WOMM : Trusted Human Yellow Pages

We believe information we hear from other people, faster than we believe what is written in a brochure or seen on a TV ad, the stories we hear from each other, the hints and tips. We are trusted human yellow pages for each other.
There are a set of people, who want to extract information from the known and good resources. More than this, another inner secret is that, information from a well respected source is reliable and trustworthy, also that, these information are sometimes difficult to access, or hard-work is necessary to obtain the information, so this could be sometimes a kind of shortcut to get information, but it depends on the information, as always these information will not be authentic like a police informer’ as these are all a personal vision about the information. So, a person should also see the information he is getting is also from a person who is genuine, and no such hidden intension lies behind the information. The ultimate truth is that, man believes other’ talk more easily than any website or blog, because its human-nature that believes other person.
More important is the updation of the information. People get either irritated, or bored of stale and repeated information.
WOMM is a tool, that not only marketing and communications folks use, but it crosses all organizational lines including co-workers, neighbors, friends and family, customers and the general public. The important and main feature of WOMM is that, each time we communicate, we build on it, and is clearer on the topic.
What does our WOMM contain? Just what we have in us, or what we want? That’s not all, we must have patience to listen what others want to say, or what others want. It’s meaningless to have loads of information that’s not useful, or that’s not arranged in order that’ll come to use.
One more important thing that has to be kept in mind is that, the information we are getting is not a forced one, but the one, that has come naturally and true information. In today’ world, people have reduced believing in the ads, and a trend is getting set about the transfer of information, by e-mail (from known people, not spam), and blogs of famous people or organization. Transfer of information through direct contact, phone is always there in its place.
Here an important point that one has to keep in mind is that, we must not spread a message that has no personal touch of ours, or if it’s not intended to us.
The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) defines WOMM as “giving people a reason to talk about your products and services, making it easer for that conversation to take place.” Luckily, WOMM isn’t only accomplished through product placement and name dropping in the right places. WOMM can evolve from a customer’s remarkable experience and the marketing message can reach potential customers in the form of referrals from satisfied customers. These positive referrals from existing customers are extremely valuable, and when encouraged by a company, are examples of WOMM at its best.
One of the more provocative ideas that came out of one of the previous week's WOMMA conference in San Francisco was the notion that there are two kinds of WOMM (word of mouth marketing): creationist and evolutionist. Each is legitimate but they spring from different philosophies.
To know more about this, you can go through the video below, and get to know the difference between a creationist and an evolutionist.

Emerging trends in online marketing

A successful marketing campaign will follow a simple formula – adapt to the right medium and develop a convincing message to generate the desired sale. How ever, the choice of the right medium and the message has always been a quest in the marketing world.

To the eyes of a normal person the world appears quite compact and well networked. But when he is a media strategist the same disguises to a vast array of endless opportunities quite uncanny to understand. Words like blogs, pod casting and e-zines have gone from what are those to mainstream media in less than couple of years. Thus, the attention span of the consumers and their media preferences has also changed drastically. The ever-changing wired mediums and complex life style patterns has left nothing but a perplex matrix for any marketing strategist to ace.

Today, the on-line world has moved on from the dotcom revolution to the next generation of web services called ‘web 2.0’. This new revolution gives the power to manage the media time according to ones own comfort. The next question is obviously, what kind of a marketing tool can compass to the needs of an individuals time? The answer is quite simple to guess.

Word of mouth marketing is emerging as a new tool that lets the strategist capture their niche crowd in the online world. The market research predicts US adult internet users who can potentially influence other customers/buyers are expected to grow from 23.7 per cent to 34.4 per cent by 2011. It’s now obvious that buzz marketing can be made more powerful than conventional marketing. But to make WOMM a success story, you ought to have a strong product. Word of mouth is all about cultivating relationships. WOMM believes People do business with people they have confidence in. WOMMA (the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association) defines WOM as "the act of individuals providing marketing information to other people."

The key elements of WOMM include:

· People are already talking. You just need to join the conversation.

· Happy customers are your best advertising. So, earn the respect and recommendation your customers. They will do the marketing for you, for free.

· Negative word of mouth is an opportunity. Listen and learn.

· Always remember ethics and good service comes first.

by Emmanuel Obadia

Now you can get more leads, new customers, increased sales and improved brand awareness through WOMM.

