Viral Marketing - what is it?

We're often asked to include considering 'viral' as one part of our integrated campaigns. But viral isn't a channel, it's an effect. It's just easier to refer to it in that way.

And it's simple and cheap right? Just film a movie, stick it on YouTube and watch it spread all over the world. Easy!
Wrong.

Due to the popularity of YouTube it's often assumed that viral=video but this is far from the case. These days 'viral' can be pretty much anything, from videos and Twitter competitions to augmented reality and 20% off booze vouchers.

And because it can be anything that's why an integrated approach is often best.

These days the easiest way to pass any content on from one person to another, or preferably to many, is using digital channels. But that doesn't mean that digital folk are necessarily the best people to come up with the original idea. In fact, you're probably going to get a more cynical response to an average idea because we tend to have more exposure to these channels and therefore more viral campagins than the average person. It's just the way we are.

Take the T-Mobile dancing in the station. Your average digital person would probably have said they'd seen flash mobs 100 times before. Been there, done that. I think it originated in New York and the first was in a carpet shop much to the displeasure of bemused sales assistants. It was nothing to do with a brand or product, just a bunch of pranksters having a laugh. Then there were the singers in the airport advertising the theatre. And so on....

However, with the backing of a TV campaign, the Liverpool Street dance has achieved nearly 14m views on YouTube. Now that's impressive!

But it's not a digital idea and sometimes the best virals aren't. In fact nearly every successful video viral is a good piece of film-making rather than a great piece of digital. The power of viral is usually in the digital method by which it's passed on.

As with any campaign a mix of channels works best. While I'm no fan of the advertising, Oasis pushed the boat out with the Cactus Kid. There was a website to vote on your preferred ending to the advertising series, Facebook and MySpace pages for the characters, behind the scenes making of content, even a fake find the kid campaign site. It wasn't my cup of tea, but then again I'm not the target audience. But I'm not sure they got it either.

It's not always about video. Websites can be viral too. Swedish Armed Forces is a spin off the traditional game route, presenting intriguing tests in such a creative and cool way that you want to send it on, well I did anyway.

And SAS Globe of Fortune is a clever hook up with your friends on social networks to win a free flight.

When you start to mix video content with creative digital technologies that's when things can really hot up.

Amongst the first to start customising video content online and sending it on were Audi (with their DNA campaign) and Mini with this viral classic produced by Glue.

Now this has spread to include video content and even voiceovers. Have a look at this from the Know the Signs Campaign from Heineken.

or this from ICO...

So what makes a successful viral? It really comes down to two key things, content and exposure.

1. Content
The general rules are that your viral needs to be;

- interactive (challenge your friend game)
- shocking (VW Polo suicide bomber or Diesel safe for work porn)
- sexy (Kylie for Agent Provocateur)
- funny (Old Spice)
- cool (Quiksilver)
- inquisitive (TFL or Samsung)
- or the latest trend, to have a feel good factor (Evian)

Sounds easy, but it's harder than it seems. It's difficult getting one of these that works hard in a way that your client's brand will be happy with. And it's always easier with B2C. It's got to have standout. So if you're going for comedy then make sure it's funny.

2. Exposure
If you are Nike then you're likely to have a database of customers and the traffic to your website to get your viral passed on. Nike didn't even need to release their Kobe LeBron adverts online, their fans did it for them, and then they parodied the ads, gaining even more exposure. Then again a good script, two megastars and a few Henson creations go a long way.

If you're a lesser known brand and are looking for impact, then you have to seed your content. And it's definitely worth working with seeding specialists rather than trying to join in the conversation cold. Your target blog will see right through any impostors and the damage you inflict could go more viral than your intended content.

Remember you can't control viral. It might spread around the world to audiences you never expected. With both positive and negative effects!

To sum up, always ask yourself, would you forward it to a friend or colleague? Would your target audience? If the answer's no then it's not going to go viral. Easy :-)

This last example ticks a number of boxes. It's a topical, clever, shocking, interactive video from the Metropolitan Police. Brilliant. If you're only going to click on one link in this post make it this one.

