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“Folksonomies” – a New Viral Marketing Tool
Hi, this is Don. Welcome back to the EZ4Newbies Blog. Thanks for coming by again!
A new consumer phenomenon is called “tagging” or “folksonomies” (short for folks and taxonomy). Tagging is powerful because consumers are creating an organizational structure for online content. Folksonomies not only enable people to file away content under tags, but, even better, share it with others by filing it under a global taxonomy that they created.
Here’s how tagging works. Using sites such as del.icio.us – a bookmark sharing site ? and Flickr – a photo sharing site – consumers are collaborating on categorizing online content under certain keywords, or tags.
For instance, an individual can post photographs of their iPod on Flickr and file it under the tag “iPod.” These images are now not only visible under the individual user’s iPod tag but also under the community iPod tag that displays all images consumers are generating and filing under the keyword. Right now Flickr has more than 3,500 photos that are labeled “iPod.”
Tagging is catching on because it is a natural complement to search. Type the word “blogs” into Google and it can’t tell if you are searching for information about how to launch a blog, how to read blogs, or just what. Large and small sites alike are already getting on to the folksonomy train. They are rolling out tag-like structures to help users more easily locate content that’s relevant to them.
Although tags are far from perfect, marketers should, nevertheless, be using them to keep a finger on the pulse of the American public. Start subscribing to RSS feeds to monitor how consumers are tagging information related to your product, service, company or space. These are living focus groups that are available for free, 24/7. Folksonomy sites can be also be carefully used to unleash viral marketing campaigns – with a caveat. Marketers should be transparent in who they are, why they are posting the link/photos and avoid spamming the services.
Need More Subscribers and Huge Traffic? Produce Viral e-Books
Viral marketing, when done correctly, can produce very good results. These results can be in the form of site traffic, subscribers to your mailing list, or increased sales of your products and services.
One of the best ways to do viral marketing strategy is the production of viral e-books. This is not just an ordinary e-book. These are books that can be freely passed on by someone to another person with added benefits to both parties.
How does it work with viral e-books?
Aside from having an interesting topic and a wealth of information, the main purpose of the viral e-book is containing links to the site and products the author is promoting. These links can be modified from one person to another by changing the affiliate ID in the link. These links still lead to the web site of the author but credit will also be given to the affiliate which is like a commission.
The author can allow rebranding rights of the e-book to its readers. That means the reader, who would also want to earn from the e-book by becoming an affiliate, can replace the links with his own affiliate code to earn commissions. With this incentive or reward, he will surely pass the book to more and more people. That?s where viral explosion begins.
To be able to maximize the purpose of producing the viral e-book, have an explosion of traffic and have huge number of subscribers, we must have the following factors in place.
- Wide distribution. There are several ways on how you can offer your e-book. You can offer it for free or for a minimal amount. If you allow rebranding, you can also charge for it and have options such as full customization or just part customization rights. Resale rights can also be offered for a certain fee.
However, if a certain amount is tagged to your e-book, its spread will be limited as not everyone is willing to spend money on these e-books. So to have the widest possible reach of your e-book, it is best to offer it for free and the rebranding rights, maybe the part customization, for free as well. Anyways, what we are after is for the e-book to reach a huge number of potential customers and get the most commission from the attached affiliate links.
- Quality affiliate links. To be able to maximize your e-book and give its full potential, it should have good and legitimate affiliate links. But how do you make the readers really click on those links?
If your e-book bombards the readers with lots of affiliate links instead of quality information, they will probably stop reading your book, deletes it and forgets about it. Likewise, if the links lead to affiliate products which are totally not related to the e-book?s theme, you will just lose a good number of potential customers.
The best way to include the affiliate links in your e-book is to make them appear as natural as the other statements in your book. Try to weave them into the content in such a way that it is not obvious to the eyes of your readers. For example, when you want to readers to learn more about a certain topic discussed on your e-book, you can then mention the link as a source of additional information.
- Maximum return for all parties involved. Since you want wide distribution of your e-book, you will offer it for free as well as the rebranding rights. But what will you benefit from it? Of course, just the fact that people will sign up as an affiliate for them to be able to rebrand the links with their own codes means that you will gain more and more subscribers to your list.
Having more and more people who would want to rebrand the links means that more chances of your e-book getting distributed to others because of the incentives these people would gain. And the more people who will get to receive your e-book, the more traffic you will get on your site.
It wouldn?t really matter now if you are not earning from the rebranding rights. What is more important is the increased traffic and subscribers you will get which will eventually lead to more and more sales and success for your business.
Viral Marketing ? Why is it so Powerful?
Viral marketing is the new marketing and advertising trend right now, especially in the online scene. It takes advantage of the internet’s network effect to be able to reach a great number of people in such a short time.
Benefits of Viral Marketing
Viral marketing strategies offer several advantages to businesses.
- Easy to execute. There are several methods of sending viral contents or messages and all of them are easy to do. Among those methods are sending email, instant messaging, and using web sites. Sending viral messages through these media will not take much effort and time.
- Low-cost. As compared to sending direct mails, viral marketing proves to be cheaper and a more cost-effective method. With just a little investment on viral advertising, its power can reach even hundreds of thousands of people as compared to spending the same amount of money to traditional advertising methods. That is because the only money to spend is for sending the initial set of viral contents, then forwarding or replicating the message will not require additional costs anymore.