Gingerly Viral

Definition

Marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message. It is better if any product has to be sold, or any information needs to be broadcasted, it must have a good viral marketing. Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily. Viral promotions may take the form of funny video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, images, or even SMS text messages. Viral Marketing depends on the person who does the Viral Marketing, because it depends on how the information is spread, and the healthy structure of the information. If done effectively, message can pass to many people; else there are major chances that the message chain can stop arbitrarily. This also relates WOMM to the kind of marketing strategies.

An example :

1. An example is provided of how viral marketing is done through e-mail. Here an email request for joining the ginger community.

Hi,

I have created my network on mGinger.com & thought I'd invite you to join as well. I believe it's a cool, fun way to be informed about new products and discounts in your city.
mGinger.com is free to join, you shouldn't miss out.

By joining mGinger:
You will receive discount coupons and offers based on your interests.
You get SMS ads of only those products that you want to buy (no spam!!)
You get ads at your convenience (only in the time you specify)

And to top it all, you will make some pocket money too.

If clicking the above link does not work, you may type or copy and paste the link below into your Web browser. Make sure you copy the link exactly and do not add extra spaces.
http://mGinger.com/index.jsp?inviteId=369316

2. If I have a e-book, and I send it to 5 people, and they in-turn do that, it gets to 25 people, and if the same is repeated, it goes to 625 people and so on, the e-book is circulated.

3. The simplest incentive based viral marketing is making a referral to a friend; if they purchase or join, you get a premium of either money, product or a discount.

* One important point to be noted in viral marketing is that, we can’t control the reach of the information. The information can reach any number of people and there is no way to force them to propagate the process, or to inhibit them in doing so, as it all depends on the content and the depth and interest it creates.

* A very important point that most of the people miss out is that, they don’t mention the source of the message and the company who propagated the message.

Buzz marketing

Buzz:It is a form of communication from person-person about a particular brand(service/ product)

Buzz marketing:Is a change of information where the marketer targets the unique consumer and the consumer exchanges the information(conversation,mails,messages)rather than the marketer calculating the market trend. Previously ,buzz marketing was not practical in nature where, the information was revealed only to target consumers and then these target consumers through Womm spread to others.

Today's Buzz market is being used in a different way . Market representatives initiate Buzz campaign in chat rooms to their target audience where, they market the product .
Blog , Instant messenger , Forum and Groups are the tools of Buzz marketing campaign , where IM establishes the individuals social netwok.

This electronic Buzz marketing delivers the message easier to quatify and the marketers forecast the Buzz market as a standard component in the market campagin .
The abuse of this electronic market will be its downfall.

Online Reputation Monitoring

Every single day, someone, somewhere is discussing something important to your business, brand, industry and to your competitors. Conversations might vary from person to person. Usually people express their thoughts on variety of brands, their experience with various products. All these conversations might not affect directly but indirectly it affects future buying decisions of the customer. Because we all have an apt to take negative things bit seriously just to be on safer side.

So it’s very important to keep a tab on what people talk about your product. May be people have wrong perception about your product or a bad experience with product, which is indulging them to spread negative thoughts about the same. Therefore it is needed to identify these conversations and try to tell them the reality, the facts. To begin monitor their conversations, identify the negative ones and try to convert them into positive.

Overall Consumer Generated Media Tips:

· Investigate facts internally before taking action

· Be honest!

· Explain what you have done to rectify any issue

· Offer to resolve any complaints personally - have a senior-level staff member make the offer - try to continue discussion offline

· Rally friends, clients, peers and utilize your allies

· Don’t create new “personas” to support your position in blogs, forums and message boards as you’ll likely be caught

How to conduct outreach to Consumer Generated Media (CGM)

Forums, user groups and message boards:

· Task someone in-house with joining and participating in any applicable forums or user groups.

o When trouble strikes, impact will be reduced if someone from your organization is a regular contributor (has credibility already) and can voice your company’s side of the story.

· Consider sponsoring most influential forums.

o Less likely to see sustained criticism if you are a supporter/sponsor.

· Build alliances/partnerships with most vocal members.

