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Viral Traffic Secrets Blueprint

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511 views102 pages

Viral Traffic Secrets Blueprint

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indra dream2
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

1 Copyright © 2012
Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

Viral Traffic Secrets


The Blueprint
Your Essential Blueprint to Generating
Viral Traffic with Free Internet Tools to
Get Your Message to Millions of People
Online and Make Enormous Profits

2 Copyright © 2012
Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

Legal Notice:
This ebook is copyright protected. This is only for personal use. You cannot
amend, distribute, sell, use, quote or paraphrase any part or the content
within this ebook without the consent of the author or copyright owner.
Legal action will be pursued if this is breached.

Disclaimer Notice:
Please note the information contained within this document is for
educational purposes only.

Every attempt has been made to provide accurate, up to date and reliable
complete information no warranties of any kind are expressed or implied.
Readers acknowledge that the author is not engaging in rendering legal,
financial or professional advice.

By reading any document, the reader agrees that under no circumstances


are we responsible for any losses, direct or indirect, which are incurred as a
result of use of the information contained within this document, including –
but not limited to errors, omissions, or inaccuracies.

3 Copyright © 2012
Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

Table of Contents

Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint….…………................pg. 6


Definition of Viral Marketing; Differences from Word of Mouth; Key Viral Marketing Strategies;
The Passion List; Six Viral Marketing Rules to Live By; What You Need to Know Before You
Begin

Creating an Online Brand..………………………................pg. 23


Identifying the Most Valuable Niches; Affiliate Marketing; Creating Original Products; Building
Your Online Reputation; Secrets of Online Marketing

Social Media Marketing.....……………………….................pg. 41


Most Important Social Media Platforms; Building Your Social Media Network; How to Focus
Your Marketing to Achieve Viral Results; Providing High Value Content; Interactive Marketing;
On-Page and Off-Page SEO; Outsmarting the Penguin

Facebook Marketing….....……………………….................pg. 52
Free Facebook Marketing Strategies; How to Wall Jack the Most Popular Pages; Making Paid
Facebook Ads Profitable; Split Testing and Its Benefits

Twitter Marketing…..........……………………….................pg. 66
Attracting Twitter Followers; Hashtags and Trending Topics; Retweeting Strategies; Tweeting
for Success

Google Plus Marketing...………………………...................pg. 73


Creating Effective Circles; Hangouts and Huddles; Google Plus Analytics; Using Google Events
for Maximum Exposure; Paid Google Marketing Techniques

4 Copyright © 2012
Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

Achieving Video Viral Success…………………………......pg. 91


The Astonishing Power of Video; YouTube and Its Benefits; 7 Ways to Create Viral Video;
Video Marketing Methods That Work

Secondary Viral Marketing Platforms……………………...pg. 96


The Popularity of Pinterest; Benefits and Drawbacks of LinkedIn; Social Comment: Yelp,
foursquare, and Other Sites;

5 Copyright © 2012
Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

Among the biggest benefits of the internet is that it allows anybody


the opportunity to get their message in front of millions of prospective
customers for little or no money, as long as they know what they are doing.
Once you master the techniques of internet marketing, you can get your
video, website or advertisement to go “viral.”

In other words, like a virus that attacks your body’s immune system,
under optimal conditions, your message can reproduce on the internet
exponentially so that it suddenly attracts worldwide attention. While viruses
that attack the human body or a computer virus that targets hard drives are
considered to be bad things, going viral with your marketing is a very good
thing, indeed. That’s because it means your message is being propelled
through cyberspace like a rocket, landing on increasing number of
computer screens, laptops, smart phones, tablets and other devices every
minute.

From a marketing perspective, there is no better place to be. Most


companies would pay millions of dollars for the kind of exposure that a
single viral video or website can achieve for next to nothing or even for
free.

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

One of the first people to realize the full potential of viral marketing
used it to get one of the most prestigious jobs in the world: President of the
United States.

In 2008 US Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was a relatively unknown


candidate who was looking for a fast, effective way to get his campaign
known among the voters. Saddled with very little campaign funds but a
great deal of young, media-savvy young volunteers, Obama was one of the
first US politicians to use the power and scope of the internet to propel him
to the top of the world’s stage.

Beginning with Facebook Fan Pages and branching out into Twitter
and direct messaging, Obama reached out to all corners of social media to
recruit and energize followers, but built the framework for a viral online
marketing blitz that remains one of the most successful in internet history.

But politics isn’t the only arena that has been able to harness the
power of viral marketing. Companies such as the fast food chain Burger
King also have reaped the benefits of the internet’s free tools. In 2004, the
company released a short video called “The Subservient Chicken” to
promote a new chicken sandwich. The video featured an actor in a chicken
suit who would follow the commands that were typed in by viewers. Like
the sandwich it was designed to promote, internet users ate it up and the
company’s website was swamped with millions of new visitors within only a
few short days.

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

The music industry also has used viral marketing to create something
out of nothing. In 2001, 13-year-old singer Rebecca Black created a low-
budget video for a hyper-catchy song she had recorded called “Friday”.
Although the lyrics were inane, the ear candy quality of the tune made it
irresistible for internet users and Black soon found her video going viral,
eventually attracting an astonishing 60 million views on YouTube, which
was more than 11 million more than the latest video by Lady Gaga, who
was the most successful pop act on the planet at the time.

Definition of Viral Marketing

Viral marketing refers to marketing techniques that use social


networks and other web tools to produce explosive awareness in brand or
product awareness. Like self-replicating computer viruses, which spread
from computer to computer exponentially, viral marketing takes advantage
of tools such as Facebook “Likes”, re-Tweets, Google Plus “+1’s” and other
social approval tools to spread the word about the brand or product quickly.

The result is a sudden and massive distribution of the brand or


product being delivered to a global market via word of mouth or network
effects of the internet and mobile markets.

Most often, viral marketing takes the form of video clips, interactive
Flash games, web pages, eBooks, text messages, emails, images, brand-
able software or adver-games. The most commonly utilized transmission
vehicles for viral messages include pass-along based, incentive based,
trend based and undercover based. But because viral messages tend to be
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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

highly creative and unique, there are endless potential forms and vehicle
through which the message can be sent.

Thanks to the new affordability of mobile devices such as smart


phones and tablets and near-universal internet access, viral marketing is
becoming more prevalent. Consumers now have the ability to share and
spread viral messages they enjoy faster and with more scope than ever
before. With literally the push of a button, a single internet user can
promote a viral message to hundreds or even thousands of friends and/or
acquaintances who can then pass the viral message on to tens of
thousands or even millions more.

The ultimate goal of viral marketers is to create viral messages that


appeal to individuals with high social networking potential and that have a
high probability of being approved of and spread by these users in a very
short period of time. When this occurs, you have viral marketing.

The concept of viral marketing actually pre-dates the widespread use


of the internet. Back in the 1990s, academics first began thinking about that
concept that ideas could be spread like viruses. Their initial research got
picked up by marketers, who perhaps first learned of the concept via the
article “The Virus of Marketing,” which was published in the magazine Fast
Company in 1996. In the article, Harvard Business School graduate Time
Draper and faculty member Jeffrey Rayport first proposed the “idea as
virus” concept.

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

By the time the internet started to become pervasive in society by the


late 1990s, the stage was already set for online marketers to put the
concept into practice. While the earliest viral memes included video loops
of dancing babies and other silly time-wasters, one of the earliest viral
marketing financial success stories came in 1999 when a team of young,
guerilla filmmakers who had made a low-budget horror film called “The
Blair Witch Project” launched an online campaign to promote the film.

The filmmakers created a fake website that corroborated the story


that the film was the result of “found footage” and that events of the film
were actually true. The also posted rumors on message boards that the
doomed trio from the film were still missing. Thanks to the ingenuity of the
filmmaker’s ability to exploit the nascent internet (and the public’s gullibility)
the movie went on to become one of the most successful films of the year.
Made for $60,000, the film eventually grossed more than $248 million
worldwide.

Differences from Word of Mouth

Before you could easily access the opinions of millions of other


people via the internet, actual word of mouth was one of the most trusted
and reliable indicators of quality of a particular product or brand. If a friend,
family member or co-worker told you about a movie or brand of cat food
they preferred, you would naturally be inclined to take their word for it and
perhaps purchase the product yourself.

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

While viral marketing is similar to word of mouth in that individuals


share their opinions and experience regarding particular products and
brands with other people, the difference is a matter of scale. Prior to the
web, if a person told five people they enjoyed a particular television show,
for example, those five people might tell another five or ten people each
that they enjoyed the program, and the influence of that original opinion-
sharer might result in a few hundred new viewers to the show.

Today, most internet users have a few hundred Facebook friends


who include friends, family, co-workers, former school mates, former co-
workers, acquaintances and even strangers. When preference for a single
product or brand is shared with a pool of secondary users that large, the
result can be thousands or tens of thousands of passed-along messages.
Add to that the fact that most people also have other social accounts –
such as Twitter, Linked In, Google Plus and others – as well as social
comment sites such as Yelp, foursquare, Pinterest, and many more, and
the possibility of that single opinion going viral increases exponentially.

Word of mouth marketing is critical to the growth of small businesses


that lack the resources for huge marketing campaigns. It’s frequently what
keeps a business operating during those early days when it is still
struggling to survive. Satisfied customers tell their family and friends about
the business, and this increases its customer base and sales.

But when this type of promotion is shifted online, the results can be
astonishing.

