How Can Strategic Viral Marketing Increase Web Site Traffic to My Blog?

There is so much misunderstanding about viral marketing. Most people think it’s a magical and unpredictable mix of tricky videos, luck and having friends with big lists.

It’s time to stop the insanity!

This is a story taken from the real life experiences of several dozen bloggers all rolled up into one person who is named Chris. Perhaps you share his pain.

Chris looked at his blog stats and frowned. It was so frustrating that despite all his posts full of useful information –  despite all his keyword research –  he couldn’t seem to get more than 10–20 visitors a day to his blog.

Since he was blogging about what he’s building a business that he yearned to make profitable, his lack of success seemed to toll a death knell for his efforts.

Despite his usually sunny disposition, he found himself feeling frustrated and overwhelmed with all the work he was putting into his business with so little result.

Have YOU ever felt that way about your blogging results?

Viral Marketing to the Rescue!

With some mentoring, JoAnne finally realized that what she did on her blog itself was only a small fraction of what was needed to build her thriving business.

The blog is the heart of her business, as it should be, and marketing is the blood that flows through the veins leading to the heart.

marketing a business requires referrals, great resources, useful information, success stories and –  most of all –  raving fans who become evangelists.

JoAnne discovered some very valuable lessons, like…

·         How offering something free can still be a source of revenue

·         How to find out what readers crave and give it to them

·         How to properly use the social networks as they’re intended

·         Fun ways to get readers to do the work of spreading the message

·         Specific techniques for determining customers’ wants and needs.

He came to realize that viral marketing isn’t just plopping up a video on YouTube and hoping it would “go viral.” There is a strategy to causing a message to spread.

It doesn’t happen by accident.

Hope is NOT a marketing plan!

Chris also discovered that you still have to “sell” free. People are more guarded about giving away their email address and less likely than ever to read emails.

As he developed his expert voice, he gained people’s trust. So even his free offers got more attention.

He learned that having a strategic system is the ONLY path to success. Without a plan, she could plan to fail.

Most of all, Chris found out the power of leverage. As other people spread his message FOR HIM because of his articles, resources and partnerships, he found it easy to increase web site traffic.

Now, he smiles when looking at his stats, because he sees more and more unique visitors coming to his blog. He also sees more money coming into his account, because those visitors are turning into paying CUSTOMERS.

Doesn’t YOUR blog need a (click) viral marketing frenzy?

Of course it does!

This resource looks like a book, but in actuality, it’s a month-long COURSE in viral marketing that takes you by the hand and walks you through the best and fastest ways to increase Web site traffic using viral marketing methods.

Take a look at the first week of lessons:

• Day 1: Create a Compelling Squeeze Page
• Day 2: Create a Freebie to Encourage Prospects to Join Your List
• Day 3: Create Your Autoresponder Series
• Day 4: How to Avoid Freebie Seekers

• Day 5: Where to Find Potential JV Partners
• Day 6: How to Approach Potential Partners With an Irresistible Offer
• Day 7: How to Create an Affiliate Program that Attracts Super Affiliates

Strategic Viral Marketing

Strategic Viral, brand driven, marketing is one of the most strategic weapons available in the marketing Arsenal. This weapon, if deployed effectively and accurately, allows you to touch the “core” of your demo with messaging, imagery and a targeted “injection” that connects them with the brand.

With the increasing use of digital & social media marketing, viral “injections” can be achieved on many different levels. The most effective campaign is a clearly defined strategy of continuous messaging through events, promotions, products and branding. Each and every one of these “fuel the passion” for the brand advocates. Never taken for granted, and always “engaged”, the brands that effectively manage this balance and stay “true” to their foundational principles will build a following others will envy.

“Why join the Navy, when you can be a Pirate..”