Barnaby Ellis
Head of Digital

Bing vs Google

It's even got it's own sound effect, but is Microsoft's new search engine really going to challenge Google's dominance?

The usual Microsoft bashers are already giving it a hard time, it's even been dubbed "But It's Not Google" but what's it really like?

Doing the same search on Google and Bing is the only real way to compare like for like in terms of search results and there isn't a lot of difference. The results are listed differently, with the video previews in particular pretty cool and the categorisation useful, but there's drawbacks too. The 'did you mean?' feature of google is automatic on Bing, but that's annoying if you didn't mistype your original query.

And Google indexes much deeper, i.e. it shows more results, which whilst you wouldn't go through all the pages, means that it is searching more sites. Bing will probably catch up but this is significant at least in the short term. But the short term is where this will battle is most significant.

The advertising is good but it's probably quite telling that the YouTube versions of the ads far outstrip the features video that Bing has also posted. Do users really know the difference and why they should switch? I don't think so.

Google has become part of our everyday life, whether it's search (and it's new search features), Gmail, iGoogle apps and the introduction of Wave (the new collaboration tool) coming soon. It's even become part of our everyday parlance and gained an entry in our dictionaries.

But would you ever Bing something?

I don't think your typical user will take the Pepsi challenge and do identical searches comparing like for like results and it's for this reason I think they'll struggle. But never underestimate Microsoft, oh, and a $100million advertising campaign!

Barnaby Ellis
Head of Digital
GyroHSR London

Interactive Video - a great marketing tool?

We all know that interactive video is fast becoming one of the most exciting trends on the web, but there are many discussions out there on how to monetize this medium.

Key to maximising interactive video’s effectiveness for your brand is thorough exploration of this medium’s endless possibilities. Bluhalo are currently doing just this, in order to develop targeted and intelligent implementation strategies.

Imagine your products displayed to an audience live in action, with detailed information on their possibilities and direct call to purchase actions displayed alongside them! Interactive video is also a great way to give added value to your consumer, further enhancing their engagement with, and trust in, your brand. Retailers can utilise this tool for both their television commercials run online and for purpose built videos.

Audience responses to online video, particularly video on demand, have been immensely positive. The viewer has been proven to be in hunting mode, with their mindset in an apex of attention, thus giving the advertiser a fantastic opportunity to convert viewers to purchasers.

Here is a great example by Gucci, featuring Drew Barrymore. Just hover and click to view the products!

YouTube already hosts numerous interactive videos and utilisation of this medium by brands is inevitable.

Have a play on this fantastic interactive card trick which we particularly love!

And making us feel incredibly nostalgic… the age old ‘selective ending’……..

The record industry is also fast cottoning on to the idea that interactive video can provide the perfect engaging B-roll for their Music Videos and it is surely it is only a matter of time before we can all shop on YouTube!

Anya Gooch
Account Manager

Can You Measure Social Media ROI?

The short answer is Yes, you can measure social media ROI. If you explore this question in a little more detail however, you’ll quickly come to the conclusion that when it comes to social media, ROI is not frequently going to be directly financial.

But as we know that there is much more to marketing than direct financial return, and with many brands already reaping the benefits of social media (and many feeling the pain of jumping in without consideration), there’s something about social media that brings a whole new dimension to the world of marketing. And when we refer to social media, we don’t just mean Facebook advertising, we’re talking about customer interaction, real conversations and relationship building.

How can you measure social media ROI?

Measuring social media ROI is a much discussed topic, and a topic that has historically been difficult to achieve consensus upon, not least because business objectives when approaching social media can vary quite significantly.

So what are the options?

As marketers, it’s numbers - quantifiable results, that secure budgets and with a largely qualitative medium, you’ve got to work hard to prove its worth. There are a number of things you can do and online resources that are available to assist you in putting together a convincing report of your social media success:

- Start with the obvious

Before you do anything else, make sure that you don’t forget to monitor the obvious stats. They’re easy to get hold of and tell you a lot about your standing in the social media world. Start with stats such as Facebook fans, Twitter followers, Flickr contacts, YouTube friends – working on building your presence in these popular communities is a good starting point if you’re new to social media marketing.