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

Key Viral Marketing Strategies

Successful viral marketing requires more than simply providing


information to consumers, such as hours of operation, variety and types of
products offered, and pricing. It requires tapping into the passion of the
consumer so that this passion influences the customer to become an
evangelist for the business. When this passion is palpable and the
message is posted online, it can be spread effectively to the masses
without any assistance from the original business owner. Entire viral
campaigns have begun by the passion of a single consumer, or a small
number of raving fans, with no orchestrated effort by the business’ owners
whatsoever. That is because when a consumer takes his or her passionate
energy to the web, they often feel they have a personal stake and
investment in the success of the business.

So the burden is upon the business owner to inspire passion in


customers. The good news is that once this occurs, the promotion of the
business or brand can take on a life of its own with little or no effort on the
part of the business’ leadership.

The Passion List

Here’s a way for you to inspire passion about your business or


products:

1. Take out a sheet of paper

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

2. At the top of the paper, write the name of your business or product

3. Beneath this, write down the top 7 or 8 things you personally like best
about your business or product. Don’t think about it too much, try to
write as honestly as possible.

4. Beneath these, write down 3 or 4 reasons why you chose this


business or product in the first place. Again, be as spontaneous as
possible.

5. Finally, write down the one thing you love most about your business
or product

What you have is your passion list. This is what should motivate you
whenever you write or talk about your business or product. In the midst of
the working week, it’s often easy to forget what inspired us to get involved
with our work in the first place. You passion list can serve as a constant
reminder so that you can sustain that enthusiasm and help build excitement
for your product or business during every point of contact with customers.

Some people find it helpful to frame their passion list and hang it
above the computer they use for work. Others keep it with them in their
wallet or purse so they can refer to it when they are out speaking with
customers. Whichever method you choose, make sure you refer frequently
to your passion list so that you have a constant reminder of why you are
doing what you do.

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

Another key to the success of viral marketing campaign is framing the


message in a format that can be easily shared. It has to be easy for
consumers who support the business or brand to share their enthusiasm
with others.

For example, let’s say your local church youth group is sponsoring a
car wash to raise funds for an upcoming retreat. Under the 20 th Century
model, you would create a few handmade signs, have a few teenagers
wave them at passing cars on a busy street and hope for drivers to notice.
While this may be effective on a highly-localized scale at attracting a few
dozen customers, it doesn’t allow supporters to push the message on a
more global scale.

Under the 21st Century model, you could create an entertaining 30-
second video promoting the event, ask the group’s members to post it to
their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, and watch it take off from
there. In this example, it is conceivable to boost response from a few dozen
cars to several hundred.

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

Besides tapping into people’s passion and providing a format that can
be easily shared the last key viral marketing strategy is to incentivize your
message’s promoters. While a certain number of your customers will call
attention to your business simply because they genuinely like it, far more
will do so if there is something in it for them.

When you offer an incentive – such as a free giveaway, a discount, or


even membership into some sort of community of like-minded users – you
can provide an incentive for not just the first generation of promoters all
subsequent generations as well.

For example, the owners of Taco Town, a taco stand in Fort Worth,
Texas, wanted to drive mid-week lunch business so they posted a notice
on the business’ Facebook Fan Page that offered a free taco during
weekday lunchtime hours to anyone who “Liked” the post on Facebook.
Because the page’s 300 subscribers already were supporters of the
business, the first generation response rate was high, about 30 percent, or
90 people.

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

Because the 90 people who “Liked” the original posting had an


average of 200 Facebook Friends, the original offer was expanded from
300 people to an estimated 1,800. Of that second generation, the response
rate was less, about 10 percent, or an additional 180 people. Because each
of those people also had an average 200 Facebook Friends, the second
generation ad exposure suddenly jumped to 36,000.

Six Viral Marketing Rules to Live By

Viral marketing is not complicated. In fact, the simpler and more


inviting the message, the broader its appeal will be.

While not all viral marketing campaigns need to follow all six of these
rules, the more that you include in your campaign, the more successful you
can expect it to be.

1. Offer something of
value – While the first
generation of people
who receive your
message are likely
already going to be
open to your promotion,
subsequent generations
may not know anything
about you or your
business and, in fact, may already hold opinions about your product
16 Copyright © 2012
Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

or brand.

When you offer something valuable, the people after the first round of
users are going to be more likely to pick up your message and pass it
on to their circle of social influence.

What you offer doesn’t have to have monetary value. In fact, given
that viral marketing can potentially result in a tidal wave of responses,
it’s better if there is no cash value to your offer. But giveaways such
as special reports, eBooks, instructional videos, access to online
webinars and other high-value/low-cost items can incentivize the
recipients to redeem your offer and pass along your promotion,
improving its chances of becoming viral.

2. Ensure an effortless transfer to others – One of the reasons viral


marketing didn’t catch on prior to the development of the internet was
because delivery systems made this type of promotion not cost-
effective. Postage for direct mail campaigns or expensive radio,
television and newspaper media kept all but the biggest companies
out of the market place.

But the free tools offered by the internet have leveled the playing
field, allowing even the smallest businesses to compete on equal
footing with the biggest competitors. Anybody can post a video, a
photo, an audio recording, a slideshow or any number of media that
can be seamlessly and efficiently passed on to other users with the
push of single button.
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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

Anything that interferes with the movement of your message – such


as a requirement to enter an email or mailing address – should be
minimized in order to promote the viral nature of your message.

3. Make it scalable – When you create the message you want to


become viral, it’s better to start small and have the capacity to
increase the size and scope of
your offer rather than starting
large and risk being
overwhelmed by the response.

For example, Taco Town wisely


limited redemption of its free
taco offer to a specific date so
that they didn’t have to give
away the store. By putting

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

control measures on your offer, you can help adjust the speed of its
growth as it progresses through the web.

4. Exploit basic behaviors/motivations – Like anywhere else, people


on the web act in predictable ways. When you offer something of
value for nothing, you can expect a big response. If you incentivize
people to promote your offer to others, your redemption rate will
increase.

By exploiting these basic,


predictable behaviors, you can
increase the likelihood of your
promotion going viral. For
example, one of the most basic
rules of advertising is that sex
sells. Include an image of an
attractive woman on your ad and
you are going to attract the
attention of a certain percentage
of the marketplace, regardless of
what you are selling.

Know your intended audience and how they are likely to respond to
various stimuli, and you can improve your chances of going viral.

5. Make use of existing communication networks – When William


Randolph Hearst wanted to promote the products and brands of the

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

companies he and his


associates owned, he
created a chain of
newspapers that
continues to publish to
this day. You don’t
need to launch a
newspaper chains,
however, when you
already have popular,
highly effective marketing platforms such as Facebook, Twitter,
Pinterest, Google Plus and the rest that will do the job for you at zero
cost.

6. Be cool and buzz-worthy – People are always going to be open to


your message if it is framed as “the next big thing” or if they think
being associated with your product or brand is going to make them
cooler or hip in the eyes of their friends.

If you are able to frame your message in the context of something


that is already a hot topic – in other words, something that already
has the attention of the marketplace – you can piggyback onto the
success of others and bring your product or brand newfound
exposure.

7. Keep it simple, stupid – Like anything else, the simpler your


message is to understand, the more likely it is to be grasped by the

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

general public. As P.T. Barnum famously stated, “Nobody ever went


broke overestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

Whatever your message, keep it simple and straight to the point.


Given the incredible number of messages they are bombarded with
daily, if users have to take even an extra moment to figure out what
you are trying to tell them, they are going to move on to the next
thing.

What You Need to Know Before You Begin

Although it offers a scope of global exposure unlike any other


platform, viral marketing shares certain qualities with other, more traditional
forms of advertising.

The first and most important is that you have to know who your
audience is and what they want. This can be simplified with the use of
Facebook Fan Pages, online forums, the use of squeeze pages and even
on-page and off-page Search Engine Optimization techniques.

One of the biggest difference between viral marketing and other


forms of promotion is that the potential response could potentially be
overwhelming, even overpowering. Many websites have crashed because
their owners didn’t anticipate the massive response to a particular
promotion or offering. And if users can’t find you – even for a short period
of time – you are losing potential business

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

Viral marketing costs far less than other forms of advertising on the
distribution end, but the production quality of whatever you are promoting
should still be as high as you can afford to make it. If you post a shaky
video with poor production values on YouTube, odds are it isn’t going to go
viral because it’s too difficult for people to watch it. Similarly, if you offer a
free eBook that is poorly written and inaccurate, odds are your intended
audience isn’t going to want to pass it along to other people they know.

Now that we have examined some of the introductory tenets of viral


marketing we can move on to the methods and techniques of how to
implement it for your product, brand or viral target.

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

Creating an Online Brand

Viral marketing can be used to promote virtually any type of product,


brand or concept. Whether you are a musician seeking more exposure, a
manufacturer looking to broaden its audience, or an internet marketer
seeking new markets and opportunities online, the ability to quickly get your
message out to thousands or even millions of people can be worth a lot of
money.

Creating an online brand or identity is important to any business, but


especially if your objective is to craft a message that can easily be passed
on from generation to generation of internet users. The easier and more
concise a brand’s message, the better it can be absorbed by the intended
audience.

Think about the most successful brands and the images they
immediately spring to mind: Quaker Oats, Ford Motor Company, Las
Vegas, and the Rolling Stones. Any product that has been successfully
branded will instantly evoke an emotional
response from the user – for better or worse.

For example, when you think of Quaker


Oats, you probably immediately think about
wholesome, nutritious breakfast foods such as
oatmeal and cream of wheat. When you think

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

about Las Vegas, you think about a fun, exciting place where you can go to
let your hair down and go a little crazy.

Neither of these responses is accidental. Both are the result of a


careful, persistent effort to create an identifiable brand that evokes an
emotion that the intended user can associate with that particular brand.