Blogs:

· If a blog post is factually incorrect

o Ask for removal or retraction and send supporting evidence.

o Offer to keep blogger informed of future news

· If blog post is true, but negative

o Send your side of the story.

o Explain how you are addressing the situation.

o Add comment to post.

o Indicate your willingness to receive any email questions - take it offline.

Balancing Negative CGM:

· If it’s true:

o Don’t ignore or hide

o Participate in the discussion and be honest

o Add response to your web site

o Issue statement addressing what has been done

o Engage crisis communication expert with CGM experience

· If it’s not true

o Politely request blog, forum, news site owner remove or retract

o Consult a lawyer

o Contact other blog and forum owners with correct information

o Ask them to consider publishing your response

This is about monitoring and overcoming negative conversations but monitoring in itself is a tedious job unless and until we don’t know the online tools available. Few tips are

· Subscribe for RSS feeds

· Sign up for Google and Yahoo email alerts using your desired keywords

· Determine message boards/forums to track

· Determine groups to track

So here you go to read the complete article, which is enlightening. Source

This is all about negative conversations and negative speakers; but personally what I feel is even the positive speakers of brand, deserve attention they can’t be ignored. Patting on their back doesn’t put us into loss but it might create better image, better relationship and it might generate brand advocates to the product.

web traffic

WEB TRAFFIC:
It is the amount of data sent or received by a visitor to a website. Sites keep track of which page and which part of it is generating traffic. This helps in structuring, or designing the website in a precise manner. it can be some pages / sites that are popular in some countries, ORKUT being more popular in Brazil and next in India, than in other countries. This is also a measure of how many people saw their page.
Points seen about web traffic:

1. Number of visitors
2. Number of page visitors ( this indicates 2 things, one that the person is very interested in the content and goes on and on in search of information { positive impact }, and second is that the person is not able to find information and he is trying to find information in that page { negative impact })
   
3. Visit duration (no of visits)
   
4. Page duration ( time duration it was opened for)
5. Busy-time ( time of the day when the site was heavily used)
6. Most requested page
7. Less seen [ages
8. Refers etc

Websites like ALEXA Ranking gives details of all these statistics.
There is another website called NEILSON NETRATING (which needs registration)
This is how we see that a video of a pop-star or a song, or a page being visited more frequently, or having more hits.
There is also an alternate route to see if there's any security breach or lapse or any leak in information, in cases like a military website, or a government. an example is that the United States Of America has blocked the president' website outside the US. This can be used to find that if a military website is being opened more frequently, from where, how long, how often.

Ways to increase traffic:

1. By placing a site in search engines and purchase of advertising,
2. Bulk E-mail,
3. Pop adds ,etc

• It is important that the ad is placed properly on most used or top rated websites. Generally people don't go beyond go beyond 2nd or 3rd page to search any stuff. We can increase the traffic, by giving some information about our product, plus give some free ebooks or articles thats downloadable, plus a discount on downloadable items ... .
• Another easy method is to write mail to sites and ask them to add their link to our'.
• Another method is to write free articles to sites, like a freelancer, benefit being that you get to include a link to your site in the article, that is, everytime someone clicks on your link, it brings free traffic. pixel ads brings more traffic, but can reduce intended users.
  
• The more better way is to register with major search engines. After registering, what happens is that the search engines works by crawling registered websites. These crawlers (also called spiders or robots), starts at the homepage, and goes through links, internal links and starts gathering information about pages and stores it and then indexes in search engine database, and indexes the page URL plus title plus header and some amount of text.
• Paid ads: Here in return for a small payment, many larger companies choose to advertise their sites on other popular sites. types: banner ad or CPM (Cost Per Impression), PPC (Pay Per Click).
  

What Businesses and Marketers can learn from WOMM Successes?

The Digital future project 2007 reveals 43 per cent of internet users are part of online communities. As much as 20.3 per cent backed up their commitments to online communities with offline action. 70.4 per cent said, most often they interact with other members of their community while logged in. Internet and mobile association of India predicts that India’s net user base will touch 100 million by March 2008. There is no doubt that the online communities and networking sites are emerging as ‘the platform’ for people to voice their views and to stay in touch.

When we closely observe, these networking sites have altered our lives from a ‘mass society’ to a ‘networked society’. At this point of time, word of mouth marketing is something that marketers can’t afford to miss. As the media moves to the next phase so, should the marketing strategy. The power of the human voice and personalized contacts are the most powerful communications tools and now WOMM has the ability to harness them.

