marketing

Rick Steves and How To Correctly Build a Brand

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July 17  |  Brand Building  |   Ryan Clark

I’ve been a HUGE fan of Rick Steves for over 10 years now and it’s finally dawned on me that I love the man for more than his amazing Books, DVD collection and podcasts: Rick Steves has built an empire doing what he LOVES and, in terms of building a brand, he’s done just about everything absolutely right. Rick may be the dorkiest travel man in the business yet he can teach us all a lesson in personal branding at its finest. His digital and broadcast empire has been done so well that it provoked me to write this post to showcase how things should be done. While Rick Steves is the brand name, he is powered by an amazing team that includes family and friends who dearly respect the man.


Photo Credit: RickSteves.com

Do I secretly hope Rick will read this one day and consider hiring me to work with him? Yes. Am I sounding like the world’s biggest ass kisser at the moment? Yes. Either way, we’ll look at how Rick managed to transition seamlessly from Books and DVD’s to eventually taking over the web and building a brand that (I think) will be passed on for a very long time to come. Instead of regurgitating link building and social media marketing tips, I’ll be breaking down how the Rick Steves empire was built for the consumer in mind and why they NEVER have to worry about building links or tricking people into following them on Facebook/Twitter.

While you may not have heard of Rick Steves, he and his brand is “famous” within the travel industry. I’ve picked Rick to demonstrate what you should be doing here in 2012 and beyond. Over the years, so many brands have been duped or lead astray with lousy link building, boring social media efforts and no real long term branding strategy in play. I’m going to walk you through what it looks like when you put your love, effort and customers first and how that results in marketing gold. First up, for those who still don’t know who Rick is, check out this blooper clip from his show.

Video Credit: Rick Steves DVD’s

What Does A Natural Link Profile Look Like?

The main point I’m trying to get across is that doing amazing things and being active in your community/vertical will create the only truly natural link portfolio. The Rick Steves empire consists of a real world business first, and then the digital age takes over and his entire company adapts extremely well. Rick also does lectures and PBS specials, which, of course, lead to links and citations and, as you can see from the numbers below, it has done his company well!



Link Data via Ahrefs.com

That looks quite impressive; I’d hate to be his competition!

While not every company is going to be able to score this kind of a natural link profile easily, this should get your mind turning. Rick somehow manages to make the time to write for various authoritative sources and the rest of his links are seriously au-naturale! You won’t find Rick article marketing, socially bookmarking his content, spamming forums or blog commenting. I won’t completely break down Rick’s link profile as you can easily check it for yourself. I’d just like to showcase some of the goods and how being a leader in your vertical will draw in the links so well you’ll never have to build links.

Looking at the top links for Rick you’ll see he writes for The Huffington Post, NY Times Travel and USA Today Travel. This is one of the huge benefits of being a leader in your niche as you’ll be asked to write for the most authoritative resource available. First and foremost, he has grown his brand on his books and his television & radio shows have really propelled Rick to “celeb” status.

What does having those media advantages bring in regards to links? Well, to name just a few natural citations his organization has, the board of NORML, being on PBS, Wikipedia, Salon.com and way, way more. His website is truly a shining example of doing things right and I doubt the man even knows what link building is…

Another aspect besides TV and Radio I’d like to mention is something a lot of brands don’t do that they should: mobile and tablet apps. If you’re a major player in your vertical, or are trying to be, you should have something for the mobile crowd, or at least be in the process of getting something done. If not, you should give yourself a smack in the face and wake up to 2012; get in the game before it’s too late.

Ricks’ team has been on top of things and they have amazing audio guides for locations all over Europe. My friends who recently traveled the world used these and loved them while in Greece. You can nab the audio guides and apps for both the iPhone and the Android. This has lead to tons and tons of links both from the markets, app sites, travel news, travel blogs and press releases. This is another great example of creating amazing content that deserves links that are natural.

Social Media That’s Truly Social

By now you should know that having a Twitter and Facebook account is NOT partaking in social media. We have too many potential and current clients hooked on just seeing their follower numbers rise. Rarely do we have a client that is truly engaging with their customers, so hopefully Rick’s example empowers your efforts.

