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Friday, July 10th, 2009 | Author: Zeke Camusio

fsimageresize1aspxWord of mouth marketing (WOM) gives people a reason to talk about your products and services. If you want to create a BUZZ, word of mouth marketing is the best way to promote your business.

WOM is the act of building strong consumer-to-consumer or consumer-to-marketer communications.  WOM also makes people want to talk about your company – you empower people and give them a voice. What better way to brand your business than to have others do the work and “spread the word”?

Basic Elements - Word of Mouth Marketing

wordofmouth•    Educates customers about products and services

•    Gives away freebies and prizes to customers

•    Transfers communicate message effortlessly between people and uses other’s resources and websites

•    Integrates common human behavior and motivations (i.e. the need to be popular, loved, happy, etc)

Don’t use WOM to fake out your customers – people aren’t fools and they deserve respect.  Remember to treat them with integrity and INTELLIGENCE!  Artificial WOM will only come back to haunt you and your reputation – stay away from deceptive and manipulative tactics!

Blog Viral Marketing – Explode Your Message to Millions
Blog viral marketing uses the same elements associated with WOM. Viral marketing is a promotional strategy that encourages people to pass along marketing strategies to others. Like a computer virus, “viral” marketing EXPLODES messages to millions of people across the world.

When it comes to viral marketing, it’s like a tiny pebble thrown in the water that causes a widespread ripple effect. You only need to make a small effort in order to see BIG results!

Benefits of Blog Viral Marketing
FREE – You don’t incur promotional costs – use other people’s FREE online resources and sites!

REACHES HUGE audience – People contact others for you and then they contact more people – experience “chain results” and watch your traffic and revenue increase!

BUILDS Reputation and Credibility – Since people are spreading the word about your blog, your company will gain credibility and earn a great online rep!

WordPress Tell a Friend Plugin – Spread the Word Quickly!
The most powerful tool used in viral marketing is the WordPress Tell a Friend plug in.
Tell a Friend is a FREE plugin added to blogs that allows users to pass along sites to other people.
wordpress•    Place “Tell a Friend” button on your blog and when blog visitors want to spread the word, they simply click the button and an email form pops up.

•    Visitors fill out the email forms and send out emails to their friends telling them about your blog – it’s that EASY!

Tell a Friend supports major free email providers (Hotmail, Yahoo, Google, etc). Log into your account and it pulls your address book instantly! Instead of sending out ONE email at a time, you can email hundreds of your contacts at a time.  HUGE exposure to your blog!

Additional Perks:
• You can add plugin to sidebar text, end of blog posts and/or your home page.

• When visitors click on widget button and email screen pops up, it doesn’t re-direct away from your blog.

• Tell a Friend scripts can also be used on e-commerce sites and to promote e-books.

Your email:

 

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Wednesday, July 08th, 2009 | Author: Zeke Camusio

istock_videocamxsmall1Congratulations - you finally figured out how to use WordPress! You just finished that compelling blog post and even know how to promote it. Just when you thought you were a master blogger, the blogging world threw you a new curveball – it’s called video blogging (vlogging or vidblogging).

The online community is VISUAL – audiences like images and fast, moving action (just ask any gamer you know!) If you want to make a lasting impact and take your online marketing to the next level, it’s time to ADD VIDEOS to your blog.

Advantages of Video Blogging

camera •    Gets your message across quickly– You can only get so far with content. Video is interactive and people don’t want to spend a lot of time reading text. They relate better to visual images.  This is called “attraction” marketing – get their attention FAST and hold it!

•    A great teaching tool – Easier for your audience members to grasp difficult concepts through easy-to-follow video tutorials.

•    Not everyone has jumped on the vlogging bandwagon – Vlogging is still a relatively new concept. Sites such as YouTube branched out in 2005 with this blogging concept, but it’s still slowly catching on and still considered a novelty in online marketing techniques.

•    Puts a FACE behind your blog – Add videos of yourself. Not only does that personalize your blog but you add credibility to your site. A friendly face and confident voice attracts audience members - they WANT to learn and know more about you. A video can further enhance your expertise and professionalism.

Disadvantages of Video Blogging

    • Lack of content makes it difficult to rank in search engines – Search engines don’t rank video-only blogs high in the search engines (a negative for SEO). Balance out the videos by adding unique content to your blog.

    • Requires time and energy to upload videos – Vlogging can be more time consuming. Instead of just dashing off text-only posts, you’ll need to spend more time uploading videos to your blog. Make sure your videos upload quickly or you’ll frustrate users who visit your blog – the fastest way to lose your audience!

Tools Needed for Video Blogging
Digital Camera – You’ll need a way to shoot the videos. You don’t need to spend thousands on an expensive video camera. Most digital cameras include a video feature and videos can be directly uploaded from digital cameras. Read manufacturer’s instructions to learn how to upload videos correctly.

WordPress Plugins: Flash Video Player, Windows Media Embedding and Anarchy Media Player are just some of the plugins that can be used to add videos. Check out more WordPress plugins.

videoEditing Software – Cyberlink Power Director 7 Deluxe and Corel VideoStudio organize clips and trim down movies. You can also add special effects or 3-D dimensions to videos to make them really POP!

Web Cams – You can shoot easy, quick videos with web cams and the Pro version of QuickTime 7.

Live Broadcasting – For podcasts check out blip.TV. You can upload your videos for free – you only need a camera (or web cam) and microphone.

Screencasts – Screencasts are animated videos of your computer screen. Free software such as Copernicus and Jing allow you to record screencasts. Some of these programs such as Copernicus don’t record audio.

Your email:

 

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