- Monitor brand buzz

Keep an eye on how frequently and in what context your brand is mentioned on social media sites – you can do this by using a number of the Twitter applications that are now available - setting up a search in Tweetdeck to monitor mentions of your brand name is a great start.

- Analyse the stats

Just as you monitor your website for traffic levels, unique visitors, time on site, bounce rates etc (and if you don’t, you should!), any reputable analytics package will also let you monitor your referring sites – sites that are sending you traffic. This lets you monitor how much traffic you are getting from social media sites. If you want to be sure the figures you’re getting are accurate, take an average pre-social media campaign and compare this to your stats whilst on-campaign. If you have a more advanced package, then you’ll be able to track right from referred site through to conversion – giving you a quantifiable and directly attributable financial result from your social media campaign.

- More quantitative measurement

There are also an increasing number of online measurement tools that can help to justify your social media spend and give you a guide as to the effectiveness of your social media efforts. A couple of examples of such sites are:

• PostRank – gives you statistics on your news / blog feed and ranks popularity based upon how often and where they are shared on social media sites

• Xinu – a goldmine of information providing a huge range of stats on your website from backlinks through to social bookmarks and much more. Best used as a guideline and benchmark to improve your online presence.

So the fact is, you can measure social media ROI, but it needs to be relevant to your objectives and KPI’s. Without relevancy in your social media activity, there are limited gains to be made.

When deciding on what you should measure, give consideration to the following three key metrics:

• Outputs – share of voice, tone of voice, site visits etc
• Outcomes – behaviour change, attitude change, increased brand reach
• Business results – the £££!

Embrace social media, enjoy social media and engage with social media. Given the opportunity to engage on a level never before possible, why would any marketer say no?!

Jocelyn
Marketing & Business Development Manager

What’s a mashup?

In recent months, we’ve started to hear the term used more frequently. We recommended the use of mashups in our recent article – Top Tips to Promote Your Business Online free – and it’s likely that you are are seeing or using a mashup a few times a week at least, probably without even realising it!

So, what is a mashup?

A mashup is the result of taking data from one or a number of sources and doing something to it to add value – altering it from its original format. This could be as simple as news aggregation - identifying all content on a certain subject matter, compiling it and then showing it on your own website. We did this using Yahoo! Pipes for Hi-Tec on their ion-mask campaign website, creating an ‘ion-mask in the news’ section for the website – providing the latest news from across the web on ion-mask and making Hi-Tec the authority on all things ion-mask.

Mashups do however take a variety of forms, with news aggregation being one of the more common applications. We’ve listed a few examples of mashups below to give you an idea on the scope and uses for them:

- Rightmove – Rightmove uses About My Place to show the location of properties on a map and to provide details of nearest stations.

- iGuide – iGuide uses Google Maps, WikiTravel, Geonames, Wikipedia, YouTube, Google Video and Placeopedia along with user generated content, to provide, what it claims to be, the most powerful travel guide ever.

- Flickrvision – makes use of Google Maps and Flickr to show images as they’re uploaded, pinpointed on a map of the world.

- Website Outlook – this site provides a valuation of your website based upon information taken from a number of sources including Alexa.

Why use a mashup?

We’re not suggesting that you go ahead and create a whole new website around a mashup, not unless you already have a great idea for one. What we are suggesting however, is that you consider the use of a mashup to enhance your website. You could start with something as simple as showing your visitors your shop locations using Google Maps, publishing your industry-related news on your website using Yahoo! Pipes or you could opt for something far more complex, such as an estate agent providing an automated valuation for a property based upon a selection of online data combined with their own formula.

Whatever your choice of mashup, make it relevant, useful and ensure it works as it should; and it will help to keep your website at the forefront of your industry. Your digital agency should be able to give you some suggestions for mashups that are relevant to your target audience – if not, get in touch with Bluhalo!