WOMM is not just about voicing your opinion or advertising. Companies can drive sale, generate leads, and do PR campaign through connected marketing. Sounds fantastic? Check out these brands names, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Procter & Gamble and Sony. They all have successfully applied WOMM to harness the opinion, launch new product, transform public opinion and drive sales.

There has been an explosion of networking sites like Orkut, Myspace, Facebook featuring a highly interactive platform to share and comment. Nothing is spared from critique, nearly everything new product launch, celebrity events, burning issues are put under the scanner with great enthusiasm. Word of mouth opinions through community sites are a ruthless juggernaut that ploughs bad crop as well as seeding fertile plains.

Think about how Apple went from something that you ate to keep the doctor away, to the creator of the best-selling iPod. How Hotmail managed to gain more than 12 million subscribers in less than a year-and-a-half! Microsoft launched its mysterious "Origami" with a video casting young people using the "Origami" device to sketch pictures, use a map with global positioning satellite technology, listen to digital music and play Halo, a popular Microsoft video game. It was not immediately clear whether the product would be a Microsoft-branded device or if the software giant would simply provide software and services. The mysterious marketing campaign fueled speculation and rumors. Everyone started talking about the product. They were successful in creating a buzz in the market.

Buzz marketing can be many times more powerful than conventional marketing. But to really spread the word about your business you should have a strong product. For instance ‘Apple’ has created customers who believe in their product so strongly, that they freely try to convince others to buy and use it. The customers become voluntary advocates, actively spreading the word on behalf of the company. Google employed referral programs to launch Gmail, they didn’t do conventional marketing and spent no money. Google created scarcity by giving Gmail accounts only to a handful of "power users." This kindled the curiosity in others who looked upto these power users and it manifested itself in their bidding for Gmail invites on eBay. Google created demand by limited supply and the catch of having a Gmail account spread through word of mouth. All these companies have successfully utilized the power of WOMM.

WOMM can suit any kind of business domain; it’s not just reserved for marketing communication. It’s the best platform to learn what people think about your product. So, it’s high time to think beyond the media space in T.V channels and newspaper columns. Harnessing these sites will surely leverage the extra mile for your product or service. But some thing that you should keep in mind is that; as much as they can be helpful in spreading the spiral about your company; they are also capable of backfiring. So before entering the realm, you need to do intensive research and strategize the best plans to make connected marketing work for you.

1-18-08.com

Do u have any idea what this is?? Its the viral for J.J. Abrams, co-creator of ‘Lost’, new viral campaign promoting an untitled movie to come out January 18th, 2008. A preview clip being shown before screenings of the new “Transformers” movie, begins with the Bad Robot logo (Abrams’ production company), and shows a bunch of raucous 20-somethings at a going-away party in New York City. Abruptly, the lights go out and fiery explosions and a monstrous roar go off in the distance. The partygoers run to a rooftop and then a chaotic Manhattan street amid the fireballs and chaos when -- right before the trailer ends -- the head of the Statue of Liberty crashes into the pavement.

Now i'm not trying to promote the movie or anything like that, but what u see here is an awesome viral concept. Within hours of the "Transformers" premiere July 3, camera-phone movies of the clip started appearing on YouTube, which naturally gave Paramount Pictures (which has a production deal with Bad Robot) the publicity coup of having the clips removed.

The seed has been planted, and now Bad Robot will see if this project can ‘go viral.’ When it works, you can have a ‘Blair Witch Project’, when it doesn’t, you can end up with “Snakes on a Plane’. As production companies shy away from traditional movie commercials, outlining the entire plot and every joke, and move toward more engaging (and hopefully more lucrative) campaigns, online marketing efforts are sure to be at the forefront.

The Momentum Effect

What is the momentum effect? The "Momentum Effect", is a term created by Marketing Revolution that measures the effect of a brand within a social network and examines consumer -to- consumer communication.

A marketing ROI measurement firm, examined the impact of social interaction on advertising campaigns within MySpace. They found that brands such as adidas and Electronic Arts attributed over 70 percent of their marketing return on investment to the "Momentum Effect."

