $50. The team filmed a video featuring Blendtec’s co-founder Tom Dickson who said, “Will it blend? That is the question.” He made a smoothie of salsa, tortilla chips, Buffalo wings and Budweiser in the blender. Five days later, Blendtec’s marketing director excitedly told him that they hit 6 million views on YouTube. This was later followed by videos of blending golf balls, a crowbar, a video camera and iPod. My favorite is their latest, the iPad. Their online videos are still a rage and Blendtec’s online sales have grown by 500%.

2. America’s Got Talent: This is the latest one on the block. Their auditions are being done entirely on YouTube. You can record your performance even at home and upload it right away, giving an opportunity to many more. You can sit back at home while the judges and voters (viewers) decide whether you have it in you to take you to the next round. NBC and the producers of the show have partnered with YouTube to process the auditions online. Are we seeing the latest trend for reality shows here?

3. Best Job In The World: YouTube was the platform for the Australian Government’s ‘Best job in the world’ campaign as a caretaker of islands in the Great Barrier Reef. Applicants were asked to post a video of why they were fit for the job on a dedicated page. They received over 34,000 applications from 201 countries. The website got 8 million visitors and user generated content on YouTube went up to 610 hours. It even scooped the two top awards at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

4. Michelle Phan: Three years ago, Michelle Phan was turned down for a behind-the-counter job at Lancôme. She started off giving makeup tutorials on YouTube, and now, after Lancôme knocked on her doors, she is now their video makeup artist. She is the most subscribed YouTube Guru and her videos have been viewed over 150,000,000 times. She also owns a skin care line IQQU. Who would’ve imagined something like this a decade ago?

5. America’s Election Campaign: I will admit that Barack Obama’s Harvard degree wasn’t all; the online campaigns did get to me. It made me feel like I know him personally. Obama’s strong presence on YouTube made him accessible to everyone as he spoke directly to YouTubers about his plans to uplift the US. It clicked, especially among the American youth and resulted in a high voter turnout among them, a task that was once considered impossible. Obama has given politics a new face and a new platform for presidential campaigns.

6. Movie Trailers: There are a bunch of us who love reaching cinema halls on time, just to catch the movie trailers showcased before the movie. Trailers leave me wanting more. When trailers started being available on YouTube, producers started targeting YouTubers for viral marketing campaigns. Cloverfield, a monster movie, had scary teaser trailers on YouTube, but without the title – a big risk that paid off well. The buzz was created well before the second trailer with the title was introduced. There were no big names among actors and the budget was comparatively small. The movie secured the biggest January opening of all time in North America and all the credit was given to these campaigns.

7. Greyson Michael Chance: Chance is a young musician who had posted his performance of Lady Gaga’s ‘Paparazzi’ at sixth-grade music festival on YouTube. It wasn’t viewed much for a week or two until Ellen Degeneres reported it on her show. The number of views shot to over 1 billion (we’re still counting). Ellen even decided to sign Chance up as the first artist promoted by her newly formed record label eleveneleven.

You can see in these examples how people have broken boundaries of time-tested marketing campaigns and succeeded. If you have come across any such interesting campaigns, do share the link with us. It’s time you start thinking out-of-the-box and find yourself a unique way to create that connect with the audience. Who knows, maybe I’ll feature your story here someday!

If you don’t want to take my word for it, here are five compelling reasons to optimize and calibrate your site for mobile devices.

1.    Mobile Search is for Mobile Sites – That’s right, when one searches from a mobile device, the query accesses a separate index maintained for mobile content. And mobile search being still in its infancy, the indices are relatively smaller, and what that means is, way lesser sites to compete with. So, optimizing your site and building a mobile presence will certainly help you rank high now, and in the future too when the indices get bigger and the competition grows fiercer. You’ll still have a better chance of ranking high, thanks to the authority you would’ve built over the years.

2.    Think of your Customers – Non-mobile sites or ‘full’ sites, to put it bluntly, are a pain to access from mobile devices, and greatly hamper usability. Full sites are often rich, usually include flash and video content, and do not render correctly on a mobile platform. By not making available a mobile version of your site, you are deliberately providing poor user experience to customers who may access your site through mobiles, and thereby risking customer dissatisfaction. And dissatisfied customers mean only one thing – lost sales leads.

3.    Targeting The Mobile Demographic – The number of mobile web users is expected to hit the one billion mark by the end of 2010,  factor in the burgeoning smartphone market and one can easily envision mobile web usage reaching an unprecedented high in the next few years. If you don’t optimize your site and target this mobile demographic now, you’ll be wasting a great opportunity to tap into a mother lode of traffic.

