When we think about content marketing, our thoughts typically turn to articles, blog posts, video, tweets, social media posts on Facebook, press releases – essentially everything external.  While those are all important in terms of content marketing, they are only part of the overall process – your website content has a share in that as well.  That’s why it’s so important for someone to take ownership of your content.

It doesn’t matter how well you strategize, optimized, glamorize, and ‘everything else’-ize your website content, someone has to take ownership of it or it falls into disrepair.  Like an abandoned home, the content within your website begins to lose sync with your external content marketing and will start to look like a run-down property that’s long been left to ruin.

Owning the content on your website isn’t enough though – you need to be excited and passionate about your content marketing.  You need to really recognize the purpose of strong website content within your content marketing campaign and commit to making sure that your content always stays relevant to your target audience.

Like a beautiful and functional home cared for by a loving homeowner, your website needs you.

When Content Marketing Need Help

A home with weathered siding and an unstable foundation needs a lot of work and its need for help is visible from a long way off.  Website copy within your content marketing campaign in need of care…

• Lacks purpose and direction
• Suffers from too little or too much information
• Dead end’s without a call to action
• Is overly complex or insultingly simple
• May be riddled with typo’s and grammatical errors
• Is often laced with broken links
• Tends to be inaccurate or outdated

When you flip the scenario and look at quality copy within your content marketing campaigns, you begin to see how a well-tended “home” can better serve you and your target audience.  Content marketing in good hands…

• Serves a specific purpose
• Is of the right length to make its point clearly
• Is action oriented to direct the reader with appropriate calls to action
• Will never be boring and is always engaging and interesting
• Tends to be well written with consistent and appropriate tone
• Functions with clear and clean navigation
• Remains updated and accurate

How to Establish Ownership of your Content Marketing

If it’s your business and your content marketing campaign then the answer is simple:  You need to get more involved and keep your content updated, relevant, engaging, etc.  If, however, you run a company with multiple people contributing then someone needs to take ownership and you need to get content owners on board to ensure that your site content and your content marketing is up to speed.  Here are some tips to get your people on board with content marketing ownership:

• Make the content a part of their written job responsibility – not an extra optional activity “when they can get around to it”.
• Tie the content to business goals and express the need to objectives, results and the purpose behind the content marketing
• Explain to each individual why they are being selected to manage the content and the trust that’s being instilled to present the best image for the brand
• Clearly define the benefits of content marketing that works and functions properly, including the website content.
• Get content owners excited about those benefits and the results that can be achieved.
• Empower your team with the tools they need to manage the website and content marketing
• Follow up with the individual or team handling your content marketing

When you take the time to invest in your website, you’re guaranteeing greater results from your content marketing strategy and you’re certain to improve your ROI – because that’s what content is.  Content marketing is an investment, just like a home, and it starts with your website.

Content syndication may very well bring traffic flowing back to your site in massive waves but how do your landing pages receive that traffic?  Even if you think that you have a strong sales message and a great opening hook, you need to question whether or not you’re really reducing the friction and anxiety of your prospects when they hit your landing page.  Content syndication can bring the rain but it’s up to you to make sure the crops grow.

Ultimately there are a lot of factors that determine whether or not your target audience is going to convert well (or not) but at the heart of every business transaction there’s a certain level of trust that’s necessary for people to order from you.  Content syndication around quality content is a good start but your landing pages have to reinforce that trust.  Here are 3 ways to build on that trust after the content syndication does its job.

Content Syndication & Landing Pages – Add the Best Testimonials

A few brief quotes from your satisfied customners go a long way to reducing anxiety in  your target audience.  One of the best place to add testimonials  is under images within your content.  An image will draw attention and that attention will stray the quote as they read.

You should choose testimonials that support the message you’ve been delivering through content syndication.  They should be unique and relevant to the offer on your landing page as this will help new prospects imagine how your product or services will help them.  Where possible, use fill names instead of initials and use testimonials that don’t just talk about how great you are.  Go for testimonials that say why you’re great and show real results.

Content Syndication & Landing Pages – Add Symbols of Trust

You may not be able load your content up with images during content syndication (especially if people continue to repurpose your content without images) but you can ensure that your landing pages are loaded with symbols that improve trust.  If you’re a member of a distinguished organization like the Better Business Bureau then share those symbols in your content.  You should stick to prominent and well known logos that represent a strong affiliation to a more powerful brand.  These images could be the difference between people staying to buy and visitors trickling out as fast as they come in.