When creating your brand online, it’s important that you provide a
consistent, positive message that your prospective customers can
associate with your company and products. What are the core values of
your company and how can you communicate these to your customers?
What sort of emotional shortcuts can you use to evoke this message
quickly and effectively?

Home, family, security, love, serenity, sex, adventure, danger, safety,


hope. All of these concepts can give you immediate access to the
sympathetic center of your customer base. In fact, these are the concepts
most commonly used in nearly all advertising today.

Viral marketing is no different. The quality and effectiveness of the


message needs to be intact before it can be passed on from user to user.
By taking care to build your brand so that it is focused on the values and
message that are central to your business’ core, you can present a
persistent, simple brand message that can be included on every message
you promote.

Identifying the Most Valuable Niches


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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

If you don’t already have a company or product you want to promote,


you have the freedom to build your business around any product you want.
Generally, you should select something that you are passionate about,
either now or at some time in your life because you are going to be
spending a considerable amount of time involved with this product niche. It
would be hard to go to work every day selling dog care products if you can’t
stand animals, for example.

Once you identify a product niche for you to work in, remember that
the definition of a successful niche is one that has a lot of customers,
includes a wide variety of different products that can be packaged in
various ways (ie. Digital books, video, audio files, slideshows, physical
products, services, etc.) and are mid- to high-priced.

For example, it would be difficult to build a successful viral marketing


campaign around $.40 replacement parts for high definition televisions
(unless you have the market cornered, that is) because your volume would
have to be massive in order to make any serious money. A better niche
would be selling high priced HD TVs through a dropshipper because each
single sale could bring you hundreds of dollars.

Viral marketing can be a fast-paced sales platform. What’s white hot


today may be yesterday’s news very shortly. Has anyone heard from
Rebecca Black lately? One way to make a lot of money is to find the hottest
products, jump into markets, make a killing and then jump out before you
get stuck with a lot of unsellable inventory. While this is profitable for some
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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

marketers, it is highly stressful because it requires you to constantly be


chasing trends, and it’s easy to get burned.

A better idea is to focus on products that sell regardless of what’s


popular. There are certain niches that are always going to be popular, no
matter how well or how poorly the economy is doing or how big or small the
marketplace is. That’s because they offer solutions to problems that can
never truly be solved or are so universal that there will always be people
looking for products to help them solve them.

People have been buying products in these niches since the


invention of money and will continue to buy them in some form or another
forever:

· Weight Loss

· Dog Obedience

· Making Money/Getting Out of Debt

· Personal Development/Workout Goals

· Spiritual Development/Horoscope

· Relationships/Dating

· Life Problems

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

· Food/Cooking

Generally, competition in these niches is high because these are the


markets where the money is. But if you identify high-quality products in any
of these niches, you can confidently set up a long-term business because
there will always going to be a market for products in these niches.

These niches also give you the ability to sell multiple products to
customers, increasing your sales opportunities. Take a look around the
internet at any of these niches and you will find a nearly endless supply of
products.

Affiliate Marketing

If your niche allows you to sell digital products – such as eBooks,


videos, audio recordings, online courses, webinars, subscriptions, coaching
and mentoring sessions, etc. – then you should consider affiliate products.
Under this business model, you promote other people’s products in
exchange for a commission on each sale. You essentially become an
affiliate of the product’s actual owner.

Affiliate marketing is not restricted to digital products, either. In fact,


Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer, has a comprehensive
affiliate program in which members can promote any of the millions of
products the company offers

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

They key to a successful affiliate marketing program is finding


products that people want to buy. It’s easy to find out what people want to
buy. There are several websites you can go to find out what is popular at
the moment.

Google Hot Trends is the first stop. This site lists the top 100
searches on Google, the world’s most popular search engine, during the
previous 25 minutes.

Look particularly for items that are listed several different times in
different ways. From an affiliate marketing standpoint, this could be helpful.

But remember that this tracks what is trending at the moment. It’s
helpful to look at a series of days to find products with lasting power. In this
case, Kombucha tea has been one of the top searches for the past couple
of days. This probably would make an excellent product to promote through
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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

affiliate marketing because it’s extremely popular right now and Amazon is
almost certain to sell it. Let’s find out.

As you can see, Amazon has 362 items for sale related to Kombucha
tea. Simply select a few of these as products you would like to promote
through the Amazon Associate program, put a link to it on your page – or
mention it in your blog or article or even on your Facebook page -- and you
can start earning commissions off of the sales of this red hot product
starting right away!

Yahoo Buzz is Yahoo’s version of this list. It also shows the top
searches, but includes a little more information than Google Trends.

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Viral Traffic Secrets: The Blueprint

Two other sites to look for hot niches are Trend Hunter and Trend
Watching. These tend to be a little more geared towards consumer trends
and offer a more global perspective, although both can be narrowed down
by country.

Keeping an eye on trends can be profitable in the short run but to


make long-term profits, you need to find long-term, reliable niche to exploit.

While Google Hot Trends, Yahoo Buzz and the others are helpful for
seeing what is hot right now, there are some other sites you can visit to find
niches with more longevity. The first is eBay Pulse. This site shows you the
products people are searching for the most:

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While knowing that Android tablets and iPads are popular you can
also dial down to see what specific products in your particular niche are the
most popular. For example, if have a website specializing in cycling, eBay
Pulse will tell you which cycling products are the hottest.

ClickBank is an online marketplace where you can find more than


46,000 digital products such as eBooks and video courses that you can
offer for sale as an affiliate marketer. When you promote particular
products, every time a customer clicks through to the site and purchases
the product, you earn a commission.

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According to a 2011 Revenue Magazine article, ClickBank is the top


affiliate network in the US and has sales of more than $2 billion. It has
more than 1 million affiliate members and processes about 35,000
transactions per day. It has customers in more than 200 countries around
the world.

Other great sites for finding niche products to promote include


Commission Junction, which has thousands of the most popular shopping
websites, including Blockbuster, Apple, Best Buy and HP, and Link Share,
which also has lets you promote products from some of the world’s most
popular shopping sites.

Another kind of affiliate network is the “Cost Per Action” or CPA


program. Under this model, you are paid a fixed sum for every lead or sale
you make for an advertiser. Some of the top CPA networks right now are:

· Peerfly.com

· ShareASale.com

· GoOffers.net

· CPALead.com

Amazon Affiliates is a program operated by Amazon, the world’s


largest online retailer, in which third-party sellers can promote products on
Amazon in exchange for a sales commission. Amazon reportedly derives
40 percent of its sales from this affiliate marketing program.
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Signing up to be an Amazon Affiliate is free. When you sign up, you


can select any of the millions of products offered by Amazon. When you
make your selections, you are given a personalized URL that you can
insert into your web page, social media posts, emails, blogs or anywhere
you like. When somebody clicks on the URL, they are led directly to the
Amazon page where they can purchase that product. When they buy the
product, an identification code embedded in the URL tells Amazon who
should receive the commission.

Amazon maintains its own payment system, so you don’t need to


have PayPal or another payment program to participate. Commissions can
be held in the Amazon account, used to purchase products on the site, or
can be sent directly to you via your bank account, a check or a prepaid
debit card. There are more than 900,000 members in the Amazon Affiliate
program.

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Creating Original Products

Another option is to create your own products. This offers pride of


authorship and also frees you from worrying about copyright infringement.
When you create your own products, you can even sell them to other
affiliate marketers so that they do the hard work of marketing while you
collect the profits.

Plus, when you create your own products, you can decide what
specific niches and sub-niches your product will target, rather than having
to rely on whatever affiliate products happen to be available in the
marketplace at that moment.

Original products can be in any format, including eBooks, videos,


audio recordings, slide shows, etc. Plus, you can repackage the same
product in dozens of different ways, converting text to video, slideshows to
eBooks, audio to slideshows, etc.

Your products can be based on completely original research and your


own ideas, or they can be revised versions of other existing products. And
you can use your own products any way you want, without having to get
anybody else’s permission or worrying about being sued later.

Finally, with your own products, you are free to market them in any
way you wish. If your products are of high quality, your customers who
enjoy your products will be anxiously awaiting while you create fresh, new
products.
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Building Your Online Reputation

In internet marketing, long-term relationships are usually far more


profitable than short-term revenues. In only a very limited number of cases
are there high value to jumping into a hot market, making a big splash, then
getting out as fast as you can. In most cases, building long-term
relationships with your customers in the end is the most rewarding strategy,
both financially and in terms of your personal reputation, as well as that of
your company and brand.

When you treat your customers as if they are your friends, rather than
simply people who buy your products, you can improve the effectiveness of
any marketing program. Any time you contact your customers – whether
via email, social media, in forums or anywhere else – you should try to
personalize the experience as much as possible. Share details about your
personal history and family life. When your customers develop a genuine
emotional bond with you, they have a vested interest in your success,
resulting in a long, prosperous business relationship, fortifying your online
reputation.

One effective way to do this is to follow the “4:1 Rule”. For every
email, Facebook status update or Tweet you post promoting your products,
post four others that are more personal and direct, even completely
unrelated to your business. In these four posts, you can share links to other
helpful web pages in your niche, pass along advice, tell personal stories
and post pictures and videos that reinforce your online reputation as a real
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person, rather than just a marketer who is trying to sell them something all
the time.

The ability to immediately nurture a personal relationship with your


customers is a unique benefit of doing business on the internet. If you were
to walk into the Best Buy and the salesperson started showing you his
vacation picture, it would feel a little awkward. Yet for an online interaction,
this is completely acceptable.

But when people sense that you consider them nothing more than a
customer, they will consider you nothing more than a marketer and soon
they will stop paying attention to what you have to say.