- Good targeting. With viral marketing, there is a huge probability that the message will reach people that are interested in it. Since the concept of viral marketing is essentially passing on a message from a user to another person, most likely, the user will pass it to a person whom he knows will be interested in it. Thus, the percentage of wasted advertising, which is sending the message to the wrong market, will be reduced.
- High and rapid response rate. Since viral marketing reaches a good number of the business? target market, there is also a big possibility to have a high turnover ratio. Even if the responses will not immediately convert into profits, there will still be huge traffic that the business will receive which is what most web owners want.
These are indeed great benefits a business can get by adopting this marketing technique. But what really makes it more powerful than other marketing or advertising strategies?
Let us take the example of Hotmail, where this viral marketing term really started. Hotmail was able to spread over the internet at an amazing rate. It is like an epidemic that quickly spreads out to others once there is a single person infected by the virus. That is why this technique was named as such.
According to Hotmail?s statistics, its number of subscribers grew from zero to twelve million users in just 18 months. Imagine that! What?s more amazing is that the company spent just $50,000 on advertising to achieve that number of subscribers. Compare that to Juno which spent $20 million on traditional advertising during the same time period as Hotmail but got much less output.
With those facts about Hotmail, viral marketing?s main strength is indeed reaching a huge number of the target market at a considerably low cost. Hotmail did not even have marketing or advertising presence in most countries outside the United States but it got to be the major email service provider in these places like India and Sweden.
What adds more power to viral marketing is the fact that the viral message passed on is like an endorsement from a friend or somebody who can be trusted. People have this way of thinking that ?if my friend uses this product and is happy about it, what stops me from using it as well??
In Hotmail?s case, when those people who received an email from their friends, relatives, or colleagues using Hotmail learned that it works and their friend is a user, they quickly signed up and became members as well. These people wanted to belong in this group where their friends are also in. This technique is also a matter of association or affiliation.
Hotmail?s case is not an isolated one, though. During the same time that Hotmail is gaining its popularity, so does ICQ. ICQ is like a buddy list and instant messenger, much like MSN and Yahoo Messenger now. ICQ also used the same technique and marketing campaign and it gained almost the same number of subscribers as Hotmail within the same time frame.
Viral marketing is indeed one powerful tool to increase popularity of a product or service. However, just like any other things, proper use of the technique is necessary. A single mistake of misuse of it may mean permanent damage to the product or service being promoted.
Viral techniques to increase web traffic
The term viral marketing seems to have a negative connotation due to its identification with the word virus, something that no one would want to catch ever. However, viral marketing is one of the most efficient tools made available to internet email marketers nowadays.
Viral marketing is an internet marketing tool which is made in such a way as to be capable of being passed on from on e person to another. It is called viral due to its ability to be passed on to a growing number of internet users through the email. Through viral marketing, an email message can reach thousands if not millions of people.
To the layman, viral marketing can be equated with network marketing or word of mouth. The use of viral marketing can be likened to a small fire but which catches everybody?s attention due to smoke which reaches every nook and cranny.
To be successful, viral marketing makes use of a product that has a universal appeal and which is freely and readily available to most people. Aside from easy transmission, the product must also be easily accessible to the receivers, for it to become viral.
Marketers who avail of viral marketing usually offer free products like e-book or e-videos which cater to the needs and interests of their target market. The product is usually passed on by the original target to his own set of friends or clients and the clients do the same until the product has reached millions of email users.
Viral techniques can be as easy as sending free email courses to target clients. Wanting their friends to benefit from the said service, the original targets pass on the free email courses until it creates a multiplier effect. Using email signatures can also increase traffic to your website. This is easily done by adding your website address and some comments below your name.
Offering free screensavers to computer users is also one way of creating an email database since those who want to download free screensavers are required to register using their email addresses. Once the client has logged in his email address, the internet marketer can do his job by sending emails redirecting the recipients to his website,
Setting up an affiliate program is also a viral marketing technique. This can b e accomplished by allowing users to refer customers to your site and giving them a certain percentage for each sale. Affiliate programs can be easily searched in the internet as these sites are submitted to affiliate directories.
Other website owners hire people to participate in discussion boards and forum and require them to use signatures that are linked to their websites. This method is quite effective because people from all walks of life participate in the forums and most often, they are redirected to the signature link. However, make sure you use forums that are related to your website to keep the interest of the forum posters. To achieve the desired goals, you respond to questions affixing your signature link.
One of the best viral techniques is the use of articles to increase website traffic. Under this technique, numerous articles of different topics are created and are redistributed for reprint in other websites but with a resource box which serves as a link to the original website. This way, the website owner who lacks articles and materials for his website benefits from the free articles. On the other hand, the article owner gets to advertise his website link for free in exchange for the article.
Among the most popular articles are do it yourself articles, how to articles, self employment articles and usually articles about beauty, health and money. People will always be drawn towards anything that will give them the most benefit at little cost.
Having a good website is a start but it is not the be-all and end-all of internet marketing. A website owner has to take advantage of email marketing tools to generate more traffic to his website. These marketing tools like the viral technique, does not cost much but requires creativity and persistence.
Another method to increase website traffic is to exchange links with other website owners who have products that are different from your website. By agreeing to interlink your websites, both websites benefit from the exposure they will get from their own clients.
No matter what viral technique you have chosen for your email marketing, you have to make sure that you generate enough interest to increase traffic to your website.
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