                                                                                    Mr. Steve Jobs

This messaging must be achieved through a coordinated effort of the marketing force in the field creating the content, and the digital marketing team converting the relevant brand content. I say relevant, as to many brands build digital content for sake of building content, though no true brand connection exists. This is the most difficult part of building a “Viral” strategy, and one that needs a “pipeline” to ensure content is continually flowing, and your advocates are engaged AND interacting. Interaction is the “key” to gauging your success. If all you are doing is building content down a one way street, with no active/mutual engagement with your “core” base, then you have done nothing more than build a mountain of digital content that no one cares about, and may in the long run damage the brand and your base.

Define your “Viral” content Strategy…

Build “Relevant” Content…

Actively “Engage” your “Core”…

Viral marketing is truly a powerful weapon, but make sure you deploy it effectively, and with a strategy before pulling the trigger. Done effectively, watch your infection base grown and the passion for your brand build.

i.Bar installed at London's swanky Soho Nightclub 24

Glass act ... glasses become linked

It has an interactive drag and drop-style display like Tom Cruise's character used in sci-fi flick Minority Report.

And can be programmed to display any image, for example a Stella logo could appear when a pint is placed on it or footage of grapes when you plonk your plonk on top.

The technology - which is still in its infancy - is the brainchild of Danish computer whizzes.

They've come up with dozens of flash animations that react to touch and glasses that are placed on top.

Up until now, the machines have mainly been used for corporate jobs, such as a perfume counter version for Chanel which went down a storm.

But bosses are keen to expand further into the booze market, with big ideas for the future of pubs.

  Luxury Blimp Hotel: Well, Tell Me What You Think?

LIFTOFF! Even though this 'Aeroscraft' dwarfs the largest commercial airliners, it requires less net space on the ground than any plane because it doesn't need a runway. The airship takes off and lands like a helicopter: straight up and down.

It's a sort of flying Queen Mary 2 that could change the way you think about air travel. It's the Aeroscraft, and when it's completed, it will ferry pampered passengers across continents and oceans as they stroll leisurely about the one-acre cabin or relax in their well-appointed staterooms.

Unlike its dirigible ancestors, the Aeroscraft is not lighter than air. Its 14 million cubic feet of helium hoist only two thirds of the craft's weight. The rigid and surprisingly aerodynamic body-driven by huge rearward propellers-generates enough additional lift to keep the behemoth and its 400-ton payload aloft while cruising. During takeoff and landing, six turbofan jet engines push the ship up or ease its descent.

This two-football-fields-long concept airship is the brainchild of Igor Pasternak, whose privately-funded California firm, Worldwide Aeros Corporation, is in the early stages of developing a prototype and expects to have one completed by 2014. Pasternak says several cruise ship companies have expressed interest in the project, and for good reason: The craft would have a range of several thousand miles and, with an estimated top speed of 174 mph, could traverse the continental U.S. in about 18 hours. During the flight, passengers would peer at national landmarks just 8,000 feet below or, if they weren't captivated by the view, the cavernous interior would easily accommodate such amenities as luxury staterooms, restaurants, even a casino.

To minimize noise, the aft-mounted propellers will be electric, powered by a renewable source such as hydrogen fuel cells. A sophisticated buoyancy-management system will serve the same purpose as trim on an airplane, allowing for precise adjustments in flight dynamics to compensate for outside conditions and passenger movement. The automated system will draw outside air into compartments throughout the ship and compress it to manage onboard weight.

The company envisions a cargo-carrying version that could deliver a store's worth of merchandise from a centralized distribution center straight to a Wal-Mart parking lot or, because the helium-filled craft will float, a year's worth of supplies to an offshore oil rig. "You can land on the snow, you can land on the water," Pasternak says. "It's a new vision of what can be done in the air."


Click here.

Stop what you are doing! Get into >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Jeremy Gutsche: Trolling for trends and capturing cool

'You want to converse with Jeremy Gutsche about his work, be prepared to discover a new language.While ‘clusters’ may be chocolaty-almond delicacies and ‘sparks’ a function of electricity in your lingo, to Jeremy they’re the constructs of the massive ‘trend’ universe he’s created online.

