Social Marketing Strategies from Social Marketing Expert Peter Lenkefi

Are You Widgeticating Yourself?

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Its not enough to just create great content anymore. The world of problogging and social marketing is much more crowded and competitive.

Multi-channel syndication is absolutely necessary. A “channel” that is increasingly bringing eyeballs and subscribers is the ad widget. (Not to be confused with Wordpress widgets.)

Recently, DoubleClick invested in this advertising channel by launching widget advertising within their core ad serving platform. These “Widget Ads” enable media and creative agencies to integrate a viral component into any campaign. This technology allows consumers to “snag” or “grab” the ad and place it on their personal homepage, blog or social network page.

According to Ari Paparo, vice president of advertiser products for DoubleClick: “Widget Ads provide audiences with the ability for self-expression and identification with well-loved brands while providing marketers the benefits of virality and engagement along with the measurability of traditional online channels.”

We have already touted the power of ad widgets in creating a viral marketing campaign. Our post on SproutBuilder explained how to get started creating widgets and then syndicating them with the networks linked to SproutBuilder like Gigya.com. This step by DoubleClick extends the interest and importance of widgets and will surely make widget even more familiar and shareable with consumers.

So, the real social marketing trick is to create a widget that intrigues your core demographic so much that they are compelled to “grab” or “share” it. This is no easy task but certainly worth some investment of time or $$. Imagine the power of a viral bit of code that “lives” on the personal homepage, desktop or blog of your core audience. That is an absolute home run in the world of social marketing.

The type of widget that goes viral will probably not be a flash style RSS feed of your blog or “feedplayer”. No, you are going to have to be much more creative than that. In fact, the main purpose of your widget will need to be something very entertaining or highly functional. Something that will feel “exclusive” or “novel”.

Your branding comes in at the bottom of the widget with a small, graphical “sponsored by” statement. This subtle “ad” builds your web presence without souring your audience which allows the clever content on your widget to shine.

And this leads to massive widgetication.

The QU.IL.LO Method to Creating Blog Content

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

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Are you creating valuable content for your blog (or website) on a regular basis?

Or, are you feeding your audience leftovers gathered from other bloggers syndicated “junk food”?

I hope not, because consistent, valuable content (text, audio and video) is the ONE aspect of your web presence that MUST exist.

As a fellow social marketer, I struggle with this too. So, here’s a great “pneumonic device” that helps me keep content creation on track:

QU.IL.LO

Questions

Notice the beginning of this post. It started with a question, right? I could have started with: “A good blog creates valuable content on a regular basis.” And you would have said… “Duh!”. But, I bet the question made you think to yourself… “Is my content valuable, am I posting consistently?”

You tell me, which reaction is better?

Illustrations

Now, take a look at line #2 above. Just in case you did not get the point with the initial question, I threw in a brief illustration that may have poked a few article marketers in the ribs.

Imagine… serving up leftover junk food from someone else’s garbage… how disgusting. Sadly, this is what the majority of bloggers do.

So, this illustration made the point in a way that caused the desired emotion (disgust) in just one sentence.

Logic

Once the question is raised and the illustration causes a reaction, the logical statement will have meaning and impact.

See line #3… I now restate the point phrased as a question in line #1. But now, you get it, you believe it and you are more likely to trust what I have to say next.

Social Suicide

As a serious social marketer, you may be busy…

Blasting Squidoo with loads of keyword rich lenses.

Casting articles to dozens of article directories with SubmitYourArticle.com or iSnare.com.

Making timely comments on oodles of blogs each day using Comment Kahuna or Comment Sniper.

Digging, Sphinning, BuzzUping, or Twitting for hours each day.

All in an effort to lead a browser back to your blog and, more importantly, your offer.

So, at the end of that rope, what do you have waiting for your visitors?

Well, they are either welcomed with great original content that is easy to navigate or smacked with banners, text link ads and recycled content.

The latter is the typical fare on most blogs and this, my fellow social marketers, kills the potential of ever making money with your blog.

Why not reevaluate the quality of your blog and start using the QU.IL.LO method for fantastic blog content that readers will want to be a part of.

Product Launchers

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

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blast off You have reached the public welcome page for the private Product Launchers Group hosted at Jack Humphrey’s Social Marketing Central community.

…established March 12, 2008.

Give me a minute to do a bit of strategic thinking and I will update this page with a Mission statement for the group worthy of The New York Times.

For now, I know the following about Product Launchers:

The group will remain “by invitation only” and could be limited based on activity
The group will focus on product research, development and launch strategies & techniques
The group won’t be a buzz group
The group should be a testing ground and testimonial source
The group may receive free copies of the products hatched here

More to come…

The Secret Society of Buzz

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

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Many aspiring social marketers are surprised when they stumble into a community of IMers who are secretly buzzing (promoting) each others content.

The Secret

These covert little communities are simple vote sharing networks and generally work like this:

Each member is allowed to submit a predefined number of URLs (usually per week or per month) and request that it be “dugg”, “stumbled”, “bookmarked”, etc. on selected social media sites.

The submissions typically arrive via email to each member of that community.

Each member of the group then chooses to either delete that request or follow through and “buzz” their fellow member’s post or article.

Obviously, if your an honest buzzer, you are going to be graciously responding to many more requests than you submit.

The Math

If you do the math on this type of group voting structure it gets kind of interesting.

For example:

Group members = 100

Allowed request per day = 1

Average requests per group per day = 50 (not everyone makes a request everyday)

Number of email requests you get = 50

My experience with a few of these groups shows that typically, only the folks who consistently submit requests respond to others requests. This usually fits into the 80/20 rule, so only 20% of the members are really active buzzers. However, even these ladies and gentlemen do not buzz EVERY request, they only buzz content that they like AND have time for. This translates into about a 10 per day MAX or 20%.

So, plugging in these numbers, we can finish the calculation:

Number of consistent requesters = 20

Number of votes you get on your one request = 4

So, theoretically, on average you get about 4 votes for your 10.

The Verdict

Is it worth your time?

I say YES, but with a BIG caution.

Yes because 4 votes are more than you might get if you don’t join a buzz group. And… four well timed votes are all you need to get into the mainstream, and possibly the “jet stream”, on some social media sites and attract the attention of the average social media crowd looking for content that looks like it’s on the rise.

Caution because the numbers above are true for new buzz groups only. Why? Because inevitably a load of social marketing barnacles find established buzz groups and do nothing but make requests.

I have seen some of these guys leeching from multiple buzz groups, requesting buzz favors on the same content and never returning the favor or being part of the community.

So, unless there is an active buzz group admin that is seriously checking the activity of anyone who makes requests, the group is doomed to failure.

The other thing that tends to happen is the group gets so large that everyone’s Inbox fills up with requests each night and the active participants spend the first 30 minutes of the day deleting most and buzzing about 10.

So, I would also suggest trying to find a “closed” buzz group through a friend or forum. This type of group is more sustainable and efficient for the reasons stated above.

The Buzz Groups

I will be keeping my 2 little buzz groups to myself because they are humming along quite nicely for now. However, if you are interested in joining or inviting Web2Center readers to a buzz group, feel free to do so in the comments.

If you have some insight into the secret society of buzzers, please share your thoughts with us as well!