4.    High Click Through Rates – Various studies conducted over the last few years have revealed that when compared with online ads, mobile ads have better click through rates – mobile CTR fall between 5% and 15% while online CTR average at 2%. The mobile space is inarguably the new frontier in internet marketing and offers you a great opportunity to take your search marketing efforts to a new level.

5.    Target The Mobile Junkie – You are sure to have seen them, those people who can’t bear to be separated from their Blackberrys, PDAs or iPhones even for a minute  – ‘the mobile junkies’ – they spend more time using their mobile devices than they do with their PCs. They prefer to access the net via their mobiles, are upwardly mobile urbanites not averse to spending money, and as several studies reveal, targeting them through any other media will be a waste of time. If you don’t build a mobile presence and calibrate your marketing efforts accordingly, you’ll miss the only way to reach a demographic with high spending power. And what a shame that will be.

Pretty compelling, aren’t they? That’s what I thought. The mobile marketing space, to put it mildly, is growing at an exponential rate, and doesn’t show any sign of slowing down. So, if you are in anyway involved in Internet Marketing, you should stop ignoring the mobile space (like, right now!). Expend a little effort and create a mobile presence for your site, you and your site will be the gainer at the end of it.

The success of your viral marketing efforts depends on how expertly you play your social graph to use as a medium though with to push your message. However, if your message finds no takers, it can hardly go viral, which counts on people indulging in some furious sharing, and no one shares bad content. So, it would be a good idea to remember that a successful round of viral marketing needs both good content and some decent social networking skills.

Here are some handy dandy tips that you can fallback on in your hour of viral marketing need. (I love puns, can you tell?)

1. Giveaways. Everyone loves free things. Free makes everyone happy. I could delve into the exhaustive scientific studies that attest to these statements, but really, there is no need for it. The giveaway model always works, it works off the Internet, it works equally well on it too. You can offer ebooks or Internet tools, or even sample mp3s if your music is what you wish to promote, and set the ball rolling. Just ensure what you give away is not sub-standard junk that you won’t use yourself. If people like the stuff, they’ll share, talk about it and generate interest in your business.

2. Videos. Create a really cool video about your business and upload it on YouTube and your site. You just need to take a look at the most popular viral marketing examples till-date to see the importance of this exhortation. Videos are very viral-friendly, so using them as a medium can almost guarantee you viral success. And it wouldn’t hurt if they are funny too.

3. Social Media. Work your Network. Today, it is fairly impossible to hope to market virally without using social media. That very fact has also made viral marketing far easier than it was before. Ensure you build a strong social network, then pass your message on to the social sphere through your connection. You can also use it as an avenue to enhance your other efforts too, share your YouTube video on Facebook or retweet a link on Twitter.

4. Visibility. Create a buzz. Then sustain it. The idea is to have people talking about your business. All the time. To constantly reside in their collective conscience. Memes are a great way to create viral buzz, the Armageddon meme started by the promoters of the movie 2012 was successful in generating so much viewer interest that it raked in over 500 million in profits no one was really surprised. If creating a meme is beyond you, write a post on a current topic, take a slightly controversial stance, then promote it on various social sites. That will sure get people talking.

When done the right way, most marketing efforts on social media has the potential to turn viral. What distinguishes a success from a failure, in most cases, is the initial momentum it manages to build. A slow build up doesn’t a viral campaign make. So, follow the tips mentioned above and learn to launch your viral marketing campaign right off the bat.

It is heartbreaking to see the number of blogs out there that have excellent content but can’t seem to succeed. They have rotten rankings and fail miserably. Don’t let same fate plague your blog, kick back and crack the Technorati 1000 by getting your house in order.

1. Make Your Blog Successful Or Die Trying: First thing to remember is to never give up, to keep on trucking, or rather writing, and remember that if the content is crap, no marketing effort will make it a success. No one starts a blog just for the hell of it, ensue that you have something to say. More publicity, promotion and, consequently, traffic will come your way, but only if the content is truly great. If you cannot write, get a writer to do it for you. There are loads for freelance sites online, where a blogger will write for you at a small cost.

2. Be An Expert: You know the old saying jack of all trades, master of none, become the master of your subject matter. Read and learn; write with intelligence and knowledge about your subject; with experience, your reputation will grow and people will seek you out. This will attract more comments in your blog, which can help you get cross promoted; always respond to your comments too, it is vitally important.

3. Be A Better Publisher: Publish full feeds particularly on controversial matters, this gets the attention of content scrapers which re-post your content and creates traffic. Use Feedburner too as this will allow you to find out how many people are subscribing to a particular feed.