The study found that 40 percent of social network users visit the sites to learn more about a product or brand they like, and 28 percent said a friend has recommended a brand or product to them.

Social networks are more popular than other forms of communication and entertainment according to the study. When asked what free-time activity they would prefer, users chose interacting on social networking sites over TV but equal with cell phone usage. For more on this you can read David Utter's article here.

Social networkers spend on average over seven hours per week on sites such as MySapce, which increased the growth of overall time spent online. More than 31 percent of those who use social networks report that they spend more time in general online after starting to use a social network.

"Users are empowered to create and share, build and maintain relationships and in the process have created an entirely new medium that is deeply integrated into their everyday lives", said Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace.

"Smart marketers know how to tap into the passion and energy of individuals who care about their products to vastly multiply the impact of their campaigns."

The study included approximately 3,000 U.S. Internet users, as well as MySpace clients for in- depth case studies.

Ipsos-Reid insights on Blog marketing and feedback

Internet users are more likely to trust blogs now then in the past, and say that a positive review of a product on a blog influences their decisions to buy a certain product.

Blogs started out as a way of individuals to share their thoughts in an online diary; however, now they are seen as a way for products to gain more feedback, either positive or negative.

“Blogs started as simple online diaries and have come round to being mainstream ways to promote ideas and products. Considering the wide range of topics that can be covered by blogs, it's not surprising that active Internet users are using them as much as they are,” said Scott Patton, Senior Research Manager, Ipsos Reid. “If we consider that the Internet is the information superhighway, blogs are but one kiosk along the way.”

Sixty-four per cent of Canadian internet users believe that information in blogs is very or somewhat reliable, according to a study by Ipsos-Reid.

“The degree to which people find the information in a blog reliable will depend on how they answer the question “What's in it for the person writing the blog?” said Patton.

This brings up the problem of some people not using a blog just to share their unbiased opinion but what could be called self promotion or malice towards a company.

“If internet users believe the person writing the blog is providing an unbiased opinion, they will find the information to be reliable. They would also find the information presented as a first hand experience to be more reliable. In these instances, the reader is likely answering the question by saying the blogger has nothing to gain, one way or another, so the blog is reliable,” said Patton. “If they believe the blogger to be "toeing the company line", "grinding an ax", or is some way malicious, they will call the information unreliable. Blatant self-promotion could also be found to be unreliable.”

Positive or negative reviews of products by bloggers is one way that internet users can see what others are saying about a certain product they wish to buy.

According to the study, 61 per cent of Canadian internet users are at somewhat more likely to make a purchase based on a positive review, while 66 per cent of users would be less likely to buy a product because of a negative review.

“In several cases, blogs have been used to thrash on a company or product, with a counter-blog being started to defend the same product or company,” said Patton. “Information passes along very quickly on the Internet, giving these open dialogues much better momentum than they could enjoy in traditional media such as television, radio and print.”

Some companies are now using blogs as a way for customers to rate the products that they sell.

“Companies like Chapters and Futureshop.ca, who provide a forum for consumers to rate and comment on products, are a perfect example of this. With more and more people using the Internet as a place to comparison shop and conduct research prior to making a purchase, developing blogs that can feed information to these people is a powerful marketing tool.”

In turn, comparison sites are a growing part of the way customers shop for products, enabling them to find out what others thought of a certain product.

“Blogs can play several roles in marketing, not the least of which is product promotion. Customer reviews can be incorporated as blogs, as is evident on consumer information sites and product review sites,” said Patton.

Blogs are growing, and some individuals have even made blogging their profession. In the near future it looks like it can only grow. Here are some more facts found in the study.

Of Canadian internet users:

• 34 per cent have used a blog;
• 45 per cent are 18-34 years old;
• 40 per cent are university graduates;
• 36 per cent are male and 31 per cent are female;
• 53 per cent use a search engine to find a blog

A few interesting facts about bloggers vs. non-bloggers include: **

• Bloggers report spending 56% more time connected to and actively using the Internet in an average week than non-bloggers (23.4 hours vs. 15.0 hours, respectively);
• Bloggers report more time spent using the Internet overlapping other activities, like watching TV, listening to the radio, working or spending time with family and friends, than non-bloggers (average of 7.7 vs. 5.2, respectively); and,
• Bloggers are more likely to report participating in nearly every online activity tracked, including: online banking (83% bloggers; 65% non-bloggers); comparison shopping for products (81% bloggers; 65% non-bloggers); purchasing products and services online (80% bloggers; 62% non-bloggers); and, clicking through on website advertising (73% bloggers; 50% non-bloggers).