Two-way communication is critical to success. With your viral


marketing campaign, make it easy to facilitate two-way communications by
making it easy to your customers to respond to you. For example, you can

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include “What Do You Think?” with every posting that automatically links
back to your own email account or web page. This allows you to solicit your
customer’s thoughts and opinions, reinforcing their importance to you and
the success of your business.

Finally, whenever a customer takes the time to contact you, always


send a follow-up thank you and acknowledge how important and helpful
their comment was to you.

Secrets of Online Marketing

Secret # 1: You need a membership site, no matter what your product


is.

This is when you sell a membership to your customers so that every


month they will receive fresh, high-value content from you that they can use
to improve their lives. It is absolutely, positively the easiest way to create a
long-term revenue stream for you.

Your membership site can be an upsell to an existing product – which


is highly effective in converting visitors into customers -- or a stand-alone
product. But you need to have a membership site because it brings you
money month-after-month. If you do a good job on research and
development and can create compelling, exciting content month after mo
nth then your customers will look forward to getting it each month.

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And when customers become fans of your content, they are more
likely to pass it on to others, increasing your chances of going viral.

Secret #2 - Look for products that can fall under the same brand
umbrella.

This makes it easier for your customers to think of you in only one
way: As a trusted friend who consistently provides solid products in their
niche interest. Think of it this way: Quaker Oats has 15 separate and
distinct breakfast cereal labels, 6 other breakfast products such as the
oatmeal, 6 snack bars, 4 food mixes, 3 sports drinks, and that doesn’t even
count their European operations, which has an entire other line of
products.

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Yet when you think of Quaker Oats, you don’t think of Captain Crunch
and Power Bars. You think of the Quaker gentlemen on the oatmeal
cylinder and of the wholesome, nutritious foods that are good for you.

To build your brand so that you can go viral, your products need to be
linked in the same way. Don’t sell both hot dogs and running shoes if you
are not Kmart. Keep your brand identity easily understandable and it will be
easier for your customers to like and trust you.

Secret #3: If you want to be a major player, you have to start acting
like one.

How much money


do you want to make
from your internet
marketing business
during the coming
year? $10,000?
$50,000? $100,000?
Now go to this website – bizbuysell.com – and click on the “Business
Categories” in the upper right hand corner. Scroll down to the entry that
reads “Internet Businesses” and click on it. Sort the business opportunities
according to the annual cash flow. Find those that have the annual cash
flow that is the same as what you answered the above question.

There should be internet marketing businesses you should use to


build your own.
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There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel. As it states in Ecclesiastes


1:9, “Nihil novi sub sole”. “There’s nothing new under the sun.” Everything
you are planning to do has already been done a hundred times before by
people twice as smart as you. When you learned to drive a car, you didn’t
sculpt a wheel out of rock, did you? You didn’t go to Chrysler plant and
work on the assembly line? A an internet marketer why would you want to
waste years of your life suffering through trial and error when you can
simply find a business that does what you want to do and copy them with a
superior product or service?

Research viral marketing success stories in your niche. Take note of


what caused them to go viral, then implement those factors into your own
efforts.

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Social Media Marketing

Social media platforms provide you with the kind of access to


customers that would be unimaginable only a few short years ago. They
are what make viral marketing possible. By exploiting the benefits of social
media, you can promote your brand, product or business exponentially,
rather than laterally, creating a network of customers who can then
continue to promote your business for you.

Most Important Social Media Platforms

The most important social media platforms are the ones that are
going to get your message out to the broadest possible audience the most
quickly. These can vary based on your niche and also can change based
on a variety of factors, including the whims of the public, introduction of
new platforms with improved technology and applications, and successful
marketing.

For example, just a few years ago, MySpace was one of the most
popular social media platforms on the internet. Today, almost nobody uses
it anymore.

The most important social media platforms that you need to be


involved in if you want to launch a successful viral marketing campaign
today are:

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1. YouTube – Video is the preferred format for internet users, especially


since nearly everyone has access to streaming video on their smart
phones and tablets thanks to WiFi. This Google-owned website is the
biggest and most significant distributor of video on the web and it’s
impossible to talk about viral marketing without talking about
YouTube.

2. Facebook – Despite its recent struggles on Wall Street, Facebook


remains the most popular social media platform on the web. It has
always benefitted by its brilliant ease of use and improvements in the
site’s ability to share video and other formats are only going to make
it more popular. Did you check your Facebook page today? I thought
so!

3. Twitter – Web users – especially younger people -- can’t get enough


of this site. Users share brief “tweets” about what they are doing and
the things they like. The primary benefit is the ability to share links
that can take users to other web pages.

4. LinkedIn – Focused more on business networking rather than social


networking, LinkedIn continues to be an important platform for
reaching corporate and commercial targets.

5. Pinterest – This site currently holds the title as the most popular
social preference platform. Visitors post links to things they like. If that
includes one of your links, you can go viral very easily.

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6. Google Plus – Although it stumbled coming out of the gate, the wide
variety of killer apps and features eventually are going to make this
comprehensive social networking platform the most important in the
marketplace.

Building Your Social Media Network

If you hope to launch a successful viral marketing campaign, you


don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing which of these six sites to
use. You need to be on all of them.

And they are only the starting point. Many other important social
preference sites – including foursquare, Yelp, Flickr and Instagram, to
name a few – are of growing importance. In a few moments, we are going
to take a closer look at all of these sites and how you can use them to go
viral with your marketing.

How to Focus Your Marketing to Achieve Viral Results

Malcolm McClaren was right: “The media is the message.” When he


made that statement in the late 1960s, he was referring to the growing
influence of television, but his words prophesized the growth of the internet
a few decades later.

The social media networks you create are the pathway for your viral
marketing campaign. The accounts you create on the seven platforms
listed above and the fans, followers, friends and other contacts you make
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are the point of entry for the messages that you craft. Consequently, it’s
important that you connect with these people effectively because they are
need to be passionate, enthusiastic evangelists of your brand:

1. Identify the Facebook Friends who have the most Friends

2. Review their Facebook home pages, taking careful note of what


groups they belong to

3. Whenever they post a status update, always “Like” it and add a


comment

4. Nurture your relationship with these users further by “Liking” any


comments they leave on Fan Pages

5. Don’t stalk them, but be consistent in developing an interpersonal


relationship with them

6. If they have Twitter accounts, follow them and re-Tweet anything


they Tweet

7. Direct message them on Facebook or Twitter and let them know


how much you enjoy their posts. Eventually, they will start paying
attention to you

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8. Once you have a familiar online relationship, send them valuable


content interspersed with promotions for your products

9. When you post on their home pages, whenever they comment or


“Like” your post, it will appear in all of their Facebook Friends’
pages.

Providing High Value Content

So how to you create these converts? Provide something of high


value for free that your customers can use in their everyday lives. What that
is depends entirely on what your niche is and the brand that you are
creating.

For example, if you are going into the weight loss business, it could
be a 30-day shred plan for six pack abs. If you are going into the Android
app business, it could be one month’s free access to a killer app you have
developed. If you are going into the sporting goods business, it could be an
eBook on tying fly fishing lures.

The specific content you must be something your contact s value and
will appreciate receiving from you for free. When this happens, they will feel
a trust bond with you, they will feel indebted to you, and they will be more
likely to promote future offerings from you to their social media network.

Interactive Marketing

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Interactive marketing is a business model based on building


interpersonal one-on-one relationships with your customers. In the pre-
internet world, this usually meant starting up a conversation with someone
who walks into your store: “Nice weather we’re having. Can I help you find
something? I like those shoes!” This type of relationship building puts your
customer at ease, makes them feel like they are welcome and appreciated,
and lets them know that you are ready, willing and able to serve them.

But how do we chat up our online customers, especially when your


web page can get thousands of hits per day? How can you make sure each
of the people who navigated to your page get that same sense of familiarity
and comfort that customers received when they visited your brick and
mortar store?

That’s where interactive marketing comes into play. Interactive


marketing is a rich media experience that gives customers who visit your
web page the illusion that there’s an actual person behind the screen
speaking with them online. The most obvious example would be Siri, the
interactive companion available on the iPhone 4S and 5.

While you may not have the R&D resources of Apple, you can still
use the tenets of interactive marketing to help you go viral. All interactions
between your customers and you have a tone that is unique to your
company. It can be friendly, helpful, a little edgy, laid back, even funny.
Whatever personality works best for your business.

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Like the sales clerk who chatted up customers when they walked
through your front door, the virtual host of interactive marketing sites
responds in real time to your customer’s questions and needs, while
maintaining the personality that you want to project.

Interactive marketing can pose simple, straight-forward questions and


use the information gleaned from your customers’ answers to put them into
different categories, such as:

· “Interested but just looking”

· “Ready to buy but looking for best value”

· “Ready to buy and wanting to complete transaction as quickly as


possible”

· “Frequent, loyal customer”

· Or whatever categories you choose

This kind of lead qualifying and scoring can improve the way your virtual
host interacts with the customer so that they can give each customer
precisely what they want as quickly and efficiently as possible.

On-Page and Off-Page SEO

Search engines are one of the primary determiners of the success or


failure of your business. Master the search engine algorithm, and you can
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keep your web pages at the top of the product searches for your niche
indefinitely.

Unfortunately, mastering the Google and Bing search engines is


nearly impossible because the algorithms – the formulas used to determine
website “weight” and ranking – are changing constantly

Google and Bing, the two biggest search engines on the internet, use
“spiders” to crawl through the web and find new websites and pages. The
search engines then use their ever-changing algorithms to assess the
content of the web page or website, index it and assign it a rank. These
spiders then move on to other websites through links and the process
continues on and on forever.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO for short, is what web page


designers and website writers do to make their website more appealing to
the search engines. The more appealing the site is to the search engine,
the higher it will be ranked on its niche search. If the website is ranked on
the front page of the search – or even better, the top spot – then most
users are far more likely to click on that website than any of the ones on
any of the other pages.

