How To Make Viral Videos

Last year, the big thing online was about getting your videos on YouTube or Google Video but in my view, 2008 demands much more than creating a video or putting it up on [tag-tec]video sharing[/tag-tec] sites.

Yep, 2008 is about spread!  If you want to stand out from the crowd, you have to make your videos viral and if you want to learn more about how to do this, young Gavin over at RyanShamus.com has just written a great article on how to make your videos viral. 

As Gavin points out, to be viral, your video has to be different - funny, unique, interesting and, I would add to this, inspiring.  In other words, you have to engage your audience enough that they consider your [tag-tec]video[/tag-tec] worthy of sharing with their friends via email, social networking or even on their own blog. After all as Gavin points out, “the term ‘viral’ comes from the same concept as a virus - it spreads! But, in this case the spreading is a good thing.”

Basically, having a [tag-tec]viral video[/tag-tec] is like word-of-mouth marketing

But, it’s a few thousand times more powerful.  Why?  Well if you think how long it takes for someone to “tell” a friend about your product or service compared to them being able to click the mouse a few times and have your video watched by billions … I hope you’re getting this!  [tag-tec]Viral video marketing[/tag-tec] is that powerful and technology is such today that it does not have to be intimidating. 

In fact, I received my Flip Video Camera today.  And boy, has that thing been on a journey.  It started off in America, then to Canada and from there to the UK.  It’s taken me almost 3 months to get it and yet, you want to know the hardest part of using it? Getting into the packaging!!  Man, why do they have to seal these things up so much.  

Anyway, once out of the packaging, my 6 year old daughter began recording with it and moments later we were watching her “final cut” on our TV screen.  And, this was just because I was too lazy to fire up the laptop since with one flick, a USB connector arm extends so you can attach the video camera directly to the PC.  Couldn’t be easier. 

If you want to know step-by-step how to make your videos and podcasts viral and, you want to know which resources will help you get the job done with most efficiency, then I suggest you head on over to Gavin’s blog and read the article for yourself.  In fact, I saw this article more as a special report than an article because of the approach used to ensure the reader isn’t just informed about the fact that viral videos are “in,” young Gavin, as I like to call him, even gives you tips on getting the most from using certain [tag-tec]video sharing[/tec] sites, how to market your video as well as resources to help you get started today.

Success,

 

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My Blog Stinks!

This really was the subject line of an email I received from a prospect to rebuild their WordPress.com blog.

So, what I’ve prepared for you is a 5 minute video  to show you the possibilities available to you when using a customisable theme such as Semiologic.

Enjoy!

How Many Blogs Should You Build?

Compared to building websites, [tag-tec]blogs[/tag-tec] are easier, cheaper and faster to build, but does this mean that you should have more than one?

My answer to this is “yes and no.”

A little bit of an ambiguous answer I know, but let me clear up the reasons for my answer …

If you’re an intermediate to advanced marketer who knows how to a) get traffic to your [tag-tec]blog[/tag-tec] and b) monetize your blog by converting more of your visitors into paying customers, then I say you have a solid reason for diversifying into other niche markets and build more blogs - so long as you know how to manage all of them of course.

The problem really comes when  you don’t know how to get traffic to your blog, you struggle with keeping it maintained, your blog posts are mediocre and even if people do land on your blog, they hit the back button in seconds … in other words, they escape your blog without even taking note of what you have to say.  

This is when I argue that you should think twice before building more blogs unless of course, you really feel that you’re currently [tag-tec]blogging[/tag-tec] in the wrong market, either because your target market are unresponsive to blogs or to finding information online generally or because you just don’t know enough about the subject matter to create an [tag-tec]authority blog[/tag-tec].  Other than that, this is the strategy I would pursue to get more traffic and monetize your blog before building more of them:

1. Post at least 3 times per week and make those blog posts informative.  Infomative could  include doing a quality review of a product that you are an affiliate for, giving tips on how to use a particular product and even doing a trackback to someone elses blog post.
    
