How To Integrate Viral Marketing Into Your Small Business

Welcome back!

I’m a strong proponent of social media.  I think everyone can benefit from it and I think everyone, large or small, should be doing it (at least to some degree).  I recently spoke at the Salt Lake City chapter of the Social Media Club where I spoke with Jordan Lebaron & Chris Bennett about the effects of social media on SEO (PDF download).  I spoke primarily on how local companies can implement simple social strategies to boost their brand recognition and overall exposure in the Engines.

After reading David Mihm’s incredible post on Search Engine Land labeled, “Do-It-Yourself SEO Advice For SMBs” he mentions in #6 to “Get Social.  As I said above, I believe ANY site can benefit from social media and 99% of the time, the companies that are engaging in social media effectively are the ones that are out-ranking their competitors.  A short while back, 97th Floor had a whole series dedicated to providing ideas and examples of local companies that could use social media.  They called it Viral Marketing Idea Friday (great ideas and definitely worth a read).

Start Getting Started

Most people (or their companies) don’t get started in social media because they feel they won’t be able to contribute.  Balderdash!  Any site can become an authority on SOME subject and excel in that.  If you don’t have a blog on your site (shame on you, firstly), get it installed and start posting info pertinent to your niche.  Seriously, getting started and publishing new, fresh content is the first (and often the best) decision you can make towards viral marketing.  Put together some content or lists based off of the geo-targeted location of your business.

Become the resource for news in your area.  That’s what Google wants when defining SERPs, provide a list of the best sushi joints if you’re  a local restaurant or places in your area to heal/rehabilitate different parts of your body, naming specialists.  By providing information that is both relevant and local, you give your visitors what they want as well as content worthy of being shared.

StumbleUpon – The Simple Starter

There have been countless articles posted on StumbleUpon…how to utilize it, whether or not to register and more.  I won’t get into too much detail since DoshDosh hit a homerun with his Comprehensive Guide to StumbleUpon.  I highly recommend getting highly involved with StumbleUpon listed in those articles.  You will see bursts of traffic on a consistent basis if you do it just right.

Whether you’re using SU’s paid or free model, it’s an excellent (and cheap) source to get qualified eyeballs to your site/content.  It couldn’t be easier; post some info up, click on a little thumbs up.  Done.

Stage 2:  Digg & Reddit

Here’s where things get fun and definitely start to pick up!  Digg has the capability of sending massive amounts of traffic to your site (and if your site’s on a wimpy server, you may want to consider a serious upgrade).  Digg & Reddit are some of the largest social aggregate sites out.  Unfortunately, they are also much more complex that StumbleUpon…now it’s time to REALLY get social.

By spending as little as 30 minutes on either/both of these sites a day, you can easily start to see what types of stories do well and which ones don’t quite reach the mark.  Again, there are way too many points to cover for this article as to how to be successful with Digg, but Mashable did a very good post on getting the most out of Digg.  I think they hit the nail on the head with some of the more important tips.

Any sized business can benefit from successful viral marketing.  The unique source of links that will be acquired are what set your site aside from the mundane and usual listings and will also be one of the defining factors of out-ranking your competitors.  Links will get you where you want to be and great content that goes viral will be what gets you those links.  This article, on How the Average US Citizen Spends Their Paycheck, has been majorly successful with their infographic.  In just over a week they’ve garnered 30,000 new links to this post (and climbing).  ANYONE, ANY business can do things like this for their site!

Put Incredible Effort Into Your Content

If you’re trying to succeed in the viral community, one thing is clear:  everyone can sniff out fake.  There’s a big difference between a piece meant for viral marketing and an actual viral marketing piece (the latter was constructed to build emotion/interest to spread the content).  Now, I’m not saying don’t put out content if your goal is achieve large amounts of traffic…just don’t do it ONLY for that reason.

Suck at writing?  That’s ok, a bunch of us do (yours truly included).  So what?  There are plenty of people out there fully qualified to illustrate what you had in mind into proper form.  Christina Gleason over at Phenomenal Content is one of them…trust me, just do it.

Find a Great Graphic Designer!

I’m a sucker for images.  I honestly think it may be one of the things that keeps my ADHD brain fixated on an article long enough to finish it.  That’s one thing I like about 10e20’s blog, Pat Winfield always makes these custom, awesome-filled banners at the top of each post to make you feel all warm and fuzzy about the article you’re going to read.  It puts a nice touch to the great articles they write over there.

Seriously though, a great designer will take your blog, and your content, far!  Infographics are all the rage now.  The research on the info will be just about the same as any regular article you plan to publish.  It’ll be the designer that will be the one to take it that next step and put it into eye-candy-form.

A great example of a local company taking strides with viral marketing is Odeus.  A year ago, they were a brand new skate company with very little street cred (which is a necessity in their field to get picked up by local shops).  With some social marketing help, they’ve gone out to publish some amazing articles and infographics (this one’s my fav) related to skate.  They’ve become well-known for their pieces and are now getting picked up in many local shops (and a huge following in Germany, strangely enough).

Pound-for-pound, viral marketing is what will place your site above your competitor’s, and that’s even more so with local companies.  Social media is still in its infancy and many companies still just don’t get it.  Now’s your chance to figure it out and utilize that to make you and your company better and stronger.

Technorati Tags: social media, viral marketing

Tagged as: social media, viral marketing