For websites that promote products or services, this can mean the
difference between success and failure. The primary objective of any
business’s website is to get ranked in the number one position in their
search niche, or at the very least on the front page. If you are not on page

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1, you might as well close up shop because less than 11 percent of all
internet users ever go past page 1. In most cases, they won’t even go
down the first few results on the first page. That makes it critical for your
website to land on the first page.

If a page has any hope of going viral, it has to be listed on page 1 or


2. It’s as simple as that. On-page and off-page SEO techniques are one
way to ensure that your web pages are ranked high.

Examples of on-
page SEO are including
the best keywords for your
product niche on your web
pages, especially in
strategic places such as
the title, headline, sub
heads, and first and final
paragraphs of copy.
Keyword saturation, or
repeating your keyword so
that it represents 2% to 3% of the total words on your web page, also is an
effective on-page SEO technique.

Off-page SEO methods would be things like creating a large number


of backlinks to your web page from sites the search engines consider to be
“authoritative.” When expert sites reference you web page, this tells the

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search engines that what you have to say is important, and it consequently
will rank your page higher.

Outsmarting the Penguin

Google and Bing are the two largest search engines on the internet.
Marketers have spent years trying to figure out the best ways to outsmart
these search engines’ algorithms using non-organic methods to get their
web pages listed at the top of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) for
their niches. Aware of this, Google frequently changes its algorithm to
prevent this type of fraud.

According to Google’s official blog, Panda and Penguin, the second


major algorithm update which rolled out in May 2012, were intended to
reduce web spam and weed out sites that were trying to undermine
Google’s quality guidelines, including those that were “over-optimized” and
that used black hat SEO strategies to drive traffic to their pages.

The Penguin update gave additional weight to social signals given by


the people who use social media the most. It also takes into consideration

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which users have the largest groups of followers and friends and who are
considered to be experts in their fields, assigning even more influence to
their recommendations.

That means that instead of focusing exclusively on SEO, internet


marketers are more likely to have their pages ranked higher if they have
more social signals such as Facebook “Likes”, re-Tweets, Google Plus
“+1’s” and the like. This also facilitates going viral.

In the next three chapters, we are going to look at ways to increase


your social signals on the three most important social media platforms:
Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.

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Facebook Marketing

Because of their immense popularity, social media sites also are now
the target of online advertisers. Since the purpose of advertising is to
promote products in places where they will reach maximum exposure,
Facebook is of primary importance to advertisers.

That’s because entertainment habits have changed. People simply


spend more time online now than they do watching television, and certainly
more than they do listening to the radio or reading newspapers. In fact, you
can now do all these things using your Facebook account.

Free Facebook Marketing Strategies

To successfully market on social media sites you need to build your


lists of “friends” on Facebook. It’s easy and free, and with the methods we
will discuss here in a very short amount of time you will have hundreds of
friends and followers.

To identify people who are interested in the types of products you are
promoting, look for groups or forums on Facebook that are related to your
niche. If you sell time shares, for example, search for groups related to
“vacation travel” or “leisure”. Once you locate them, you can join these
groups for free and begin interacting with other members.

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How to Wall Jack the Most Popular Pages

You also can start your own groups or forums and invite the members
of the other groups to join yours so you can have more control over the
content and its distribution.

Similarly, you can create fan pages for topics related to your niche.
Then, when people who are interested in your niche search the social
media sites, they will find and join your fan pages, giving you an opportunity
to develop relationships with a whole new group of potential customers.

This strategy is called “wall jacking” the most popular Facebook


pages related to your niche. The way you do it is this: Search for niche-
related fan pages that have the most members. Join the fan page and
spend a lot of time interacting with its members. Find high-value content
online and post frequent links to it so that you provide the fan page
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members with content they can actually use.


Then send out invitations to everybody on the
fan page list to join the new fan page you
created.

This accomplishes two goals: As the


owner of the page, you get to control the tone
and direction of the conversation so you can
always direct members toward your content
and ultimately toward your products. The
second objective is that it gives you a list of
potential customers who have already shown
they are loyal to you by migrating to your new
fan page.

Build relationships with your customers


by making positive and supportive comments
about their updates and tweets and reposting
them, showing an interest in the details of their lives, and referring often to
personal information they have shared in the past. It’s helpful to keep a file
of notes on each member so you can remember the names of their
spouses and kids, places they went on vacation, products they bought from
you in the past, and so on.

Forward links to articles that you found interesting and that are
related to your niche, or even those that aren’t. Retweet interesting tweets,

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not just those that have commercial motivations. Use your postings to
encourage conversations and engage other users in discussions.

Making Paid Facebook Ads Profitable

Facebook’s sponsored ad program is a lot like the PPC programs


offered by Google, Yahoo and Bing, but with a slight twist. Instead of
bidding on keywords or phrases, with Facebook ads you can determine
who will see your ads based on specific criteria, including their geographic
location, their interests, education level, work history, even their sex,
marital status and sexual orientation. This makes it easier to aim your ads
at precisely the types of people who are most likely to buy your products,
improving your chances of going viral.

Facebook gives you the option of buying PPC or CPM (Cost-per-


1000 impressions). Because the click-through rate on Facebook is low,
PPC is usually the best option. It also allows you to set a daily budget.
Once your budget is used up during a 24-hour period, your ad will stop
appearing until the next day, when it starts at the beginning.

Facebook ads are one of the best marketing tools on the internet
today, period. This is because Facebook is one of the most popular sites
on the planet and because it is easy to integrate your Facebook page with
other applications, such as WordPress, Twitter, LinkedIn and many, many
other apps. Facebook ads are also extremely easy to target at specific
types of users. They also are much less expensive than other advertising
methods.
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Plus, creating Facebook ads is really simple and you can have an
effective ad up and promoting your social presence in just a few moments.
The place to start is by clicking on the “Promote with an ad” button on the
right side of your Facebook Fan Page:

Clicking on this button will bring you to a screen where you can
design your add.

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By populating this boxes you can create the text for your ad, include
any pictures you want to use, design how it will look and decide where and
how frequently it will be posted.

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The Destination button is where you set where people who click on
your ad will go. It can be a Facebook page, a website or anywhere. The
default is your Fan Page. Keep this as it is for now.

In the Type button, you decide whether you want your ad to be a


Sponsored Story or a Facebook Ad. Sponsored Stories will give you wider
distribution for the News Feed stories published about you Page, Place or
app, You can include either a story about your Facebook Page posts or
about the viewer’s friends. Facebook Ads can promote a Facebook Page,
Event, App or other destinations on Facebook, or your own website.

You can create a custom message and Call To Action (CTA).


Relevant actions from the viewer’s friends will be shown automatically. This
helps build word-of-mouth awareness. For now, we want to leave this as a
Facebook Ads so we can promote our Fan Page via ads.

If you select Facebook Ads, you can choose either to promote a


particular page post with your ad, or you can promote the page itself. In this
case, we want to promote our Fan Page.

In the Destination Tab, you decide where on the page visitors will
land when they click your ad: On the wall, on the info page, on the photos
page, etc.

The Title option lets you select a title for your ad. This will
automatically be the name of your Fan Page. If you are writing a different
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title, Facebook limits you to 25 characters, which is not many.

The Body section is the most important. This is where you write the
content of your ad. It should be brief, snappy and to the point, but also clear
as to what benefits your Fan Page has to offer and a clear Call to Action as
to what you want visitors to do, in this case visit your Fan Page. You can
give special offers, explain services, qualities of your product or whatever
you want. Just make sure your CTA is clear.

When writing you’re ad, include keywords relevant to your niche so


that readers immediately understand the adt. Don’t make your ad a sales
pitch, simply provide information about your Fan Page in a simple, jargon-
free, keyword-saturated, clear manner. Emphasize immediacy by including
words like, “now” and “today”. You will have to be as brief as possible
because Facebook limits you to 135 characters or less.

The Image tab lets you upload a photo to use with your ad. Make
sure it is relevant to what you are selling and upbeat and positive. The
image is small, only 110x80, so don’t try to cram too much into it. The
image should be like a one-image synopsis of what you are promoting.

Ads that contain images of people are more effective than those
without. Don’t use slick, professionally produced photos because this will
turn viewers off. Try to use real people, not models in your ad pictures.

The Preview box allows you to see what your ad will look like when it
is displayed. As you fill in the boxes, the ad changes.
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When you click on the “Continue” button, a new drop down menu
appears. This is called “Targeting” and is how you determine where our ad
will go. Targeting is the most effective way to reach exactly those people
you want to reach.

Facebook ads are extremely flexible, and the site makes it very
simple to target different subsets as part of your ad campaign. You can go
after a huge number of people or only a select group of people, depending
on what you are trying to accomplish.

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The first thing you select is Location. For local businesses, you will
want to target a very specific locale. For larger companies, you may want to
make your ad appear nationally or even globally. You can choose by
country, state, city or zip code.In the second tab, you determine the
Demographics you want to target. This includes age group and sex. What
you choose depends on the type of niche you are promoting. The third tab
is Interests. This allows you to dial down even further into your niche
subject. The fourth tab (not shown above) is Connections on Facebook.
This gives you the option of targeting people who are fans, who are not

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fans, or both. You can also target friends of fans. Advanced Demographics
allows you to target men, women or both; married, single, engaged;
interested in men or women. Education and Work is the next final tab.

Once you have set your ad’s targets, when you click on the
“Continue” button, you will be taken to a screen where you can decide how
much you are willing to spend on your ads.