The post you see to the left is from the time I’m writing this article. Within 8 hours of being live, it has 700 likes and 35 comments. Can you imagine how many more eyes saw this in their timeline? This folks, is REAL engagement and a brilliant example of giving your social followers something they love. Not to bring up links in the social media portion, but imagine having those 200 radio stations all linking to your website. This is a clear indication that people absolutely love your brand and if you’re still getting 4-10 likes on your shares, it’s time to rethink your strategy.

I think the main problem for companies engaging in social media is that the beginning stages are quite slow and boring. The old saying that “all good things come to those who wait” couldn’t apply better here. It takes a while to build an audience, so hold in tight for the first few months and just do all you can to engage and entertain. Your amazing content is the key to success so make sure you actually have exciting things going on. Another important aspect is the design to match your branding across the usual suspects (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube). A visually appealing brand makes customers feel at home, comfortable buying and overall you just look damn good (3 piece suit anyone?). Just take a look at the Rick Steves Youtube Channel:

Rick truly loves connecting with his fans whether it be in real life or via the digital tubes called the internet. I always wondered how the man made time to do everything he does and I figured he didn’t do a lot of his social activities like blogging. I’m sure fans also wondered and here’s a great example of how Rick covered this and how it shows to connect to your followers. He made use of the Facebook Notes section of his business page to convey his message.

Some people have emailed us assuming that I don’t actually write these blog entries or read the responses. As my staff can assure you, I jealously guard my responsibility to personally write everything that we put on this page. Except for the rare guest blogger, I write every word you see. (I do have an editor proof my writing. The thinking among my staff: If you saw how poorly I spelled, you might think less of my guidebooks.) And I eagerly look forward to reading your responses. I rarely respond back, because that would suck me into an entire new arena — and I need to draw a few boundaries. (While my staff does make announcements for me on Twitter, I have little interest in tweeting.) One reason I enjoy this blog is that I can be unguarded, candid, and even reckless from a marketing point of view…and just call it fun. I feel like my traveling blog friends are a kind of special inner circle, and it’s refreshing to be able to call it like I see it. I hope you enjoy being part of it all.

This is what social media is all about folks! Engaging, discussing and educating your online friends will set your brand to be the leader in your vertical. The entire “stew” of what Rick’s brand has cooking has lead his website and videos to some of the hardest ranking positions in the entire travel industry. The whole point I’m trying to get across is that doing all the right things does lead to great rankings, boat loads of social followers and a reputation that puts forth trust within the consumers mind. If you can do all these you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank for a very long time to come. Your brand doesn’t build links to make money so do what it does, give your customers what they want and the links will come naturally.

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POF.com Removes Viewed Me Feature = Lessons In Branding IRT

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March 12  |  Brand Building  |   Ryan Clark

So a trending topic today today was how pof.com (Plenty of Fish) removed a free featured and has taken into their paid member only section. I wanted to mention it because there are businesses thinking about doing something like this right now, and there will be more in the future. So what happens to a brand when they try and take something which they offered for free, separated them from their competitors and was most likely a key ingredient to their success? While they say the move is to help cover the costs of removing banner advertisements, it seems a good chunk of their users would rather have the ads back.

Since this literally just happened over the weekend we’ll be able to see how this all plays out for the Vancouver based company. There is potential for a large enough sway from their users to get the feature back and settle for an ad based revenue stream. Either way they swing it I think it’ll at least do a great job of getting them in the news which means links and social buzz galore. The POF forum has been lit up with non stop threads complaining about their decision to remove the viewed me feature. As you can see from the picture below, their support staff will be quite busy fielding complaints from there, social media, emails and their support phone number.

pof.com viewed me feature

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Creating Microsites for Amazing Real Estate Properties

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October 12  |  Real Estate Marketing  |   Geoff

It seems that creating an entire website, domain and all, is becoming a really fashionable way to market a single, usually very special, residence online. Granted, you probably won’t have nearly enough time to set one up for each listing, but for the ones that could really use some exposure, it might just be worth your time to throw up a micro site and maybe get a few potential buyers interested that wouldn’t have known about the property before.

