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Internet Marketing 101 and the Cincinnati Gorilla

Kim · June 1, 2016 · Leave a Comment

Stock image of a gorilla from Pixabay

If you haven’t heard about the tragic killing of an endangered Gorilla in the Cincinnati zoo last week, then you may have just returned from an internet-free zone on a deserted island. (Or at least not been on social media recently.) The event was tragic, and no matter how it turned out, it likely would have ended in tragedy. I’m not here to lay out my opinions on whether or not the Gorilla had to be killed or whether or not the mother of the child who fell into the exhibit is at fault.

What I am here to discuss is how this relates to internet marketing, the way stuff goes viral on Facebook and Twitter and how this can contribute to your business building efforts. I know, you are probably thinking that it’s got NOTHING to do with it! Well a discussion I had this morning, on a Facebook post, with someone totally created my thoughts on this.

Here’s how it went. Someone wrote an article that shows the father of the child has a criminal past. Exactly HOW is that relevant? 100% not relevant! But it accomplished getting at least one other article written about that article, calling out the reporter as a racist because of the family being African American.

Now I don’t know that reporter from Adam, so I have no way of knowing if that reporter is a racist; nor does the author of article number 2, I presume.

What I do find incredible, is that even though article number 1 has absolutely zero to do with the situation at hand of who was or was not at fault for the killing of that majestic creature, it has gone viral. Why? Because it has a piece of information that was not available elsewhere. It touched on two things that are more or less hot topics in our current culture (parenting skills and endangered animals) and threw into the mix what we all seem to love best…plain old fashioned gossip about the people involved. I mean, the court of social media had already tried and convicted the mother, now they can justify themselves by seeing what a “bad guy” the dad is too. And it just so happened that the family in question is black.

Article number 2 picked up on that little detail and capitalized on it by simply throwing the extremely hot topic of racism into the mix. Author 2 “called out” the “racism” in article number 1. Whether that racism is real or not is apparently irrelevant. (The irony being that the publisher of article number 1 is not even an American company.)

The results, folks, is every internet marketer’s dream come true. And we all know that controversy sells just as well as “relevant” information.

Those of us who have been in this game long enough, know that one way or another, money is made by traffic to your website. Some of us make money from the clients that find their way to our website. But newspaper-type businesses make money from the advertisements on the website. The more people who view and/or click on those advertisements, the more money they make.

So how does a British newspaper, most likely the last one into the game, make a few extra bucks off a story that had surely had every possible angle already beaten into the virtual ground before the main media even picked it up? You find something unique. And that just happened to be that the dad of the child who fell into the gorilla cage has a not-so-pretty history. Never mind that he is now a law-abiding family man. Never mind that he wasn’t even at the zoo. What matters to the reporter and to the company that she works for, is that it’s something unique.

Would it have mattered if the family happened to be white? I doubt it. Gossip is gossip no matter who it’s about. Just look at the other articles on that website. Plenty of nasty gossip, and most of its about white people. We all say gossip is a disgusting thing, but we still eat it up and contribute to it.

Let me summarize:

  • Article 1’s author did some extra digging and “broke” a story around the world, irrelevant as it may be, that people apparently are eating up. It’s pure gossip.
  • The second article, created a buzz in the US on a hot topic that nobody had likely even thought of in relation to this parenting vs endangered animal story.
  • Article number 1 has 70K shares. Article 2 has 22K shares. Together that’s nearly 100,000 shares and likely millions of comments and clicks to the articles between all those posts.
  • Article 2 creates a quality link to article 1, and watch those Google spiders go. SEO baby! Plus, both articles are linked in those 100K shares that I mentioned above.
  • Both articles are now making some serious bank from the advertisements on the sides of those stories. Just because someone didn’t notice as their child slipped into the gorilla cage.

So what can we learn from all of this if we step back and look at the situation without emotion? Find a story that is “all the talk”. Find a unique angle to that story. Write about that unique angle, even if its controversial or of questionable ethics. (But please listen to your heart and your gut before you do that!) Link to other well-done and popular articles. Get your story out there on social media. Run ads if you have to at first. Just get people talking about your perspective. And watch the readers pour in.

In case you haven’t noticed, I am actually doing the same thing that the reporters did. Finding a unique twist on that story. I mean, really? A gorilla and a child can turn into an article on internet marketing and SEO? LOL That’s how it’s done folks!

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Speaking of marketing 101… CoachGlue has a fantastic resource to help you work out your social media plans. Check it out here! (Yes, those are affiliate links. )

LeadPages new Drag & Drop Builder…I like it!

Kim · March 31, 2016 · Leave a Comment

I build landing pages…opt in pages, sales pages, webinar registration pages…you name it, that’s a major part of my business! I create them for myself and mostly for my clients. Anyone who has thought about building a landing page of any kind has likely heard of LeadPages. If you have used it and wanted some creative license with your new page, you likely found yourself quite frustrated with the cookie-cutter limitations that it had.