Obviously, the more money you spend, the broader your advertising
campaign can be. But you probably have a limited marketing budget. That
means you can only afford to target those people who are most likely to
buy your product.

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The first box asks you what kind of Account Currency you are using:
US dollar, Canadian dollar, Mexican peso, Euro, etc. The second box ask
for your Campaign Name. This can be anything. Just make sure it is related
to what you are selling. The next box asks what is your Budget. This is the
amount of money you plan to spend per day on your ad campaign or the
lifetime budget of the campaign. Enter any amount you want, there is no
minimum or maximum. If you choose per day, once this amount hits the
limit, Facebook will stop running the ads of the day. Next you will determine
your Schedule. The only option you are given is to run this ad every day
starting today.

The final thing you will be asked to select is your Pricing method. You
will be given two options for ad pricing:

Pay for Clicks (CPC) – You pay only when someone clicks on your ad.

Pay for Impressions (CPM) – You pay every time your ad is displayed on
somebody’s Facebook page.

On Facebook, the click-through rate is low. That’s why it makes more


sense to select pay for clicks than pay for impressions. If you select pay for
impressions, your ad may get more exposure, but you probably will run
through your daily budget more quickly. Even though you pay less for CPM,
the efficiencies of CPC usually make it the better value overall.

You then are asked what you will bid to either display your ad or per
click. Facebook gives you a suggested bid as well as a range. The
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minimum bid is $.01/ad. Usually, the suggested bid is the most effective
and you should try this first.

Once you have finished setting up your budget, you can review the
ad to see what it will look like. If you approve, simply push the “Place
Order” button. Facebook will ask you how you plan to pay for the ads and
you enter your credit card or other financial information here.

One of the best features of Facebook Ads is its reporting. When you
use the Facebook ad service, you will be given access to information about
your ads performance.

The best way to track this is through your ad’s campaign


management page.

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The report will show you the impressions and clicks over a period of
time, as well as what your budget was and if you changed your bid.

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Twitter Marketing

If Facebook is like a fan club for your business, then Twitter is like a
tailgate party with over 200 million guests. It has an incredible amount of
potential for businesses to reach out and find their target market using
simple search tools in order to go viral.

Twitter’s greatest appeal is its brevity. You only have 140 characters
to work with, so you have no choice but to be direct and to the point. As a
result, users can quickly scroll through hundreds of Tweets in only a few
minutes. Like Facebook, most people use Twitter to keep up with friends,
family and even people they don’t actually know but would like to know,
such as their favorite movie stars, politicians and sports figures.

Because of its immediacy, Twitter is the platform on which news is


spread the fastest. Whenever something important happens in the world,
Twitter erupts with activity. As a result, it also offers one of the best
opportunities for going viral.

Attracting Twitter Followers

Although you are limited to 140 characters, Twitter lets you post
comments, as well as links to other websites, pictures, videos slideshows,
and other media, making it a fast and efficient way to get your products and
services in front of a lot of people. It instantly links users to a large number

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of people -- both who they know and who they don’t know – making it one
of the most immediate and tangible forms of communication ever created.

To get twice the value from your work, make sure you link your
Twitter to your Facebook and vice-versa. Then each time you post on one
site, it automatically posts on the other. It’s easy to do; just follow the
instructions on either site. Also, remember to promote your Twitter feed in
all the same places you promote
your Facebook page.

To get the most out of


Twitter, you want to attract largest
possible amount of followers.
When you are first starting out,
search for people you know,
including loyal customers, family,
friends, acquaintances, co-workers,
and current and former school
mates. Use the search function to
look for their names then follow them.

Then go to their profile and see who they are following and who is
following them. You can follow all of these people if you want, but a better
way would be to look for people you either know or who are friends of
friends and follow them. Or you can follow only those people who have the
most followers themselves.

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Whenever you follow somebody, they get a notification that you are
following them. On Twitter, people will almost always follow you back.
When they do, your list of Twitter followers becomes filled with people who
already are devoted to your product niche.

Hashtags and Trending Topics

To supercharge Twitter as a marketing tool, you want to build a huge


list of people with an interest in your business’ niche. To do this, search for
tweets about your niche. For example, if you are in the water skiing
industry, simply conduct a search for “#waterskiing”.

Then go to the
profiles of people who
have recently tweeted in
this niche and look at their
list of followers. If they
have a lot of followers,
follow those people. In
most cases, they will
automatically follow you
back. When they do,
every time you tweet
something, they will
receive it and there is the possibility they will retweet it so that their
followers will see it as well.

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Next go through their list of followers and look for those people with
the highest number of followers. These are the people you want to follow to
build your marketing program because they offer a point of contact to the
most people.

Finally, Twitter will let you know what topics are trending at any given
moment, and it’s a good idea to pay attention to them so that you can see
what people are tweeting about right now. If your niche subject is trending,
it is a great time to start getting your message out because more people
will see it.

Retweeting Strategies

If you want to build relationships with your followers, don’t constantly


try to sell them products. Instead, send Tweets that are about your niche
but are not related to specific products. One good way to do this is to use
Google or Bing to find articles about your niche, then copy and paste
interesting facts about your niche subject and send them out as tweets:

“Here are top tips for beginner waterskiers:


http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=ycn-8864775 #waterskiing”

Another effective method is to find jokes and sayings about your


niche subject. Everybody loves humor, so just search jokes about your
niche then copy and paste them and send them out as tweets. You can do
the same thing with sayings about your niche:

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“ ‘The tendency of man's nature to good is like the tendency of water


to flow downwards. There are none but have this tendency to good, just as
all water flows downwards. Now by striking water and causing it to leap up,
you may make it go.’ -- Ni'matullah Wal #waterskiing”

“ ‘What is harder than rock, or softer than water Yet soft water
hollows out hard rock. Persevere.’ -- Ovid #waterskiing”

Tweeting for Success

Once you have a list of followers, you can continue to build your list of
Twitter followers quickly by using following these simple techniques:

Make it easy for people to find you on Twitter – Always include a link to
your Twitter profile on all your other social media sites, on your blogs, any
articles you write, on your web page and anywhere else you can.

Follow your followers – It won’t take long for people to start to find your
Twitter page and follow you. When they do, make sure you follow the back.
This helps build a bond between you and it also lets you see what they are
Tweeting.

Always respond to people who send you Tweets – Twitter will notify you
anytime your Twitter name – called your “handle” -- is mentioned anywhere
on Twitter, even if it was not directed at you. Always follow up with the
sender.

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Entertain and inform – Engage your followers one-on-one and find ways
build relationships with them. People usually scroll through dozens of
Tweets until they find something they like. When you entertain and inform,
your followers will look forward to your Tweets, so they will stop to take the
time to read them.

Retweet Tweets from your followers – Twitter lets you forward anyone’s
Tweet with the click of a single button. When your followers Tweet
something relevant, retweet it. Also, when you find something interesting,
share it with your followers.

Participate in group discussions – You can look for Tweets about topics
that interest you by doing a search using a hash tag. For example, if your
business is fine wines, you can find every Tweet in which that niche was
tagged by searching #WineTasting.

Use lists to organize followers – Twitter makes it easy to arrange your


followers according to specific parameters. When you organize your
followers into groups, you can more easily target specific Tweets at specific
groups.

Say what you think, not just what you are doing – Facebook users like
to see what their Friends are doing. But people on Twitter usually prefer to
know what people are actually thinking.

Don’t start a Tweet with @ -- The @ symbol is the first character in a


Twitter user’s address, so if you send a Tweet to @ArianaHuffington, for

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example, only she will get that Tweet.

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Google Plus Marketing

You may have heard about Google Plus and how its enhanced
features make it the best marketing tool for business, but what you
probably haven’t heard is that Google Plus is quickly becoming the only
tool your business needs to create lasting, influential presence online.

That’s because Google Plus takes the best features of the internet’s
most successful sites – including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even
YouTube – and makes them work better, faster and more efficiently. And
Google Plus gives you all of these enhanced features under one roof: Your
Google Plus brand page.

Here’s how to create your Google Plus account for your business:

1. Login to Your Google Account

You need to be logged in to your personal Google account before you


can create a Google Plus page for your business. All Google services
share a common login so you can use your Gmail or Google Analytics login
if you have one.

2. Start the ‘Create Page’ Wizard

Once you are signed in to your Google account, you can get started
by accessing the ‘create page’ wizard in one of two ways. You can visit the
Google Plus business page and click on “Create a Google+ Page” link.
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Alternatively, if you have personal profile on Google Plus, you can click on
the ‘Page’ icon on your Google+ dashboard that is displayed on the left of
your Google+ profile and then choose the ‘create page’ link from the next
screen.

An easy to use interactive wizard will now guide you through the
steps of creating your page similar to the wizard for creating a Facebook
business page.

3. Choose Appropriate Category for Your Page

In the first step after you click on ‘Create a Page’, you will be asked to
choose the most appropriate classification for your page. The following
options are available:

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· Local Business or Place

· Product or Brand

· Company, Institution or Organization

· Arts, Entertainment or Sports

· Other

Choose the right classification for your page.

4. Enter Basic Info For Your Page

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After selecting your classification, a form to provide basic information


about your page will be displayed on the right. Add your information
including your page name (i.e. your company name), your address, your
phone number, and your category (i.e. your industry), then accept the
terms and click on create page link at the bottom of the page.

5. Upload an image for your business page

Google Plus is affiliated with the Picasa photo website, so if you have
images of your business there you can simply drag and drop it onto the
setup page. Or you can choose an image from your computer.