**SOURCE: Ipsos-Reid

WOMM, and marketing defenitions

WOMM:

Is a process of recommendations or referrals, for brand-names, products and services. This is highly valued by advertisers, as it is believed to be a valuable source credibility. This is different than normal marketing, where they brand / market their product, whereas in WOMM a credible person / organization refers the product, which holds more weight-age. to do WOMM, they rely on publicly techniques and viral marketing. moreover, WOMM can be used to target the required people, than the entire mass, who may be or may not be interested in it.
a very successful WOMM creates buzz. a buzz is successful, if it creates an intense movement of information, that moves in a matrix format, than a linear one, because, the matter must keep circulating and not grow in one direction.

UNDERCOVER Marketing:

OR also called as stealth marketing. an indirect way to sell thing. like a famous personality endorsing the brand on his image, be it an actor, or a sports personality, or a social worker who is quite famous in the market and the brand matches his image and people go for those products.
An example to this that instead of marketing for a camera, the brand ambassador asks people to click his photo with his camera and see the difference, and then he explains the features to the people. he may also use the technical terms thats there in his area of work, like acting or sports. Thus a camera is introduced in style. Here the brand is sold on the image of the ambassador.

GUERILLA Marketing:

This is similar to undercover marketing. A cheap and low budget promotional marketing, where the audience does not feel targeted. Here obtaining publicity is more important both professionally and personally. here the goods must be delivered. Trust and rapport is important, by understanding customer' needs and deliver what is said. goods for small business, human psychology is predominant here, to experience and guess work.

VIRAL Marketing:

This is a method to spread entertaining message, usually through methods such as web, and e-mail, to large number of people.
methods: face to face communication, phone, text messages, online profile page, blogspot, email.

The Art of Blogging

The term blog was coined from the word web log. When the web sites are built, the users keep writing about their ideas and insights on any particular knowledge on this site as an online note.

In fact, any users can maintain their own blog without any deep knowledge or experience in computer science. In order to maintain a blog, knowledge about MS Word and other simple programs is more than necessary. The advantage of bloggers is that most of the web services for blogging are very user friendly.

There are several blog services sites which enable to create free blogs. Blogger.com, Typerpad and LiveJournal are some of the places where an individual can mold their thoughts and design them better. If the users decides to write about tsunami at blogger.com, then his/her blog’s address would be tsunami.blogspot.com, so that the other users can study that particular blog if that is being permitted to post comments or to submit personal messages.

The first priority for any blogger would be to increase the amount of traffic which is coming to their sites. Following are the tactics to increment the traffic, like, posting advertisements, search engine optimization. In order to promote some brand through blogging, the content should be quality stuff. Even though this is a traditional method of internet marketing, it serves as a good purpose for doing business online.

If the user needs to personalize their blogs, they can do so by registering their domain name and then routing the address to a web service that hosts the blogs. As a result, the blog address would become www.tsunami.com instead of tsunami.blogspot.com. As a consequence of this sterling piece of work, the user can be recognized as a despotic blogger . Blogging software like Wordpress allow the users to add more features like posting advertisements and gives more reliability to the blog layout , after having a domain and hosting account.

The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing

“Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence.”

Viral Marketing is like a virus; it rapidly multiplies and spreads the message to thousands and millions. It can be referred with other terms like “word-of-mouth," "creating a buzz,", “networking marketing” etc…

The classic example for Viral Marketing is hotmail.com. it is one of the first free-web based email services. Their strategy was simple, they:

• Gave away free e-mail address and services
• Attached a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out. The message was: “Get your private email at http://www.hotmail.com”
• Then they stood back watched while people emailed their own network of friends and associates, who see this message and sign up for their own free email service and then,
• Push the message still wider on their own ever-increasing circles of friends and associates.

Elements of a Viral Marketing Strategy

Viral Marketing depends on how you go about it. Some viral strategies may work better than the other. Viral Marketing strategies need not contain all the elements but the more elements it contains; more powerful the results are likely to be.