Jocelyn
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Top Digital Tips - promote your business free online

Marketing budgets are getting slashed and re-allocated all over the place. So, how do you go about promoting your brand without making a dent in that valuable marketing budget?

Read on for our top ten recession-beating tips to promote your business online for free this year. There’s nothing really new here, just simple, great advice for promoting your business without spending a penny.

1. Crowdstorming – get free ideas from your clients on what they want to see you doing next – check out what Dell are doing for more of an idea

2. Linkedin / Xing - Create a profile and join in with professional online networking – don’t lose touch with your business network, especially if they’re moving jobs this year!

3. Twitter - Get your message out there, be it promotions, news and info. Word is that Twitter is planning to charge companies for its use though. Great for monitoring what people say about your products or services.

4. Online PR – create more news stories for your website and build up a network of free PR distribution sites such as Pressbox.

5. Social networking presence – create free pages on the social networking sites, such as a fan page on Facebook.

6. Build your customer email database – sounds obvious, but you’ll be amazed how many businesses still aren’t doing this. If you already have one, use it! Start segmenting your messages to your audiences.

7. Be authoritative and authentic – have your say on opinion pieces, articles and user generated content relevant to your business to get your voice heard and to give your website an authentic presence.

8. Blogger / Wordpress - create a blog and get information out on the www – no time to blog? Why not share it amongst your team?

9. Social sharing – add a social share tool to your website and get your content out there – you could get over 10% increase in traffic by doing this- sharethis or addthis give you the tools to do it for free.

10. Create a mash up – pull free content into your website, use Yahoo Pipes to pull in RSS feeds for your industry news as we did on wetisdry.com or create videos for YouTube and feature them into your website.

Enjoy putting these into practice and if you do all this and still want more, give us a call!

The Digital World of SEO

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is an often debated topic simply because the dominant search engines hold their ranking secrets close their chests. In this blog, I aim to look at a model created to help you think about your website in relation to the Internet landscape and make use of the two simple underlying but powerful topics that are the foundation to the whole strategy - text and links. This principle focuses on natural search listings.

The headings fit into a tidy acronym which it easy to remember: PACT – Preparation, Aspirations, Catwalk and Text.

Preparation

Preparing yourself for the web is about understanding the digital world you are about to embark on. Don’t limit yourself to just your vertical market, look outside and see what others are doing to achieve common principles such as user experience and relationship building. Armed with this insight, look at your competitor’s sites carefully and find out what they are doing really well and where they could benefit from the vast array of digital functionality. Do they have RSS? A blog? Do they show their case studies clearly and give the user insight into what they do? Some key points to this are listed below:

• Pay attention to how the sites ‘share’ their information with the Internet – after all, those who send more, receive more!

• Your users are interested in the substance of what you offer as opposed to who you are and what you say you can do. Prove to them that you have substance, through trials, videos, excerpts and user feedback/ratings (remember negative ratings can be a good thing since they give you a chance to reply and show how genuine you are).

• Work out your income method: is it advertising, membership sales, product sales or are you selling a service. Be realistic about conversion rates which can typically be 1% on ecommerce sites and know you need millions of page views each month to gain advertiser interest. Sites like the SitePoint marketplace can be useful to sell advertising whilst you are building up your traffic profile.

• Install stats such as Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools to follow your indexing and learn how the search engine spiders are reading your content.

Aspirations

Your aspirations sit directly beneath your brand. These are the keywords on how you wish to be perceived as a business. Are you unique, sassy, exciting, edgy, strong, leading etc… Build a profile of words that you want your customers to associate with your brand. Everything you then do as a business must adhere to these brand values. Some key points are:

• Use these words to direct viral campaigns, blog entries, website copy, imagery and other material whether it is on or offline.

• Actively use social media like YouTube, StumbleUpon, Flickr and PhotoBucket to engage with users who like to browse unusual and viral digital media. Remember to place keywords (see ‘Text’ below) in any links back to your site since these sites are held in high regard by search engines.

• If you have a small budget, at least consider a professional design of your site. The subconscious affect of a decent design can speak thousands of words and gain instant trust from a user. One trick is to familiarise yourself with well known like-sites and adopt similar styles.