Well, now the game has changed! I just had the opportunity to try out their new drag & drop builder for the first time. Its got a couple of limitations I have noticed, but overall its a HUGE improvement! I can now happily recommend LeadPages to my clients who have heard they should use it.

What I didn’t like:

  1. Integration with WebinarJam did not seem to carry through to the drag & drop. (The integrations on drag & drop are very limited compared to the regular templates.) This specific page I was working on required that integration, so I had to turn around and return to the basic template (and the frustrations that go with it…boo!). I think if you have the LeadLinks upgrade that might be a work-around. This client did not.
  2. There are a limited number of templates to begin your build with. While not essential, its nice to have their proven templates as a guide. I didn’t have trouble finding an opt in page, but there are no thank you pages with the drag & drop option.
  3. Everything seems to have really slowed down. Maybe it was just me, or maybe it was just today, however it seemed to be a server load issue…but I had to refresh loading pages a few times because they just kept loading and loading and loading. I’m sure this is temporary!

So far that’s my only complaint. And I expect that integration issues is something that will be resolved before too long. Plus, I’m sure the d&d templates are being added to frequently.

For a straight forward opt in page going to one of the more common integrations, such as Aweber or Go To Webinar, or with a simple link, the new LeadPages Drag & Drop page builder is quite nearly perfection met.

Have you used LeadPages Drag & Drop feature? What did you think abou tit?

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* Some of the links in this article are affiliate links. *

How Does Facebook Work for Your Business?

Kim · January 3, 2010 · Leave a Comment

facebook iconFacebook is incredibly popular. Everyone has heard of it. Many people have a Facebook page. And many of them are even active on it! Now that you can update it from a variety of sources, including your cell phone, the activity on Facebook is tremendous. In fact, Christmas day set a record for Facebook—it was the most visited website on the net! It even beat out Google!

What do people do on Facebook? Well, they keep up with their friends, they make new friends, they play games, they promote political and social causes, and they expand their business connections. Just about anything. Facebook is a place that people “live”.

Businesses are finding that the free advertising they get on Facebook is more effective than thousands of dollars of television or print advertising. We have long known that word-of-mouth is an effective way of getting business. Facebook is, in large part, word-of-mouth (err…hand?) marketing at its best.

Here is how it can work. Shelley goes on Facebook to knock out a few more “Mafia enemies,” and while she is there she thinks about her upcoming house hunt. She has browsed houses online quite often, but she wonders if there is a local Realtor on Facebook. So she searches for one. And sure enough, she finds one! Let’s say the Realtor’s name is Jim. Shelley becomes a fan of Jim’s business page and begins to get great updates about real estate in her area. When Shelley becomes a fan of Jim’s business, every one of her friends sees a nifty little update about her, it says something like “Shelley became a fan of Jim’s Real Estate.” Shelley’s friend Mark is also thinking of buying a house in the future. He sees Shelley’s update, and clicks on the link to Jim’s page. Mark likes what he sees, so he also becomes a fan of Jim’s page. Mark’s status is updated to reflect this, and his friend Peter sees it and clicks….well you get the idea. Once the first fans have been found, a business page can spread like wildfire!

Who are the people in your area finding when they search for Facebook business pages? If you aren’t on Facebook, then someone else is getting fans—and customers—that could be yours!

How Effective will Social Media Marketing be in 2010?

Kim · January 1, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Twitter-23Happy New Year!  Now is the time for lists, lists, lists. There are lists highlighting everything from “worst dressed celebrity of 2009” to “top political stories of 2009”.  People like to review the previous year, and make predictions for the new year.  Some of the most helpful studies were ones regarding social media marketing strategies.  Maybe some of these findings will help you formulate a plan on how you will use social media in 2010.  Or if you need help setting up and using these sites and platforms, please contact Kim and let us help!

According to eMarketer, the number of people who use Twitter has increased by over 200% over the last two years, and 2010 shows a predicted increase of another 44%.  According to their study, an estimated 26 million adults will be using Twitter in 2010.  I recently blogged about the effectiveness of Twitter.  I was a ‘hesitant convert’ and didn’t necessarily understand all the hype. That is until I started using Twitter.  If you do not use it, you must!

Email may be the first form of online marketing, but it is still an effective form according to Bizreport.com.  They predict more integration between email and social ad platforms.  A good example of this integration is Posterous.com which I blogged about earlier.  Bizreport.com also released a study that 40% of email marketers plan to increase their email marketing budgets in 2010.  Another study on this same site concluded “email remained the most popular media among marketers for use next year (56.8% “realistically” plan to use it), social media isn’t far behind. Over half (56.3%) “realistically” plan to include it in future marketing plans.”

Ad-ology.com wrote the “Small Business Marketing Forecast 2010” and this states lead generation is the biggest benefit of social networking.  Small businesses rated Facebook as the most beneficial site.  The forecast continued to say awareness of social media is high but nearly one-half of respondents wished they knew more about how to use it.

If you are one of the people that need help utilizing these sites, then you need our services.

Check back to read more on recently conducted studies on internet marketing.

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