• Gives away products or services - "Free" is the most powerful word. Most of the viral marketing campaigns give away products for free in order to attract attention.

• Provides for effortless transfer to others - The message which needs to be transmitted has to be Short, Crisp, and Convincing. The best example for this would be "Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com".

• Scales easily from small to very large - The message needs to be spread gradually rather than rapidly, because it should not fade away before the word is spread.
  

• Exploits common motivations and behaviors - Just spreading the word is not enough, spreading it in such a way that it would leave an urge to produce millions of websites and billions of website and billions of e-mail messages.

• Utilizes existing communication networks - Each of us will atleast have a network of 10-12 people in our close network of Family and Friends. We in the online industry, develop a network of relationships by collecting e-mails, URLs, etc... Spreading the right message in the right place through the right people would easily multiply your spread.

• Takes advantage of others' resources - The most creative viral marketing plans use others' resource to spread the word across. The best example for this would be Affiliates program, which places text links and ads on other's website.

To get more insight on this article please click on "Read more" below.

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Social Networking On Mobile

Social networking is all about making connections and bringing people together. Conversations that take place in social networking contexts are inherently social, and often revolve around shared activities and interests.

Users are tremendously interested in social networking sites because of the community, the content, and the activities they can do there. They can share information about themselves, find out what their peers think about topics of interest to them, share music and play lists, and exchange messages with their friends. Some of the best-known examples, MySpace, Facebook and Orkut, have thousands of members who connect daily or hourly.

The good news for the Users is that they can also access these Social Networking sites on their Cell Phones with the help of WAP or GPRS. How Technology is helping us make our lives easier. But again what if the Users don’t have Internet i.e. WAP or GPRS on their phones? So is there any Technology that can help the Users check their comments or scraps on the phone without WAP or GPRS?????

Monitoring conversations

Monitoring conversations are campaign impact, identifying what influencers are saying about your products, monitoring reputation and understanding consumer behavior. My focus is less on who is saying it and more on what is being said .I monitor conversations from various related Blogs, forums and other networking sites. There are Blogs and online discussions. Some brands want to know what they are saying about them. I monitor conversations from different sites and build up a brand name for firms.

Everybody changes their opinion because of comments. Also comments are the easiest way for people to connect with each other - you don’t have to have a blog yourself. “Everybody is a customer” It’s a kind of early warning system. And people are still often quite thrilled to get a reply. There’s a difference between just listening and then trying to change people or affect their behaviour.yes it’s about finding the influencers and then treading very very carefully.

Also demographics are very dependent on the types of blogs visited and the type of conversation going on. I think it’s a very human thing - the tools don’t really work, but getting in touch with people and talking to them is much better at pulling out who the most influential are. It’s not just about links; it can be just as much about community activities in real life as much as online. This is absolutely the way to go for larger brands.

What is Viral Marketing?

Creating a viral campaign is difficult, if not impossible. Virality is a goal, not a guarantee. The simplest definition of 'viral marketing- is word of mouth or telling someone else about a product or service via e-mail, fax or phone. Viral marketing is currently one of the most powerful marketing tools on the internet and a blessing for small businesses of all types. Branding is an important aspect of viral marketing.

One example of viral marketing is encouraging current and potential customers to tell others about the company's products and services, and in turn encouraging those others to tell even more others.

In simple Viral is a piece of information which goes out as propaganda for any product or service.

Web 2.0 technologies

The Internet Economy is being witnessing significant changes due to the introduction of participatory media and also due to the expansion of the interlinking communities made possible by Web 2.0. Web 2.0 applications are internet based services that emphasizes online collaboration and sharing among users. Some of the web 2.0 characteristics are rich interactive platform; user friendly interface; users own the data on the site and exercise control and applications are used entirely through a web browser.

The features that make web 2.0 grow as dynamic data driven communication platform are networking to parallel sites, the freedom to communicate ones own thought and exemption from just reading what is written. Such a platform lets its users participate and comment with the aid of APIs (Application programming interface).

Since Web 2.0 technologies are based on open standards, developers are integrating this technology in their business model based on open standards which pay way to more innovation than ever before. One such example for Web 2.0 tool is the social network marketing techniques which can be freely exploited.