Luxury Property on the Water

Admittedly, you don’t necessarily have to buy a domain for a micro site, but if you do buck up and spend the ten dollars, it will lend your page that much more credibility, you can buy a keyworded domain to help with your rankings, and customize it entirely for the property. Let’s be honest, the competition to represent some of these multi-million dollar pieces of real estate is tough, everybody wants the commission and prestige that comes with selling one, but you have to be willing to take that extra step for the client. Having a custom built website for the property is going to be just that.

You don’t necessarily want to stop at buying the domain and slapping up a picture or two with the MLS number. No, you’ll want to go full bore and get what you can from the property and the owner so that you can really market the place. The website you are creating is really only a container for the incredible content you should be putting up on the site so get all the content you can and make sure that its quality reflects that of the house.

In some instances, keyword domains will help you sell a place because of the ease of ranking for said keywords, but, similarly, you might be able to market a property entirely on its address, if it’s cool. I wouldn’t recommend buying a domain for “4152 12th Ave” but if it’s something cool and marketable like “1 Panorama Ridge”, go for it.

Pictures
As far as content goes, you’ll not need much more than a few pages. First of all, you’ll want to throw up a few pictures of the house. I think you’ll find that white, clean themes with rotating headers will look best for showcasing a beautiful house. Good pictures are probably going to be the most important element in marketing these properties online. Although hiring a professional photographer will yield more desirable pictures, there is no reason that you shouldn’t be able to take a few stunning shots of the property.

real estate at sunset

Always keep the website in mind when you’re shooting, and even though a 15 megapixel image won’t do much for a website, a nice crisp lens and proper lighting are going to be a necessity. If you don’t have massive flashes that you can move all around the house, use natural light as much as you can. Open all the windows and, if you need to, bring a tall tripod so that you can take longer exposures for crisp photos.

I recommend having at least a couple good pictures of each room before you call it a day and when you’re shooting the exterior, the lower the sun in the sky, the better. You might have to take photos throughout the day to get the different shots of the house in the perfect light, but it will pay off.

Post-processing is also going to be a very important part of your pictures so get your skills ready and make those pictures pop.

Video
Similarly, you’ll want to have a video for the house as well. In the age of super smart phones, anything less than 720p is basically not worth trying. You might be the creative type and really run with the video portion of the website, but if not, either acquaint yourself with a video editing program or have a video made by pros using the pictures you have of the house. Not every video needs to be of the “15 Queen Anne Court” level of quality, but something like that is certainly not going to hurt your chances of selling the house. Remember that everything you put up on the site is going to be very closely associated with the property, whether rationally or not, so make sure that you’re not just carrying your cell phone through the house with wobble and a commentary that happens at the same time.

If you are going to do a tour, keep your phone or camera (my phone takes awesome video and yours should too) steady and plan out the shots before you shoot them. Always record commentary later through whichever recording device you have that produces the best sound quality. Great microphones are $100 and if you’re planning on doing this often, it’s not much for a lasting investment. A few cheesy, but admittedly powerful, time lapse shots of sun rising and setting over the property with manipulative music for a couple minutes should be plenty.

Copy
Next, you’ll want to write about the house. People tend to get bored reading long articles so I don’t imagine you’ll need more than a thousand words to describe the house to any potential buyer. You will definitely want to have a few substantial paragraphs so that the search engines are friendly to the new website, but I think that the pictures and video will do most of the marketing. If the house has any really funny anecdotes or famous previous owners, that’s definitely something worth mentioning, but you don’t really need to do a room by room description of the entire property. That being said, if it’s not too much work for you, it might be an idea to create a page for each room with a few pictures arranged in a nice gallery and a small writeup for each one. You can create a menu item for bedrooms that drops down to all the bedrooms the house has and do the same for bathrooms, kitchens, pools, airports, whatever… It will probably be overkill for the average buyer, but the site will look nice and robust to Google and the customers who want to see the house from abroad can actually view every room.