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The image you choose will be used as the icon for your Google Plus
page whenever people view your site. It also will be attached to any
postings you post, so make sure you use an image that well represents
your busines but is not so detailed so that people can’t make it out when it
is used as a thumbnail image.

6. Build your profile

Google Plus will ask you if you want to share your page with anybody
in your Circles (more on those in a moment). If you are creating a new
page from your personal Google+ page, these notifications will come from
you, not your business page. After you click through this screen, you will be
taken to your business’ Google Plus page. You will then be asked to start
building your business’ profile.

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At this point, you also can link your business’ Google Plus page to
your business’ Facebook Fan page, its Twitter account, it’s LinkedIn page,
and its foursquare page, among others.

Once you finish your profile, your Google plus page is technically
read to go and available to be viewed by the public. But because you
haven’t added any contacts yet or haven’t posted any content, it’s unlikely
that anybody will be able to find you yet. What you need to do first is to
start building your Circles

Creating Effective Circles

Managing your contacts is easy with Google Plus because it allows


you to group
them according
to Circles. You
can create
individual
Circles for
friends, family,
acquaintances,
employees,
vendors, or
whatever
category you want. Then you can create sub-categories within these
Circles to make it easier to communicate effectively with specific groups,
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such as customers who prefer certain types of products, groups of


employees separated according to their availability, or vendors according to
their delivery days, for example.

As your business grows, your Circles also will expand. So will your
ability to manage these groups according to your business’ specific needs.
Circles keeps your business working efficiently.

Hangouts and Huddles

Have you ever wanted to own your own television network, one that
broadcasts programming devoted exclusively to you and your business.
Google Plus’ Hangouts tool allows you to do exactly that.

Hangouts is a free web-based video chat program that lets you


interact with other users in real time using video and audio feeds that are
connected directly to your Google Plus home page. Although Hangouts
currently limits you to 10 chatting with 10 users at a time, this limit is
expected to be raised eventually.

But you don’t have to wait for Google to come out with a new version
of Hangouts for you to expand the reach of your video networking. Llink
your Hangouts to your YouTube channel and you have an unlimited
number of people who can watch your video via YouTube live. Plus they
can participate by submitting texts that will appear directly on your Hangout
video feed.

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Your Hangouts can be recorded and indexed, making them available


for playback on your YouTube channel by anybody at any time.

Hangouts lets you provide live video one-on-one video customer


service, answering customers questions or showing them the best ways to
use your products. Or you can host webinars for your employees, record
them and make them available online as permanent training modules.
Another possibility is creating a video-based Frequently Asked Questions
library about your company and its products.

Google Plus’ Hangouts also offers a feature called On Air, which


allows you to broadcast and record your hangout to your YouTube channel.
That means that even though each Hangout is limited to ten participants
(including you), an unlimited number of viewers can follow along on
YouTube. And viewers have the ability to submit live questions and
comments via text. This is like having the ability to create your own
interactive television program right from your desktop.

On Air also lets you record presentations, meetings, discussions,


forums and other events and then organize them any way you want, giving
your contacts unlimited access to a library of your Hangouts recordings.

On Air also allows you to edit the recordings of your Hangouts to


remove slower moments, edit out questions, etc. You can even improve
production values by adding an introduction or images after the fact, music
and links to other videos or websites.

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Other business applications for this feature include:

· Product showcases and demonstrations

· Live customer service

· Product launches

· Educational seminars and industry roundtables

Using On Air is simple. All you need to do is to click the “Start a


Hangout” button on the top right of your Google Plus page. You will get a
prompt asking you to install the free video and audio plug-ins if you don’t
already have them. Then you simply send an invitation to the people you

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want to participate in your Hangout and you are ready to go on the air live
with video streamed on your Google Plus profile.

Then simply integrate your Hangout with your existing YouTube


channel using the link provided and you are broadcasting to everybody who
clicks on that channel. The broadcast will also be recorded, so it can be
indexed and saved for future viewing.

With the ability to broadcast, record and store a library of Hangouts


using the On Air application, your business can effectively create your own
video network devoted exclusively to your company, its product and
services. Some brands already are exploiting this platform to promote their
business.

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Some benefits already created by commercial-based Hangouts


include being able to offer exclusive content and behind-the-scenes
access, interviews and seminars that allow your customers to get more
involved with your brand, live feeds to events and announcement,
interactive video blogging, and customer service announcements.

Most importantly, having your own video network allows you to build
brand loyalty with your customers. Instead of paying to place
advertisements in front of potential customers, you can invite your

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customers to participate in a platform that is one giant commercial for your


business.

If you ever wonder about the popularity of text messaging, just walk
down any busy city street. Internet users have embraced text messaging as
the favored way of communicating with other users, even more so than
face-to-face conversations or telephone calls.

Traditional texting lets you to send a single message to another


person. But a free Google
Plus service called Huddle
allows you to send a
message to an entire
group of people. Then
everybody you sent your
text to engage can
maintain a conversation
with every other member
of the group
simultaneously. And it’s all
based on your Google Plus homepage or smartphone app.

For example, trying to get a group of friends to decide on which


restaurant to meet at can be an ordeal, but with Huddle you can instantly
create a conversation in which everyone can participate. Plus you can
share photos, videos, links to restaurant reviews, online menus, GPS

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directions and much more right from your portable device with everybody in
the group.

Huddle also has mobile marketing applications for business, such as


letting you create an ongoing dialogue about your business and its
products with an unlimited number of customers selected from your Circles.
And you can tailor each conversation to each specific group to match their
specific interests.

Google Plus Analytics

Another free feature, called Ripples, lets you see exactly who is
promoting your posts, where they are promoting them, how many people
they have in their Circles, and what other people are doing with your posts

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once they receive them, giving you an actual real-time picture of how your
business is being perceived on the web.

Armed with this critical information, you can design your promotions
and postings to follow the most profitable and popular paths.

Using Google Events for Maximum Exposure

Google Events is another a free service on Google Plus that lets


users get together with friends and colleagues, plan events, and share their
experiences during and after the event. With sharp design and the ability to
select themes and add photos, video and other rich text, Events lets users
document meetings, parties and other events. You can even create group
photo albums for commemorating special times, online and offline.

Events is accessible from your Google Plus home page. It also lets
you keep track of upcoming events, RSVP to events right from your Google
Plus page, link to your Google Calendar, and access the Event pages of
past events.

Events lets you build events for your business, including seminars,
employee meetings, shareholders events, social events, charitable
occasions, special sales or whatever you want. You can send invitations to
all of your contacts or specific Circles, or to email addresses. Events will
keep track of their responses to you can know how many people are
planning to attend.

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The service even lets you to give your contacts permission to invite
other people to the event if you wish and you can authorize your guests to
add photos to the Event page.

Pre-made themes can be used to build the Event invitation page, or


you can upload your own, such as your corporate logo or a photo related to
your business or products.

You also can create an Event as a Hangout, such as meeting to with


groups of customers, vendors or employees online to discuss a particlar
topic. Or you can create a public event.

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Events allows you to add additional fields to your Event, such as a


link to a website, a ticket seller, a YouTube video, transit or parking
information and other details.

Then, before, during and after the event, you can upload photos and
videos to the Event page so you can access these photos from both your
albums page and the event page. If it is a recurring event, such as an
annual meeting or party, you can post pictures from previous events in the
new Event page. Once more than one photo is added to the page, you can
play a live slideshow of all the photos.

Another great feature is that Events allows you to share photos and
videos from the event in real time if you want. Simply go to the Event page
and turn on the Party Mode and any photos and videos you take there can
be instantly shared with everyone at the event. Currently, this feature is
only available on Android devices, but it is expected to be made more
widely available soon.

You can share the Event page, including photo albums and videos,
with people who weren’t originally invited to the event by posting it to your
profile and sharing it with any of your Circles you want.

Another useful app -- Google Plus’ free Streams – lets you keep up
with your business, your competitors and other topics of interest to you with
the click of a button. You can set up permanent, RSS-type feeds directly on
your Google Plus home page for any topic you want. Google’s gigantic
search engine will constantly scour the web for the latest articles, postings
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and links related to your topic and post them on directly on your page in
real time.

Sparks is another free tool provided by Google Plus that lets you
instantly recommend interesting content you find to your Circles. Plus it
provides you with a constant stream of content that people within your
network recommend. And it all appears directly on your Google Plus home
page in real time.

Paid Google Marketing Techniques

Google Plus also lets you connect your Google AdWords account to
your Google Plus account. This lets you show how many +1s your ads
receive. In addition, people who conduct a search on Google and see your
adds on the SERPS will see which ads the people in their Circles +1ed.

This lets your pay-per-click marketing take on the structure of a social


media marketing campaign. Google also plans to use this as a key metric
for your PPC advertising. In order to link these two accounts, you have to
turn this feature on in your Google AdWords account by enabling Social
Extensions.

You can make your Google AdWords account even more effective by
linking it to your Google Plus page so that social signals of your Circles can
be included in search results. It is another example of how word of mouth
has been transformed in the 21st Century into social signals. We all make
buying decisions based on the advice of our family and friends. Linking
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AdWords with your Google Plus account just codifies this for the internet
age.

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Achieving Video Viral Success

Nearly every modern smart phone, digital camera, even desktop PCs
come with cameras built into them nowadays. Most shoot high definition
video as well, making it easy to produce engaging, high-quality video you
can use to promote your business.

The Astonishing Power of Video

There are a number of different kinds of videos. Research videos


created by your competitors so that you can create something unique and
also learn from their mistakes.

The most common type of video is to record you or someone else


talking about your business. Keep the video short, less than 10 minutes
certainly, better yet less than 2 or 3. Keep your video lively and
entertaining, and always promise to reveal more and more information as
you go on so your viewers will keep watching all the way through.