Web 2.0 is marked with the alarming growth of web services such as blogs, wikipedia, Ad sense and flicker. As per the latest survey results in Internet World conference in London, 60% of businesses are actively using Web 2.0 technologies in their business.

Clients from all over the world are experimenting with various combinations of web services using existing data and information within their businesses to create new applications that brings a much larger utility to the customers using lucrative internet applications.

The working of a web 2.0 technology can be put in simple terms as following. Organizations are targeting more customers on the web through aggressive, not assertive marketing techniques. But actually it is the young people who actually makes the most of the bucks out of it by helping the companies through spreading their messages in terms of writing blogs, viral videos etc.

Some of the major internet companies who adopted the concepts of web 2.0 ate Amazon, eBay etc who took advantage of the communicative properties of the web media thus allowing the users to dissemination of information across them. Such companies normally have personal web pages and sites, photo sharing sites etc. Companies promote their brands through increased web traffic and thus ultimately pumped up their share prices, boosting up the internet industry.

Creating Buzz - Word of Moth Marketing

Guys, here is a link to a PPT on WOMM. It’s very precise but extremely informative; it talks about the power of WOMM. Also it has compared the traditional marketing with WOMM, which tells us how much influence WOMM has on buyer’s decisions.

WOMM - things to Do and NOT to do

1) The WOMM concept is more to do with spreading the word and building brand rather than lead generation. It can be used for both, however, the processes and execution for them is entirely different.

2) Keep in mind that WOMM can adversely affect your campaign too. It needs to be used wisely and judiciously. When you have too many links running around 2 things will happen. Either you will get banned from the site or community or you will meet people like me, who will brand your product as what I would like to call Door to Door Spam and make sure I tell everyone about it.

3) Against all logic, when you start a conversation with someone about a product or service, people will also flame you. DO NOT REACT. It only means 1 thing, your product, service or whatever else you are pushing, as impacted them in such a way, that its brought out a reaction. Which is why if you get flamed.. its good.

4) Since flaming is good…it also works the other way around. If you don’t get any reaction, you suck. It simply means that, your content or product or service, has had no impact. (back to the drawing board)

5) One of the best methods of WOMM is BOOKMARK, BOOKMARK and BOOKMARK. Digg, Delicious, Public eye, Furl and all other spin-off-tounge-twister-social-bookmarks are good! Social bookmark like you have never done before!

6) Target Blogs – Blogs need to be targeted intelligently. You CANNOT go to a blog and post in his comments section telling him/her, that they have a cool blog.. and then drop a bomb with your URL. You probably think this is the best way right? Wrong, wrong wrong! You’re thinking broadcast in a relationship world. Bloggers, especially popular bloggers, can smell self promotion a mile away. They aren't the PR department for your business or blog. They want relevant value for their own audience. They want information that fits their blog and their voice. If you want their help promoting your ideas you need to know and understand their ideas. The best way to get bloggers on your side is to actually talk to them…tell them about how promoting your product or service can add value to their blog. They are a listening bunch and they will listen. It's not about broadcasting it's about relationships.

7) Always remember brand advocacy is more important than brand image or brand satisfaction

8) No Marketing fluff! No Hype! No Lies! Remember this. 3 core rules to a successful WOMM campaign. People are not idiots.

9) Target opinion leaders. They are your source of buzz. Not just source…THE source. They are the ones who will push your product or service into the buzz.

10) Research Research and Research before launching a campaign…you NEED to know how your industry works. Get down to basics, how does information flow in your industry, how to people interact online in your industry, where do people get their information from in your industry, who influences your industry (see? Full circle!)

How to get more views on YouTube

Ok, here's an awesome video that talks about how to get more views on YouTube. Some pretty basic stuff and some very insightful stuff, but good overall.

You'll find some simple do's and don'ts in this video which i think everyone should follow when trying to promote your YouTube video. Cory! u the man!!

Welcome to Buzzuka

Hey All!!! Welcome to BUZZUKA!...The connected marketing blog! We are a site dedicated to bringing you the latest "buzz" on connected marketing. Think blogs, virals, social networks, word of mouth marketing, brand building and a lot more! We'll also bring you insights, news, views and exclusives. So stay tuned and stay connected!