Whatever Else You’ve Got
I’m sure you’ve used tools like 360 degree room views among others, but now is the time to whip out every tool in your arsenal that helps move houses. Use maps, schools, restaurants, community centers, and whatever else you can use to sell the house on the website. Try to put a little spin on everything you do for these special properties so that they stick out from the competition. Now is the time to put on your marketing hat and whip out all the good and creative ideas floating around in your mind. Spitball with friends, associates, and, if they’re up for it, the house’s current owners. The more minds on creative projects, the better, so get together with different types of people and we could be talking about your site when it goes up.

If you need help
Quite frankly, we’ve been providing this service to some of our clients in the past and they think we should offer microblog setup as a package on its own. Get in touch with us if you need to get some help putting everything together.

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Seth Godin TED Talk On Tribes

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August 23  |  Brand Building  |   Ryan Clark

This Seth Godin talk he did for one of his TED talks is a real gem and if you somehow missed it, then here it is. I’m a huge fan of his and our slogan kind of hints at that. While most people associate us with building links, we’re trying to change that in a big way. It all starts with an idea, and ultimately how you spread that idea to others. Seth Godin is a man you should listen to intently so check out this video and then all his other talks you can find on Youtube.

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Infographic Marketing Strategies For Links & Brand Buzz

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August 11  |  Link Bait Tactics  |   Ryan Clark

Marketing your infographics properly is a sure fire way to snag natural links, build brand buzz and gain social media followers. It’s a form of content creation that is relatively inexpensive to do and can continue to bring in links for years to come. The latter aspect really gets me excited because I’ve seen some crazy good links come in a year later from some great topical link bait. There’s no doubt that infographics have become the most widely used link bait tactic in the past couple of years, and I don’t that expect to slow down any time soon.

Source: Infographic of Infographics by Ivan Cash

There are millions of ways to tackle the creative end of things, the marketing, however, can be done either correctly or incorrectly. We’re all in the market for links from related sites, so make sure you stick on point. For the most part, I’ve seen mostly topical infographics being used with the right market in mind, but I’ve also seen others where the goal is to just get whatever links from whoever will give them to you. Not to worry though, you’ll want those related links anyway so focus on your niche.

There’s a lot of prep, or at least a lot we do, before starting your marketing efforts, so prepare your spreadsheet of choice. We’ll cover the tasks we lay down and hopefully this helps you structure your campaign better. I typically have this sorted while the client’s infographic is being worked on so that should be more than enough time to prep!

Last but not least, make sure your infographics “info” is really friggin awesome, because it’s going to make life a lot harder if it isn’t. How many infographics have you started reading only to quickly hit stop reading? This is where big flashy pie charts, numbers and eye catching statistics should be popping out like a 3D movie! You’re going to want to also provide an embed code with your infographic for ease of spreading; it blows my mind the amount of people who don’t do this.

Identify The Influencers:

So get out your spreadsheet and think of each point I make here as its own area or tab within it. We’ll need to start finding the social people out there that are within your vertical and you might stand a chance to get a share from their end. Hopefully most of you are already quite active on Facebook, Twitter and have made nice with a few bloggers. Your reach can potentially lead to huge success. To demonstrate visually, let me refer you to the picture below:

Image Courtesy: SocialMediaToday.com

Twitter: – I definitely like to have at least 25 of my most active Twitter friends on my “to contact” hit list for D-Day. Tactics like pulling a pre-emptive strike by contacting them a day or two early to see if they’d be willing to help spread the content are also a good idea. This social network alone can launch your infographic into viral orbit if you’re lucky so make sure to target the beefy and influential users that you are friends with. If you don’t really have strong ties with 25 users on Twitter, then make a list of 50-75 people you can contact in hopes of matching the same ROI… best of luck there! There are always infographics being marketed on Twitter, so check out what’s going on there to get some ideas. (Hint) Guy Kawasaki LOVES tweeting about infographics so much that I cannot tell if he’s getting paid to or not… either way, you get him you’re golden!

