Are Moms The Hidden Influencers?
Technorati released its annual State of the Blogosphere report earlier this month and one of the standout statistics is that mom bloggers are steadily becoming strong influencers. Not only are they becoming strong influencers, they are turning their power into online businesses – successful ones at that.
Marketing experts have known for decades that moms are the key to many successful marketing campaigns. The belief in many marketing departments is that males have little in the way of brains when it comes to shopping, even for their own needs. If you want to sell a male a product, target the women in their lives – that was the mantra.
With mothers now taking to blogging, they are starting to wield some incredible power. In the days before the Internet, women, in particular mothers, would have get-togethers while the kids were at school and have, what many males considered to be, regular gossip sessions. They would discuss everything from little Johnny’s antics at school to what products they like and dislike. Now they are doing the same online except, instead of half a dozen mothers getting together, we have hundreds, if not thousands, reading these blogs – and I use the plural judiciously since most mothers regularly read more than one mommy blog.
Is there a message for business owners in this new environment? I think there could be. Mothers have been strong influencers for a long time. They are steadily growing in numbers when it comes to blogs and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. The future for many businesses will depend on how well they can connect with these moms, particularly through social media. Do it well, create a positive relationship, and they will most likely support your business. Do it poorly and there is a good chance your business will be mocked by this growing group.
Remember, moms have always had the ability to influence those around them. Now that they are starting to realize the power of the Internet, they are starting to flex their muscles and let their voices be heard – are you listening at all?
How Many Ways Can You Go Viral?
Viral marketing is a concept that is hard to pin down. Just what is it?
In a word, viral marketing is any type of marketing that catches on and gets people talking about you. When an idea spreads, either spontaneously or as a part of a planned effort, then it is said to have gone viral. That can happen in a variety of media.
Videos, for instance, can go viral in a number of ways but one very popular way that they often catch on and take a life of their own is through the popular video channel YouTube. Articles can go viral through one of many e-zine directories or on a content website. Photos can go viral at places like Flickr and DeviantArt.
What medium are you using? It helps to know what you have to offer in order to present it to the right people in hopes that it might go viral. Your blog can viral if you get it in front of the right eyes. One blog post can go viral if the right people see it and share it. The key is to get it in front of the right people.
So how do you do that?
One mistake that marketers often make is to present their material to all of their friends hoping that their friends will share it and then their friends will share it and so on and so on. But a better way to ensure that your content goes viral is to present it to half a dozen influencers. These are people on social networks like Facebook and Twitter who have thousands of followers. A single tweet or Facebook update can often lead to thousands of hits to your website in minutes if the right influencer likes it.
But simply submitting your link or content to an influencer isn’t enough. You should study the influencers you want to target and learn what they like. Develop a relationship with them. Interact with them and get to know them as a person, let them get to know you.
People, even influencers, respond better to people they know than to random strangers. Get to know the right people and your content will stand a better chance at going viral.
How To Kill A Viral Marketing Campaign
Viral marketing is much more sophisticated than it used to be. It is rare that someone mass submits hundreds of articles in one day to thousands of article directories and expects to get a flood of new traffic to their website that converts. Sure, it happens. But it’s rare.
Today, viral marketing is more about the Wow Factor. You’ve got to the wow the audience before you get them to your site. If you don’t wow them until they get their then it’s too late. So what are the tools for producing the wow effect that will get new visitors to your site?
- Articles
- Social bookmarking websites
- Social sites like Facebook and Twitter
- Videos
- Blogs
In the old days of viral marketing, the product was mostly content. Today it is largely social. Look at the list – social bookmarking, social networking, videos (think YouTube, a social network that is also the No. 2 search engine), and blogs (a medium that is half social and half SEO tool). See the theme?
So the question is, how do you kill a viral marketing campaign? Take it out of its social context. Be anti-social.
Viral marketing is social media marketing on steroids. It is, in a word, the maximum effective use of the combination of social media and SEO. Want to kill it? Just break one of those two legs of the viral marketing stool and your campaign will fall on its face.