The founder of Trendhunter.com, along with his worldwide army of ‘trendspotters’ and ‘cool hunters,’ are akin to modern-day explorers trooping through their local cultural jungles in search of trends. If those same trends show up in someone else’s cultural jungle on the other side of the world, they’re destined to explode worldwide.

At the tender age of 30, Calgary native Jeremy revels in what he calls his dream job, one that, in fact, reflects a number of his hobbies. “Trendhunter.com encompasses all of the things I like to do – random pursuits, new ideas, graphic design and programming, to name a few. I’m doing my hobby and I love it.”

Click here for free copy of his high energy book: 'Exploiting Chaos.'


And click 'WoW' to watch his lecture.

I have no idea what the Bus is all about, but it looks Kool. Purple Cow eat you heart out.

Madness of Crowdfunding: Millions Mingle to Raise Millions

Sounds MAD but Crowdfunding is a recently new way to get microfunding for innovation projects. 


I say recent because it's at least 5 years since the first ventues kickstarted. 


However, they have already raised many billions of dollars from once disparate, now socially interconnected people.


Take what the Crowdfunding website has to say.

'Crowdfunding is very much related to online communities and social networks. The crowd can already exist as a community but they can also suddenly form from disparate groups around the world who all happen to share an interest in funding a person, project, event, campaign, etc.

Crowdfunded networks can assemble and disassemble at any time. This is the primary difference to traditional co-ops. Influence of the crowd is another factor. 

The fundamental principles of crowdfunding are embodied by the Kapipalist Manifesto, written by the Kapipal founder Alberto Falossi.

Kevin Lawton and Dan Marom published the 1st book about the CrowdFunding Phenomena: ‘The CrowdFunding Revolution | Social Networking meets Venture Funding.’ 

Click 'Kickstarter' and see what they say and have done. 


Here's a snippit:

‘At this very second, thousands of people are checking out projects on Kickstarter. They're rallying around their friends' ideas, backing projects from people they've long admired, and discovering things that make them laugh and smile.  Every project is independently crafted, put to all-or-nothing funding, and supported by friends, fans, and the public in return for rewards.

The filmmakers, musicians, artists, and designers you see on Kickstarter have complete control and responsibility over their own projects. They spend weeks building their own project pages, shooting their own videos, and brainstorming 
what to offer as rewards.

Rewards are things like a copy of what's being made, a limited edition, or a custom experience related to the project. This isn't Best Buy, rewards aren't shrink-wrapped and ready to ship. Once the project is funded, the journey to bring them to life begins.

Every project creator sets their project's funding goal and deadline. If the project succeeds in reaching its funding goal all backers' credit cards are charged when time expires. If the project falls short no one is charged.

Since our launch in April 2009, more than 24,000 creative projects have been successfully funded by awesome people from around the world.

But Kickstarter is about much more than money...

Since launching in April 2009:

§  $250 million pledged to projects

§  2 million people have backed a project

§  24,000 projects successfully funded

People come to Kickstarter to build community around their projects. It's inspiring to be supported by people you know, and amazing to connect with strangers who are discovering your ideas for the first time.

The feedback, press, and love that can come with a Kickstarter project are just as valuable as the money raised. Ask anyone who's done it before. There's nothing like it. ’

Crowdfunding Platforms:

1. 1.        Kickstarter
2. 2.        IndieGoGo
3. 3.        GoFundMe 
4. 4.        RocketHub
5. 5.        GiveForward
6. 6.        AppBackr
7. 7.        Crowdfunder
8. 8.        Fundable
9. 9.        Peerbackers 

Or Click here to view 'crowdfunding' in more detail.

'Brands are made in the mind. Products are made in the factory. Design connects the two.'

Would you believe that 'not seeing the obvious' is a designers or marketers most nerve retching experience when they do eventually see something they should of thought of. 