Facebook: – This one is tricky because you’re not usually friends with your digital cohorts at this level, just your mommy, friends from school and perhaps a girlfriend/wife if you’re lucky. The same mentality from Twitter applies here. Prep who you can contact to potentially get the Facebook shares going like wildfire. Hopefully your brands Facebook page has some decent followers that can start that initial push. If not, this one will be a tough nut to crack. I’d check for groups and fan pages as well for your brand, then get ready to share with those folks too.

Key Blogs: – This is the really tough part. I’m sure you do enough link begging, but now you need to infographic link beg. Break down a list of the best blogs in your niche and get to it because, again, just a couple shares can lead to big things. If the content is any good, blogs should jump at the chance to collect some of the hype that goes with it. You’ll be able to see which blogs have already shared an infographic from others, which blogs have a “submit news/tip” form and you should also find some other contact details like their Twitter and other social media information. You’ll be surprised at the response you’ll get from fellow bloggers and if they’re fans of your brand, then you’re in for an easy day.

Forums: – While I don’t recommend signing up to your niche’s top forums to spam them with your infographic, I hope you already have built a rep. Forums spread content like wildfire, so identifying the forums that will help launch this to a different crowd is quite important. A lot of niches won’t be so lucky, so if you have a big forum option, make sure you utilize it (or at least prep your accounts for future use). Forums are great for marketing and making friends, and mixing the two together will keep you out of trouble and in a good brand spotlight.

Reddit/Digg/Buzzfeed/Delicious/ETC: – There’s no doubt that Digg still has a lot of influence in spreading your content. The same goes for a number of other social news sites. Unfortunately, the chances of going hot on Digg are next to none unless you pay for it. Yes even after they “changed” their algorithm, the website is still dominated by a few users who get most of the stuff to the front page. Reddit is a deadly serious site that requires no spamming about on your end! Submit that sucker to the appropriate subreddit and hope for the best. If you content is good enough, it should do alright in the right subreddit, but then again, even Reddit votes are bought.

Buzzfeed is also a great place to get your infographic going around the web like crazy. You can buy front page spots for this, but you best have $3000-$5000 PER DAY to spend on this. Because of the huge price tag, the site can send a lot of traffic and get your infographic around if you’ve got the green. The other social media sites out there are up to your reach and influence, including niche specific social sharing sites. This is what we do, so if you’re looking for infographic marketing help, get in touch.

Link Analysis & Social Media Recon:

This is a no-brainer, but do your homework on other infographics both inside and out of your niche. While it’ll give you an idea of what to expect, it will also lead to other market help you may have overlooked in your initial setup stages. There are a whole host of search and link tools out there that will break down the anatomy of an infographic success story. Here’s what we use to do a quick rundown:

Link Research Tools – know who and what links to a successful past infographic campaign. Take special note of the infographics that provided an embed code, and the ones that did not. You’ll see how the linking patterns evolved and this is pretty important stuff to know. LRT can also report back on the number of social shares which can be valuable information if you know how to interpret it.

Twitter Search – I love seeing who’s sharing infographics around Twitter, especially in my target niche. People who are already enjoying them are more than likely to give yours a Tweet, so why not beg/ask? This will also lead to seeing how their followers react by checking out the RT love that that Twitter user’s post got.

Google Blog Search – While we could perhaps just use regular old Google search for this, I want to know specifically which blogs are engaging infographics. Those older posts are a potential spot to drop a link to your related infographic as well, even though that might be a bit spammy in some people’s eyes. For the most part, a few choice blog posts isn’t going to hurt anyone and if the moderator approves it, then you’re good to go!

Google Discussions – You’ll definitely want to know what forums were picking up past infographics because they’re the breeding grounds for natural links and viral activity. Since you get time stamps on posts, you can tell with your own eyes how that piece took off (or didn’t).