The second kind of video is a series of static screen shots, such as a


PowerPoint presentation. They can actually be created with PowerPoint, if
you already have the program, or you can download a program that will
allow you to build one. These kinds of videos are going to be more like
commercials than testimonials or sales pitches.

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Use a script. The script should be set up so that there is one line for
each slide. The lines should be very short, usually not more than ten words,
which means you will have to be very economical with your writing. And
obviously, the line should be relevant to what is displayed on the screen.

Each slide will be on the screen only for about 3 seconds, no more
than 5, except for the last slide which will stay onscreen until it fades out.
That means for a 2 minute video, you are going to need about 25 to 35
lines of text.

Once you have created a video using one of these techniques, try
creating a second and third using the other two techniques. This will triple
your exposure and give you experience with different types of video
production. With internet marketing relying more heavily on videos, this
experience is going to be key to going viral.

YouTube and Its Benefits

YouTube is the biggest of the video sharing sites in North America,


so if you don’t post your videos on any other site, you should post it on
YouTube. Music videos and TV shows and movies are the most popular
YouTube videos, but how-to videos and videos that are unusual are also
among the most viewed.

How-to videos that are part of a series are more popular than those
that stand alone, so if you have a 10 minute video explaining how to

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change the air filter on your home furnace, for example, you would get
more visitors if you broke it into three 3:33 minute videos.

A great way to build a following and increase your chances of having


your video go viral is to record any seminars or webinars you host. Break
your webinar video into several files and create an online video series that
YouTube users can subscribe to.

How-to videos should provide valuable information that people can


use to perform a specific task. You can feature your products and business
if you want, but videos that are commercialized tend to be less popular than
those that appear to be independent.

The second kind of video that is hugely popular on YouTube are


those that are unusual and/or funny. Some of the most popular videos of all
time on the site have featured people or animals doing unusual yet
interesting things.

Among the most popular are those featuring babies and young
children doing and saying funny things, people lip-syncing and anything
having to do with cute animals. On YouTube, weird is revered. If it’s
appropriate for your business, come up with a video that is wacky yet
fascinating. If you hit the right tone, it can offer your best hope of going
viral.

Seven Ways to Create Viral Video

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Because videos are the format of choice for most internet users, your
odds of going viral are improved if you focus on creating a viral video. Here
are seven shortcuts you can use to improve your chances of success:

1. The more videos, the better – Basically, the more videos you
produce, the greater your chances that one of them will go viral. It’s
sort of like playing lottery. The more tickets you buy, the better your
chances of winning.

2. Make videos that are funny – People will watch and share videos
they find entertaining. Making people laugh is the easiest way to
entertain them. Hence, funny videos are often the ones that goes
viral most frequently.

3. Target your fan base – The internet’s ability to find specific micro-
topics of interest quickly means that there are a lot of fans out there
for whatever you are selling. If you give them content that feeds their
fanaticism, they are going to be more likely to pass it along to their
contacts.

4. Parody and satire sell – One of the most basic comic tools is to
make fun of something that takes itself too seriously. You can
connect with audience and entertain them using parody and satire.
Just remember to always keep it tasteful.

5. Keep them guessing – Video editing techniques makes it relatively


easy to create something that looks real but is not. Some of the most
popular viral videos are those that make the viewer wonder if what
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they are watching is genuine.

6. People love gimmicks – Techniques such as Legos, action figures,


time lapse, stop motion and miniatures make some of the most
interesting and most popular viral videos. By packaging your
message in some sort of gimmick, you can broad its appeal.

7. Meme’s the word – Memes are quirky internet crazes that spread
like wildfire over the web. By being aware of what’s hot – Honey
Badger and McKayla Is Not Impressed are two recent examples –
and incorporating it into what you are trying to promote, you can
catch ride on a rocket of popularity.

Video Marketing Methods That Work

The whole point of creating videos and posting them on popular video
sharing sites is to create additional backlinks to your website, so don’t
forget to post a link to your site underneath your video. You would be
surprised how many people forget this step!

Videos promoting your products are one of the best ways to improve
your site ranking on Google and other search engines, and the search
engine algorithms will continue to give more weight to video in the coming
years. It’s a good idea to embrace it now because it will be an important
part of all future marketing programs.

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Secondary Viral Marketing Platforms

While YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are the most important sites to
focus on for viral marketing, they are not the only sites. Because the
popularity of sites waxes and wanes faster than the phases of the moon,
what is hot today may not be popular in a few weeks, so it is important to
pay attention to online popularity trends. Although it may seem unlikely
right now, any of these sites may eventually take center stage.

The Popularity of Pinterest

The internet is a fickle place and the fortunes of websites rise and fall.
For example, MySpace just a few years ago was the most popular social

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networking site on the planet. Today it has few visitors and is owned by
Justin Timberlake.

However, when you’re hot, you’re hot. And one of the hottest
websites right now is Pinterest. It’s what is known as a social bookmarking
site, or a place where users can create pages where they can post links to
articles, web pages and other content that are of interest to them that they
would like to share with others.

With Pinterest, users can “pin” links that interest them so that visitors
can gain instant access to recommendations and referrals. Users can use
preprogrammed page templates or design their own pages so that they can
look any way they want.

Pinterest is an easy way to promote your web pages and products


because it can be linked to your blog page, Twitter account, Facebook
page, LinkedIn page or just about any other site. Its popularity and
influence continue to grow, making it a site that is key to your efforts to go
viral.

Benefits and Drawbacks of LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social network that allows you to keep track and


organize professional connections. Since 2003, LinkedIn has been helping
business professionals keep track of current and former co-workers, find
jobs, learn more about potential employers, arrange for professional
references, and fill job vacancies.
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For the internet marketer, LinkedIn is a great way to network with


people and to make contact with other professionals. It’s not as good a
place to promote products as Twitter and Facebook, but it can be useful in
developing long-term business relationships with others who can help
promote your products and services.

Social Comment: Yelp, foursquare, and Other Sites

With more than 54 million unique visitors per month, Yelp is one ofhe
most popular social review sites on the web. Users can post reviews about
anything, from restaurants to dog parks to shopping malls. They also can
search for certain kinds of businesses with defined geographic area. If you
want to find dog walkers in Helena, Montana, for example, Yelp can offer

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you your options, along with customer reviews, maps, photos, hours of
operation and other information.

Yelp allows
businesses to post
advertisements and to be
designated as “featured
businesses”. But
because of the growing
popularity of the site and
others like it, most
businesses spend more
time playing defense
than offense: Bad reviews on the site can be damaging to your business.

Foursquare is a social networking site for mobile devices, such a


smart phones. Members “check in” at various places they visit and are also
linked to other users, and each can see the others check ins. Each check-
in awards the user points and sometimes “badges”. The foursquare user
with the most check-ins at any particular place is named the “mayor” of that
location. The app also allows users to leave comments, make
recommendations and to send instant messages to other users.

Foursquare is a fun, young smart phone app with a competitive edge


as members compete to collect the most badges and be named mayor of
the most places.

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Foursquare also lets companies to provide discounts and freebies to


members that check-in at their location. These can be an effective
marketing strategy for persuading new customers and regular customers to
visit your business.

Businesses also can create


pages of tips and allow users to
“follow” the company and receive
exclusive tips and even special
badges when they check in at
enough locations. Some restaurants
and bars have even begun posting
the foursquare logo on their front
window to encourage members to
check in there.

Digg is one of the most popular of the “social news” sites that have
developed in recent years. Users are able to post articles and links about
things that of are interest to them. Other users can then like or dislike the
articles. Those that are the most popular are pushed to the top of the Digg
feed and those that are not fall to the bottom.

Digg is sort of like a combination of Google and Yelp, where users


take over the role played by the search engine algorithm. It can be an
effective way to help you go viral by promoting your articles, blogs and
websites and potentially increase traffic to your site by creating additional
backlinks.
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Flickr and Instagram are two of the most popular of the photo sharing
sites. Both allow users to upload photos or photo albums to the home
pages, where they can be viewed by family and friends, or even the public.
Many businesses are using these sites to promote their products and
services. They can be an effective way to provide access to your
company’s catalogue or build your reputation online.

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is edited by its users. It has


quickly become the go-to site for information for everyone on the web
because provides extensive basic information on every topic imaginable.
The downside is that because the content can be provided and edited by
everybody, some of the veracity of its entries is questionable.

Still, there are business applications for Wikipedia that include


creating an entry for your business that describes its products and services,
its history and location, and its motivating mission statement. Photos can
also be uploaded onto Wikipedia pages. It could be a good way to help
people find your business.

Skype provides video telephone and conferencing services for its 521
million users. It’s free to download and Skype-to-Skype calls also are free.
It is a great way to conduct business meetings and conferences without
everybody having to travel to a single location, and its video ability make it
easy to give presentations. You can even load Power Point presentations
onto it and include a voiceover.

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Skype is quickly gaining in popularity as more and more businesses


become aware of its benefits. It will certainly have a deep impact on
business travel in the coming years, perhaps even on telecommuting.

As a traffic generating tool, it is important for your customers to know


that you have Skype access because it will make many of them more
willing to contact you directly. This can give you an opportunity sell them
additional products and improve your relationships without having to
physically travel to their location.

In this guide, we have described the many tools available to you on


the internet offer a wide variety of opportunities to go viral. By creating
original, helpful and entertaining content and promoting it across a wide
variety of platforms, you can build excitement and enthusiasm among your
most loyal followers so that they can begin the process of having your
content go viral.

Now, the rest is up to you to utilize these tools to their fullest potential
and to get your content to go viral.

All the best!

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