How many times have you said 'I should have thought of that.' Or ''How did they think of that.'

Well, what about decorating your house! Ever thought of decorating the outside?

The Italian wallpaper company Wall & Decò is known for creating exquisite, large-scale mural-like wallpapers that define a room. They are widely used in hotels and restaurants, and for private residences by interior designers.

At the Fluorisalone 2012 in Milan, Wall & Decò introduced a new wallpaper system designed for the outdoors.

Their OUT - Outdoor Unconventional Textures - system is a three-part covering that allows for incredible photographic reproductions and large-scale graphic designs to be applied onto outside walls. The system consists of an adhesive, a technical fabric and a finishing treatment.

The designs introduced in Milan included a Bauhaus look, a black-and-white OP pattern, tile-initiations and even military camouflage. We believe this is an idea that has staying power, and that it will expand and improve as feedback from early users comes in. 

How influential are you in your social-networking or Tweeter accounts?

There's something emerging on the Web called your 'Influence Graph.' How much you impact your interest group.

For PR and Marketing people this could turn out to be a new killer app. For small business and Entrepreneurs this could up lift the chance of success.

Even for big business, higher education and trend commentators, this could give more KLOUT in your favor the social group.

Click here: Klout measures influence on line

Thirsty Bear Pub. A step forward in Bar Service.

The Thirsty Bear pub in South London is using tablet technology to help punters order food, drink and update their social network status without leaving their table

Table-side iPads and serve-yourself beer taps enable customers to order food and drink for self- or waiter-service. 

To start an electronic tab, punters simply leave a credit card behind the bar in order to add to their bill. Finger clicking is no longer required to grab waiters’ attention. Connected consumers can simply text staff direct via an instant messenger app to alert them that they require table service.

Link.

Stem is another mind boggller by Quirky, it allows you to spray juice directly from a citrus fruit! The small device features serrated teeth, allowing you to easily it into the fruit. No more cutting and squeezing your fruits!

A third industrial revolution

As manufacturing goes digital, it will change out of all recognition. And some of the business of making things will return to richer countries.

OUTSIDE THE SPRAWLING Frankfurt Messe, home of innumerable German trade fairs, stands the “Hammering Man”, a 21-metre kinetic statue that steadily raises and lowers its arm to bash a piece of metal with a hammer. Jonathan Borofsky, the artist who built it, says it is a celebration of the worker using his mind and hands to create the world we live in. That is a familiar story. But now the tools are changing in a number of remarkable ways that will transform the future of manufacturing.

One of those big trade fairs held in Frankfurt is EuroMold, which shows machines for making prototypes of products, the tools needed to put those things into production and all manner of other manufacturing kit. Old-school engineers worked with lathes, drills, stamping presses and moulding machines. These still exist, but EuroMold exhibits no oily machinery tended by men in overalls. Hall after hall is full of squeaky-clean American, Asian and European machine tools, all highly automated. Most of their operators, men and women, sit in front of computer screens. Nowhere will you find a hammer.

• Back to making stuff
• The boomerang effect
• Forging ahead
• Solid print
• Layer by layer
• All together now
• Making the future

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Related topics

• Europe
• United States
• United Kingdom
• Apple iPhone
• Frankfurt

And at the most recent EuroMold fair, last November, another group of machines was on display: three-dimensional (3D) printers. Instead of bashing, bending and cutting material the way it always has been, 3D printers build things by depositing material, layer by layer. That is why the process is more properly described as additive manufacturing. An American firm, 3D Systems, used one of its 3D printers to print a hammer for your correspondent, complete with a natty wood-effect handle and a metallised head.