Infographics Gone Viral:


Image Source: Marissa Louie ( Her old site is now dead and links to Viagra )

Hopefully you have all your prep in place and you’re ready to rock once your infographic is good to go. The launch is an exciting part of the whole process, if not the most nerve-racking, so enjoy it and learn from it! There is a good chance you’re going to come up with nothing but fail, but don’t let that discourage you. We continue to see links come in over a year later for past infographics so it will be worth it no matter what if your content is good.

There are a few key places to which you can submit your infographic making life a lot easier as well as providing some initial links to the piece. Remember that people love this type of content so there will be browsers that will kick off the viral aspect of it all. The list provided here is not the end all be all, and more sites are popping up all the time so keep an eye out (hint: set an infographic Google Alert).

Infographic Sites:

http://infographicsite.com/contact-us/
http://infographr.tumblr.com/submit
http://infographicsgenerator.com
http://videoinfographic.com/submit-infographic/
http://www.reddit.com/r/infographics
http://www.infographicas.com/?page_id=39
http://www.infographicsshowcase.com/submit/ (costs $100 for a review)
http://www.infographicsarchive.com/submit-infographics/
http://www.cloudinfographics.com/submit-infographic/
http://submitinfographics.com/submit-infographics
http://www.newsilike.in/submit-infographic/
http://videoinfographic.com/submit-infographic/ (video infographics only)
http://www.infographicpost.com/submit-an-infographic
http://theinfographics.blogspot.com/p/submit-infographic.html
http://visual.ly/
http://dailyinfographic.com/contact
http://iheartinfographics.tumblr.com/submit
http://infographicsbin.tumblr.com/submit
http://fuckyeahinfographics.tumblr.com/submit
http://www.styleandflow.com/submit/
http://infographipedia.com/submit-infographic-4
http://www.omginfographics.com/submit/
http://infographic.co.za/submit/
http://www.bestinfographics.info/submit-infographic/
http://iinfographic.com/submit-brilliance/
http://www.infographicgallery.com/contact/

Submit A Press Release:

Why not? If you’re working on an infographic that has a really big reach, then you need to set aside a budget for a press release or two. I’d recommend using PRweb.com’s social media package as well as a release from Market Wire. Some news sites definitely pick up infographics and you an see for yourself with a simple Google news search. I cannot stress enough the importance of the content here for any sort of decent exposure.

Attacking Your Contacts like A Boss:

This is another time when all your prep comes into play. Just like with any viral marketing attempt, be on the ball and make sure you’re out there interacting and keeping the chatter alive. If you’ve got your social media vote buys on the ready, then make sure those are off to the races because you can forward those voting links to people who matter on your end.

Your Blog / Youtube / Newsletter:

I hope to the social Gods that you have at least two of those in place. Your company blog will most likely be the first link it gets and it makes for a great place to show off the social voting buttons for your fans to get acting on. A YouTube video talking about the infographic can’t hurt either, especially if your brand has a big following there (people even make videos of their infographics). Lastly, use your newsletter for what it was intended to do… share news! You can ask in private for your readers to check it out and vote it up if they have the appropriate contacts.

Infographic Resources:

our infographic design and marketing services
Infographic design resources and tutorials
40 blogs, portfolios, resources and other awesome infographic related material
TopRankBlog’s infographic marketing post is a must read
Adobe Illustrator infographic design resources
Tips for designing and creating beautiful infographics
 

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Chip Torres – Crazy Awesome Computer Store Commercial

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July 25  |  Brand Building  |   Ryan Clark

There are an endless stream of commercials out there, some good, some bad. Some are so bad that they’re amazing and that brings us to my commercial post of the day. My Spanish isn’t so hot, but Chip was kind enough to lay down the English words for this one of a kind computer store commercial. Thanks to Reddit and our marketing team, we hope to bring some more attention to Chip’s talents and his knack for the craziest tech gear south of the border!