2. Ensure your ping list is up together so that you get the maximum benefit from publishing your blog posts.
    
3. Comment on other people’s blogs - particularly those in your niche.  I know my readers may be tiring of hearing this one, but it’s relevant and new bloggers still fail to recognize it as a credible means to getting traffic and links back to your site.  If you read comments on other people’s blogs then you should be commenting because you already know the value.
    
4. Tag your blog posts.  Each time you make a post add your keywords as tags at the bottom of your post as well as to your Wordpress pages.  I would use the Simple Tags plugin to do this which, will allow you can categorize your content based on a tagging engine so your posts are indexed by services like technorati.  This is something that I only started doing recently and so far, it’s paying dividends.
    
5. Syndicate your posts.  Once your post is pinged and tagged properly, you should syndicate your post, which will enable you to generate some immediate traffic.  I recommend that you check out Web 2.0 Submitter to do this.  Syndicating your posts can be a drawn out, tedious task, but with Web 2.0 Submitter, you can do this in a fraction of the time to about 30 social media sites and for $47, it’s worth every penny.

There are a myriad of other strategies you can use to bring more traffic to your site but if you focus on these five and perform each task with due diligence and you’ll see your traffic stats increase in a matter of weeks.

Once you’ve perfected or at least use these strategies comfortably, you can apply them to any niche.

Blog Easy,

 

Web 2.0 Dying?

Is Web 2.0 as a “look and feel”, techonolgy or strategy dying?

I’m not really asking this question, but I think it’s a comment worth making since only this morning, I received a comment that [tag-tec]Web 2.0[/tag-tec] is dying.

I then decided to take a look online out of curiousity and I was amazed at just how worlds apart people’s idea of Web 2.0 really is.

You have some who think it’s all about “look and feel” and, for me, I do think that has something to do with it, but let’s just consider what the old “flat” looking Internet Explorer looked like a few years back compared to today or the icons for Windows in the days of dos.  How many of you would want to go back to that “look?”  I know I certainly have no intention of going back there and if I use software that still has this old syle look, my thoughts usually go along these lines … “when are these dinasours going to catch up with the times.”

You then have the camp who argues whether the integration of Ajax, flash and web 2.0 is all it’s cracked up to be and just because a site is interactive, this does not make it Web 2.0.

So, I bet you want to know what camp I’m in right?

I’m in the camp that says forget about terminology and exactly what it all means, who’s definition is right and who is or isn’t right. 

My arguement is to look around the web, see what is changing, what impact these changes are having on the dynamics of the web and jump on the bus before it pulls away!  

Google didn’t buy YouTube for $1.65 billion and Feedburner for $100 million for nothing.  MySpace and the other social networking sites are not getting more traffic than Google because of people’s understanding of the term Web 2.0 … people are using these methods of either communicating, finding information, sharing information or doing business because they work!!

So, whether you think [tag-tec]Web 2.0[/tag-tec] is a fad, or a buzz word or it’s just plain stupid and it’s soon going to die out with the dinasours, I think the bigger fools are those people who are still trying to maintain the status quo in the hopes that their opinions will be heard and people will move away from Web 2.0 (whatever that means to them), instead of evolving their business model in line with the changes in cyberspace.  

For what it’s worth, here’s my opinion …

You need to think of Web 2.0 as a  means to creating a rich user experience …

“The noise of Web 2.0 is too loud, we are on a grease slide toward interactive websites such as blogs, social media has enough hype that it has a big enough following and whether or not you feel this has all been hyped up by the media and big Internet Marketers, we are already on a grease slide and there is no way of clambering back to the top without doing yourself and your business some serious damage.” 

If you feel that your target market have no idea what RSS feeds, widgets, social webs or mash-ups are then my suggestion is that YOU educate your target audience on how to make the most of these tools and applications on your site before your competition does!

Now go forth and “Mash-Up” your competition!