This is what manufacturing will be like in the future. Ask a factory today to make you a single hammer to your own design and you will be presented with a bill for thousands of dollars. The makers would have to produce a mould, cast the head, machine it to a suitable finish, turn a wooden handle and then assemble the parts. To do that for one hammer would be prohibitively expensive. If you are producing thousands of hammers, each one of them will be much cheaper, thanks to economies of scale. For a 3D printer, though, economies of scale matter much less. Its software can be endlessly tweaked and it can make just about anything. The cost of setting up the machine is the same whether it makes one thing or as many things as can fit inside the machine; like a two-dimensional office printer that pushes out one letter or many different ones until the ink cartridge and paper need replacing, it will keep going, at about the same cost for each item.

Additive manufacturing is not yet good enough to make a car or an iPhone, but it is already being used to make specialist parts for cars and customised covers for iPhones. Although it is still a relatively young technology, most people probably already own something that was made with the help of a 3D printer. It might be a pair of shoes, printed in solid form as a design prototype before being produced in bulk. It could be a hearing aid, individually tailored to the shape of the user’s ear. Or it could be a piece of jewellery, cast from a mould made by a 3D printer or produced directly using a growing number of printable materials.

But additive manufacturing is only one of a number of breakthroughs leading to the factory of the future, and conventional production equipment is becoming smarter and more flexible, too. Volkswagen has a new production strategy called Modularer Querbaukasten, or MQB. By standardising the parameters of certain components, such as the mounting points of engines, the German carmaker hopes to be able to produce all its models on the same production line. The process is being introduced this year, but will gather pace as new models are launched over the next decade. Eventually it should allow its factories in America, Europe and China to produce locally whatever vehicle each market requires.

They don’t make them like that any more

Factories are becoming vastly more efficient, thanks to automated milling machines that can swap their own tools, cut in multiple directions and “feel” if something is going wrong, together with robots equipped with vision and other sensing systems. Nissan’s British factory in Sunderland, opened in 1986, is now one of the most productive in Europe. In 1999 it built 271,157 cars with 4,594 people. Last year it made 480,485 vehicles—more than any other car factory in Britain, ever—with just 5,462 people.

“You can’t make some of this modern stuff using old manual tools,” says Colin Smith, director of engineering and technology for Rolls-Royce, a British company that makes jet engines and other power systems. “The days of huge factories full of lots of people are not there any more.”

As the number of people directly employed in making things declines, the cost of labour as a proportion of the total cost of production will diminish too. This will encourage makers to move some of the work back to rich countries, not least because new manufacturing techniques make it cheaper and faster to respond to changing local tastes.

The materials being used to make things are changing as well. Carbon-fibre composites, for instance, are replacing steel and aluminium in products ranging from mountain bikes to airliners. And sometimes it will not be machines doing the making, but micro-organisms that have been genetically engineered for the task.

Everything in the factories of the future will be run by smarter software. Digitisation in manufacturing will have a disruptive effect every bit as big as in other industries that have gone digital, such as office equipment, telecoms, photography, music, publishing and films. And the effects will not be confined to large manufacturers; indeed, they will need to watch out because much of what is coming will empower small and medium-sized firms and individual entrepreneurs. Launching novel products will become easier and cheaper. Communities offering 3D printing and other production services that are a bit like Facebook are already forming online—a new phenomenon which might be called social manufacturing.

The consequences of all these changes, this report will argue, amount to a third industrial revolution. The first began in Britain in the late 18th century with the mechanisation of the textile industry. In the following decades the use of machines to make things, instead of crafting them by hand, spread around the world. The second industrial revolution began in America in the early 20th century with the assembly line, which ushered in the era of mass production.

As manufacturing goes digital, a third great change is now gathering pace. It will allow things to be made economically in much smaller numbers, more flexibly and with a much lower input of labour, thanks to new materials, completely new processes such as 3D printing, easy-to-use robots and new collaborative manufacturing services available online. The wheel is almost coming full circle, turning away from mass manufacturing and towards much more individualised production. And that in turn could bring some of the jobs back to rich countries that long ago lost them to the emerging world.