 

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Five Fiverr Marketing Tactics Worth Paying For

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July 19  |  Brand Building  |   Ryan Clark

Fiverr.com is a hot topic these days and it has inspired a whole niche of microjob sites in the process. I’ve been quite intrigued with the whole idea, and I’m always browsing Fiverr for the vast database of unique opportunities. You can get everything from video marketing, to advice and yes of course SEO. Now you all know that we deal in the more higher ending of link building, social media and branding. With that being said, I don’t recommend a lot of the “SEO” you’d find on here. It’s almost always not something the Google TOS would agree with, and that’s dangerous for big brands.


So what do I like? Well, the amount of unique little extras one can get for their brand here is quite interesting. We’ve been experimenting with an Ecommerce site of ours with a few of the following tactics listed below. The result? A whole bunch of content that has pushed our site to a new level of quality. There are all sorts of different marketing tactics to take from here, so snoop around and see what might work for your business. And hey, if it doesn’t then you’ve only wasted $5 bucks!

Marketing Tactic 1) QR Codes

These nifty little codes are all the rage and we wanted to have one to market our online shop with. For $5 you can have a custom one designed and sent back to you within 24 hours, just check out this post here or do a search for others offering the same service.

Marketing Tactic 2) Facebook Landing Page

If your brand doesn’t have a landing/intro page for your Facebook account by now then you’re missing out! We’ve been getting a lot of our clients to get this done as it looks way more professional. Looking good inspires confidence, and getting that for only $5 ain’t too bad neither! I had one landing page designed by this bloke, and it was well worth the price.

Marketing Tactic 3) Have Videos Made

Videos can be a pain in the ass sometimes, especially for an online brand where no one wants to get behind a camera. We’ve been experimenting with a few of the people who make videos with their puppets. You can use the highly recommended getting a commercial done by a puppet, or a real human who can pitch your website/brand/product. There are plenty of really unique options here folks….you can even get video effects done for $5!

 

Marketing Tactic 4) New Banners & Graphics

When’s the last time you had graphics, a logo or a new banner done out? There are a whole bunch of awesome designers, coders and ad copy people offering some great deals. Even if the banners are different from what you’re doing, live a little and switch it up because you never know what will happen.

Marketing Tactic 5) Writers & Song Writers

We recently had a bunch of songs, jingles and voice overs done for our Ecommerce website, and it all worked out quite well! Besides that, we’ve even outsourced some writing which has turned out better than expected. I’m sure a lot of you are sick of dealing with content writers, but for the easy stuff I say jump on Fiverr.

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Link Building Reads For The Last Bit Of March

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March 23  |  TWiLB  |   Ryan Clark

Since I’m due in meetings and what not, I thought I would do a quick round up post to all the latest and greatest posts on link building and other things. There’s always so much great content flying around on any given week, so it’s sad I can’t get to this more often. As always. I love it when you leave links to great articles I missed in the comments, so by all means go to town on that. This one will mark off a new linking format where I’ll try and encompass not only link building, but branding, marketing and news all together. If all your doing these days is link building, then may the Google gods have mercy on you!

Link Building Reads:

Picture courtesy of Benuski

Original ideas for building content for links via Word Tracker
Don’t Break The Cardinal Rule Of LinkBait via Linkspiel
Building links to get to page one via Webmaster World
How To Rank Nationally With Local Links via Search Engine Journal
How To Make a Link Bait That Goes Viral via TechLunatic
51 Essential Link Building Tips via Econsultancy
40 SEO Strategies For Ecommerce Websites via Kaiser The Sage

Branding Strategies:

Why Would You Follow A Celebrity on Twitter? via Brand Republic
The Triumph of Coal Marketing via Seth Godin
Strategic Copywriting via The Branding Blog
Brand Naming: Don’t Be Afraid To Use Humor – via Branding Strategy Insider
Should You Brand a #Hashtag? via Online Journalism Blog
5 Branding Secrets You Can Learn From Google via Rohit Bhargava

Social Media Marketing:

How To Find Hidden SEO Opportunities on Twitter via Search Engine Journal
Blogging is Dead via Scott Monty
50 LinkedIn Tips: Most of Which Are Awesome via Soshable
The Seven Second Rule of Social Media via TooGoom
5 Tips For Building Promotions Around Events via Blue Glass

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