Catwalk

This interesting topic has been around in the offline world for generations but lends a great hand to a social media strategy. Large clothing brands often demonstrate their creative fashion skills on a catwalk. Most of the clothing does not hit the high street stores but the creativity/uniqueness on display helps drive brand awareness. This is true of car companies who take part in F1 or frequently produce concept cars demonstrating innovation and direction. It makes them stand out.This is key to any viral campaign or social media strategy where high quality inbound links are built at great speed. Listed below are a few things you can think about for your catwalk element:

• A blog can capture an audience when written well and frequently. A blog allows you to inform customers of upcoming products/services, showing them that the company is ‘alive’ and developing. A blog can be an instrumental part of creating a long tail so it is important that they are written well and with keywords in mind. Social sites that you can get benefit from include blogger.com, digg.com, del.icio.us and technorati.com who are massive content aggregators made up of vast web communities. Consider using WordPress or Blogger to set up your blog.

• With the domestication of broadband, Internet speeds allow for the syndication of video and rich media. It is very easy to post a video on YouTube and embed it into your site. Consider putting time and effort into making use of this vast Internet TV channel where it is free to advertise. Depending on your business, there should be a large amount of video ideas you can come up with and make you stand out a little more from your competitors.

• Consider the use of Flash to create a game or competition for your users to take part in. Large brands continue to develop promotional sites to reinforce their values and drive awareness to their brand and gather email addresses for future promotions/newsletters

Text

Last but certainly not least is the ‘Text’ element of your site. Arguably, this falls to Preparation but due to the scale of the topic, I have separated it here. The main concept behind text is relevance. You want to aim for a low ‘bounce rate %’ (the rate at which users exit your site without visiting more than one page). Some key tips for optimising the text on your website:

• Use tools such as Google Keyword Tool to find out the traffic volumes on relevant keywords. This useful tool will show you search volumes and likely keyword targets. For example; If more people are searching ‘Vans’ than ‘Commercial Vehicles’ then you would use the word ‘Vans’ with prominence over ‘Commercial Vehicles’.

• Include title, meta keywords and meta description on every page and aim for unique and highly specific descriptions for the content of that page. Sometimes it is impossible to uniquely markup each page but where possible make use of article/product titles and synopsis/short descriptions within the meta data of the page.

• Consider the use of a tag cloud. Not only do these ‘shout’ to the user what is popular/most listed on the site, they are great for search engines and contain targeted hyperlinked words linked to relevant results.

• Make sure any inbound links you control (such as those on the social media sites) contain relevant keywords to the page they are linking to and in addition to this, make sure those words get high search volumes from the research you would have conducted above.

• Use modern coding standards (XHTML and CSS - http://www.alistapart.com/articles/seo). This minimises the amount of code used to create the page and provides a clean presentation layer for search engines to easily index your site. Also, think about the logical structure of your content making use of headings, sub-headings and bulleted/numbered lists.

• Use title/alt tags on images and name your images with descriptive keywords. Image searches such as Google Image search can provide a substantial amount of traffic.

So in summary, SEO is the sum of its parts and it is important to focus on each the above with the same intensity. The Internet is a ‘network of networks’ so everything you do has a ripple effect that can in turn improve your SEO. There is one more element that supports all of the above and that is frequency. The more frequently you can produce a blog, a video, an image etc... the greater the expanse of inbound links and search keywords that lead to your site (also known as the ‘Long Tail’ http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html). User Generated Content (UGC) can aid in automating much of this but that is for another day…

David

Make Social Media work for you

Social media is one of the most talked about phenomenon in recent months. The term given to a new breed of websites that facilitate greater interaction with your online audience, social media offers a wealth of opportunity for B2B and B2C businesses alike. A comprehensive social media strategy tailored to your business needs will allow you to invest in social media effectively (we can produce one for you!). In the meantime, here’s our top five ways to make social media work for you:

1. Understand it

Before you can use it, you need to have an understanding of it. You don’t need to become an expert, that’s our job, but a good understanding will mean you know why you’re doing what you’re doing! A good place to begin to understand social media can be found in our blog article – 2008 – the year of going social online.

