Ewom Marketing

One of my favorite websites is YouTube. As well as using YouTube to watch videos I have created and uploaded my own. For work purposes I also created a channel on our products, which contained videos such as how to guides and demos. The Channel proved very popular and was a first within the company. YouTube also roved to drove traffic to our websites as well as help ranking in the search engines. Therefore it is very important that when you submit a video to YouTube that you make is Search engine spider friendly. Everything from the title to the thumbnail are very important! Below I have put some information to help you make your YouTube videos help both the viewer and YOU!

Many people think that just by naming their image file with the keyword that they desire, and by inserting a descriptive “alt” tag text in the HTML code, the Google’s Image Search system will index your image and thus your page. Well if only it was that easy! That does have some effect but not much!

While exploring social networks further I discovered a good tool on Facebook for companies who don't have the budget to pay for adverts. Facebook now enables products and brands to have their own special Facebook pages free of cost!

If you go to the homepage of Facebook, at the bottom of the page is some small links, click on the one called Advertisers. Although this takes you to a homepage to buy ads. You will be able see a free opportunity to post a Facebook page for your product or company even if you don't use the Facebook advertise program.

You get to name the page, add images, videos, links, forums, news, and more. Very similar to the group application on Facebook.

I imagine this works stronger for B2C than B2B businesses or strong and well known brands as they have built-in enthusiast and fan bases. Not sure of the impact it has on Search engine ranking yet. I’ll keep you updated!

www.facebook.com

There’s lots of articles on the internet that list different methods and techniques to create a successful blog. I combined about 3 - 4 articles and come up with this guide for myself:

1. Blog with consistent
Make up your mind first on how often you will make posts on your blog. If you want to do it twice a day, or once a day, or once every 2 days or just once a week - decide this and then stick to it. Don’t post everyday for a few days and then do nothing at all for a week. You will lose whatever repeat “sticky” traffic you could get.

2. Be passionate about your topic
You have to be passionate about what you blog. You should be knowledgable about your niche blogging topic, and keep updated. If you are not passionate about your blog, you will probably not excite your readers.

3. Interact with readers
Allow your readers to post questions directly to you and reach you if needed. Don’t alienate yourself from them. Many readers may want to get in touch with you and ask you questions. Listen to them, and help them out! Blogging is a two way street. Involve your readers and they will be loyal to you. Build two way relationships!

4. Don’t be afraid to link out
If you see and read a good posting or article elsewhere, link to it! This may seem contrary to popular belief and at first it looks like you are channeling traffic away from your site at the risk of getting your readers hooked elsewhere. But by providing valuable links to other stories, you are gaining authority and credibility by showing that you know what is happening around you. Readers will love you for referring them to other stories, and will come back for more stuff if you send them to quality articles in the sea of poor content.

5. Build Your Blog Brand
Whatever you choose to call your blog - make sure you have your own domain name and not a subdomain on say for example yourname.blogspot.com . That just doesn’t work in the long run for serious bloggers. Take control of all you can do with free blog software like Wordpress and install them on your domain - it takes less than an hour and you can easily contract out someone for as little as $50 to install it. Having your own domain name gives you your unique brand, and allows you to stand out from the crowd.

6. Be a good writer
Communicate your thoughts and ideas in well structured English. Some people take longer than others to express their thoughts. It’s ok to have a few typos as its acceptable by blog readers. But don’t have too many typos. People are interested in the content. Be clear and to the point - and don’t ramble on and on repetitively.

7. Read other blogs in your industry
See what other competing blogs are writing. Read a LOT. Reading is something you must do. Visit websites that are related to your blog topics and get ideas from them - but never copy them word for word. It’s ok to summarize another bloggers post in your own words, and saying the same thing in your way.

In my opinion banners no longer work well and are pretty useless! Banners usually achieve high click-through rates for the first couple of weeks, but after that they sink pretty quick. There are few ways to increase your click-through rates if you still use banners though, here's a few tricks.......

Use “Action” Words - Use words which ask web users to react for example: “Click Here” Banners with “Click Here” teasers, and similar action phrases will improve click-through rates.

Short and to the Point - using short and to the Point sentences on banners will make a big difference.

What’s the Benefit? - Use statements that offer benefits to the user and offer solutions to solve customers’ problems

Animated Banners vs. Static Banners - Animated banners usually receive more click- through rates then static banners. Users of the Internet are more likely to notice banners that are animated. Further more use a combination of both text and images.

Change your Banners Frequently - After the user has seen your banner for the 3rd time, they will probably ignore the banners in the future. You should track your click-through rate closely and if you notice it falling it is time to change the banner!

The publication Business weekly this week published an article on Twitter, which made me think that I should really write or “blog” something about it:

Twitter is a social media service that is a cross between SMS text messages and Blogs. Twitter otherwise known as “microblogging”, has become hugely popular with traffic on Twitter exploding within the past couple of months. The basic concept is that you can subscribe to get short and brief commentary in the form of live alerts from other members by SMS, Instant Messenger or Email. You can also choose to follow your favorite users and get updates from (Yes basically the status feature from Facebook)

If my description doesn’t make sense here’s the basics from Wikipedia:

“Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service (e.g. on a cell phone), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook. Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application.” >With such a large user base, businesses are now looking to use twitter as a channel to talk to customers. Media groups in the U.S. are using users of Twitter (Twitterers) to gain first minute news.

Currently I do not use twitter for personal reasons. I have tried in the past to try and drive traffic to websites through it. Although due to a lack of following this didn’t help! If you are already a well followed blogger or forum user then Twitter could benefit you though. Here’s a just three ways of how it can help you:

I attended the Internet World Exhibition & Conference which took place last week in London, UK. It looked at all things marketing but focused only on electronic marketing. It was attended by over 100 well known internet companies including Google, Facebook, Linkedin, and EBay. It was interesting to hear that online advertising spending in the UK was 2.8 billion pounds! While in 2004 it was just 653 million pounds. I’d thought I’d share a few points I noted that interested me and that I thought may be useful to you also.

Over the past 10 years there has been a large growth in the amount of creativity used in marketing and adverts. Every company wants to stand out from the rest and gain the attention of the public. I have put together a list of the top 5 adverts that do not just stand out but are also very creative and clever.

5. Bend over!

This yoga company advertised its yoga club by showing just how much they will bend over to help you get fit! These straws were distributed to local drink establishments, as well as containing a picture of someone doing yoga, who bends anyway you bend the straw, the company also placed the address to their website on the straw.