4. First Impressions Always Count: Do you remember your mother telling you this? Well she was right and design matters. Set yourself apart from every other blogger with your design and be serious about it. If you cannot afford a professionally developed blog, then learn about photoeditors and CSS. You can also tweak your Wordpress theme, your blog, when done, has to scream out loud to people, READ ME AND LEAVE COMMENTS. A professional theme will get more readers to your blog.

5. Get Up-To-Date With SEO: Find out what makes it tick and what will make your blog tick too. Your blog needs to be tricked out with unique title tags, and keyword rich headlines to enjoy complete SEO wellness.

6. Be A Good Host: Host contests, polls and other interactive features to encourage even more participation in your blog. Make them fun or funny, controversial or challenging, but keep your readers interested. Your little corner of the blogging happy-hunting-ground needs to buzz with a life of its own. Make your blog successful, it will pay dividends.

Get your blog in order using these six tips, then set about promoting it using the prevalent internet marketing methods like social bookmarking and other means of social media,  and you’ll find your blog flooded with traffic in no time.

As mentioned in the previous post, the purpose of this post is twofold:

1) to show you how easy and simple it is to import sites from your Directory Maximizer account

2) also to show you how easily you can place orders by submitting sites or pages already added to you Social Maximizer account

Let’s first tackle the issue of ‘Importing’ sites.

If you are a Directory Maximizer user, you have the added advantage of importing your sites from your Directory Maximizer account and being on the shortest route to have your site bookmarked.

Once you’ve logged in to your account, click on the ‘Import Sites’ button. This will cause a page with the site listings to pop up.

Choose the sites you wish to import to Social Maximizer, then click on the import button. And voila! The sites are in your account and you are already halfway through with submitting them!

Now, on to ‘Submitting Existing Pages’.

To submit imported sites or site that have been already added to your account, click on the ‘Submit an Existing Page’ button.

Upon clicking the “Submit Existing Pages” button, you’ll be taken to a page that looks like the image below ( read on for detailed explanation):

Once in the Submit Existing Page’ section, follow the steps enumerated below.

Step 1. Choose/select the site you wish to submit.

Step 2. Then, choose the submission option of your preference.

a) Option 1: Have your site submitted to all the Bookmarking Sites our list, or if you have used Social Maximizer’s bookmarking service before, to the remaining unique sites.

b) Option 2: Have your site submitted according to your budget or to a specific number of sites. Either fill in the number of directories you want to have your site submitted to in the first box or the amount you are willing to spend towards the order in the second “Budget” field. There are two stipulations though: the order value cannot be less that $5, and a site has to be submitted to at least 20 bookmarking sites.

c) Option 3: Have your site submitted to bookmarking sites of your choice from the entire list. Once again, there are stipulations: the order value cannot be less that $5, and a site has to be submitted to at least 20 bookmarking sites. You have the option of saving the selected sites as a ‘Favorite’ and giving the list a unique name for future reference.

Note 1: Upon choosing any one of the three submission options, you will be shown details of your order. You will also be shown the amount approximately in your local currency.

Step 3. Then click on the confirm button, you’ll be taken to the payment page.

Payment Page

In the payment page, you’ll find the order details and the amount payable. You have two payment options available – you can either pay through PayPal or pay with your credit card.

As mentioned earlier, you additional payment options, if you have $MX in your account ($MX is a form of submission credit, $MX 1= $US 1) -

1) You can pay for the order solely with MX dollars.

Click on the ‘Complete Submission’ button to pay for the order with $MX .

The following screenshot shows that an order for 26 submissions is being placed with $MX 4.94 remaining in the person’s account.

2) You can apply an MX amount to your order and pay a reduced amount. The steps involved are enumerated in the example below.

Click on the ‘Use $MX in account’ button.

The screenshot shows the payment page of an order for 222 submissions; note that the amount payable is $42.18.

Clicking on the ‘Use $MX in account’ button causes a green ‘Apply & Recalculate Total’ button to appear.

In the space provided enter the $MX amount you wish to use towards the order, then click on the green button.

The screenshot shows that $MX of 5 is applied to the order and the total recalculated.

You’ll now notice a the change in amount payable, complete the payment process by clicking on either the ‘Pay by PayPal’ button or the ‘Pay by Credit Card’ button.

In the screenshot below, you’ll see that the amount payable is $37.18, after having used $MX5.

Ordering with Social Maximizer is as simple and easy as that! Click here to place a bookmarking order and enhance your social media marketing experience like never before.