2. Get Digging

Add social bookmarking tools to all of your news and product pages which will allow your visitors to easily bookmark and share your content within their own networks. Sites such as Digg, del.icio.us and reddit are a good starting point.

3. YouTube

Youtube now receives more traffic than Google.com. That’s proof enough that user generated content (UGC) is fuelling the new web. Try and think of unique and novel ways in which you can use YouTube to promote your products and services. It could be a clip of your products in action, interviews with your staff or even a full blown promotional video.

4. Twitter

Twitter is a great way of keeping tabs on your friends, colleagues and workforce. It’s basically a site that lets you tell people what you’re doing. Sounds simple but many people don’t get it initially, once you do, you’ll be hooked!

5. Get Networking

Sites such as LinkedIn, Plaxo and Facebook are amazing resources for getting in touch with people, generating leads, raising brand awareness and much more. They’re also becoming powerful business to business (B2B) tools, enabling companies to effortlessly communicate with their stakeholders. You don’t need technical knowledge to use them and they can be great fun too.

To continue with our marathon of web tips, click on one of the articles below:

Increase your website traffic
Hot 5 design trends
Blog successfully
Must-have website features

2008 – the year of getting social online…

Getting your website found online isn’t just about PPC and SEO. Now often termed ‘traditional’ online marketing tools, they are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the wealth of digital marketing tools available.

So where do you start? Why not with one of the most talked about phenomenon in recent months – Social Media…

What is Social Media?

Social Media is the marketing term that has been given to the new breed of online websites that facilitate greater interaction with an online audience. Social Media sites allow two-way interaction between online content owners and their audience. It enables website visitors to engage, interact and contribute to content. It also enables site owners to syndicate content out to other sites and online channels, and gives them the ability to easily aggregate relevant, related content from other sources into their own sites.

What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is the term given to the tools and techniques that form the core of many Social Media sites and channels. Techniques such as Blogs, Social Bookmarking, Syndication, RSS, and Aggregation are some of the popular terms that you may have heard of; however there are also many more available to you as a business.

What does this mean to you as a business?

By empowering your audience with the ability to contribute to the content on your site, you will gradually build a strong relationship with them and develop brand loyalty. The web is no longer a faceless medium. In doing this, you will become an authority in your market sector and you will build trust through personal recommendation and the informed opinions available on your site. Your employees will feel more valued through recognition of their contribution and you will build a more personal bond with your customers through better engagement on a real-time level.

How can I use Social Media?

A clearly defined Social Media strategy will identify the Social Media channels that will best engage your stakeholders, from employees and clients, to suppliers and investors.

So what can I do?

Here are a few tried and tested techniques that you can use to start embracing social media:

1. Write a blog

You’re reading this one, so that’s proof enough that they work! Blogs are a great way of informally communicating with your audience, and they cost nothing more than your time! They’ll also improve your SEO, which is always a good thing!

2. Get Digging

Add social bookmarking tools to all of your news and product pages which will allow your visitors to easily bookmark and share your content with their own networks. Sites such as Digg and del.icio.us are a good starting point.

3. YouTube

Youtube now receives more traffic than Google.com. That’s proof enough that user generated content (UGC) is fuelling the new web. Try and think of unique and novel ways that you can use YouTube to promote your products and services.

4. Twitter

Twitter is a great way of keeping tabs on your friends, colleagues and workforce. Many people don’t get it initially, but once you do, you’ll be hooked!

5. Get Networking

Sites such as LinkedIn, Plaxo and Facebook are amazing resources for getting in touch with people, generating leads, raising brand awareness and much more. They’re also becoming powerful business to business (B2B) tools, enabling companies to effortlessly communicate with their stakeholders.

So how do I know what to use?

That’s where we come in. With a wealth of digital marketing experience, we’re the right people to talk to about all of the above and more. To see what Bluhalo Evolve can do for your business online, please drop me an email: oliver@bluhalo.com