How To Embrace Web 2.0 - Part 3 - Be Remarkable!

How many blogs/articles have you digged or propelled this week? What does it take to inspire you to take the time to hit a button and give someone a vote? When you read an average article – even if it is very informative, it needs to be presented in a certain way to make it remarkable and unique.

The idea is to be different. Creative. Unusual. And often funny too!

Social marketing is a 'viral’ form of promotion'. To go ‘viral’, you need something people will talk about. An example of how something plain and boring can go viral when you use creative ideas and a bit of humour, is the “Blend it” advertisements (youtube).

This famous set of advertisements for Blendtec, began as a simple video production of ‘scientists’ blending all sorts of items from iphones to ipods. The results were viral, and more than 4 million hits on a single advertisement resulted.

Interesting ideas and content get passed along rapidly. You just need some ‘off-the-wall’ concept to get the snowball rolling, and you can create an avalanche.

This is best achieved through video marketing, and if you are not confident of your video-making prowess, I certainly recommend investing some dollars in this area.  Again, school students are particularly apt at making viral-style video and they are certainly cheaper than hiring advertising agencies to make video for you.

Adding fresh content to your social bookmarking sites is also essential, and taking on a ‘memorable persona’, is a good way to add some entertainment to your posting, encouraging the reader to pass along.

Analyze the big-movers on Squidoo and Hubpages and ask yourself why these articles went viral? There is certainly more value to an article you have spent many hours on gathering photos, videos and links, as opposed to the straight-forward 500 word article submission.  Again, if this is just not your forte, try outsourcing to a professional.  When outsourcing, be clear you are looking for something creative and remember the old saying: “If you pay peanuts…. You get monkeys”!

This is not to say you need a big budget to experience the power of Social Networking.  Again, you just need to be that little more creative, put in some thought and experiment with what you have.

Be remarkable. The results are certainly more than remarkable, as you can have a rush of Millions of visitors that could transform your online business.  So my last word of advice is to be prepared. Be careful of starting a viral campaign if your site is not fully prepared for a tsunami of traffic!