Content Syndication & Landing Pages – Make Your Privacy Policy Accessible

Most people don’t feel safe about sharing their information online.  You can expect that most visitors want to be assured that you will not be distributing or sharing info they provide.  A “We keep your info private” line is rarely enough.  Consider the benefits of a statement that is 1 to 3 sentences explaining that information gathered through content syndication and marketing, optins and sales is never shared or sold.  Provide a link to the rest of your privacy policy.

Trust is key to higher conversions and making the sales.  To reach peak performance you need to work and maintain that trust all through the buy cycle – from the moment you connect with content syndication until the close is of the sale is final.

If you’re involved in marketing and you’ve got your ear to industry blogs you’ve likely seen the surge of content coverage regarding various updates from Google.  The most prominent and discussed is the Panda/Farmer update that put a lot of heavy weight on social proof for ranking.  The other is the addition of the Plus One system from Google to effectively ‘+1′ items in the search results.

Surrounding both of these topics is the emphasis on the fact that social proof is having a massive effect on the way sites are indexed and deemed relevant within a given niche.  While this is important, it’s not the end all be all of social media marketing.

How quickly we forget the obvious…

How to Get Social Media Marketing Wrong

Social media marketing is turning into a buzz words in so many circles with focuses on search rank and relevancy and we’ve become so accustomed to the heavy use in such a short span that we’re missing the most important part of what social media marketing really is.

What’s worse is that it’s easy for fledgling business and upstarts in the infancy of their social media outreach to misunderstand the process and miss the fundamental basics of what social media marketing really is.

It’s social – it’s about connecting with people.  That’s right – believe it or not there are people in social media that you’re trying to connect with.  With these recent changes, people are already trying to figure out how to leverage social media for building links and relevancy.  Start putting more emphasis on the process and not the people and you’re sure to fail.

What’s worse is that businesses will get so caught up in trying to get something out of it that they miss the mark on what to put in.

Social media marketing does have different meanings for different people.  Some of us used to prescribe to the idea that “marketing” and “social media” didn’t belong together because you can’t sell among your peers but after years of building our own SYNND system we can see that they do indeed belong together and they should be taken in a specific way.

And while search is changing, that doesn’t mean that social media should change, or how we truly leverage it.

Social Media Marketing is Social Proof. Period

Link building and search relevancy aside you should seek to improve social engagement and social media marketing outreach to build social proof.  If you build enough buzz around your content, your product, your brand, etc then people will continue to feed off that viral spread.  You will be validated by the social proof.  The more people carry you, the more your visibility spreads.  If you’re leveraging social media properly, that social exposure will be more than enough.  You won’t have to worry about pushing up your rank for certain keywords by gaming social proof because you’ll get more than your share of action from all that social activity.

It doesn’t matter how much emphasis Google puts on social media – nothing has ever been able to beat effective and quality referrals or word of mouth and that’s exactly what social proof is; social media marketing brings about social proof that is the most powerful form of digital word of mouth.

Not Likely… especially since there are hundreds of networks for social bookmarking submission.

You may have heard of the decline in popularity of Digg since it launched its new version but just because one piece of the overall social bookmarking submission puzzle has a bent corner that doesn’t mean that the whole process has become any less useful.  On the contrary.

With the most recent updates from Google – particular those that focus on social proof and author authority in sharing – social bookmarking submission is getting a leg up and continues to offer a wide variety of benefits.

It’s not just about tagging pages for simple reference later – social bookmarking submission is about sharing what you find interesting with others in hopes to start a widespread interest in a particular topic.  The benefits really start to roll in when you’re able to inspire that spread on your own pages.

The Four Powerful Benefits of Social Bookmarking Submission

Rapid Indexing with Social Bookmarking Submission

One of the fastest ways for any website to be found and indexed by the search engine spiders is to submit the URL to as many social bookmarking submission sites as possible.  Networks like Digg, StumbleUpon, De.Licio.us, etc  all get crawled regularly.  When you submit your site to these social bookmarking services you’re letting the search engines know that you’re there and you’re relevant to specific categories.

With social bookmarking submission software you can simplify the entire process to let a vast network of social bookmarking sites know about your new posts, articles, press releases, videos and podcasts as soon as they go live – and you save yourself a lot of legwork.

Traffic Generation with Social Bookmarking Submission

Depending on the nature of the content and the power of your titles you’re almost guaranteed to get some level of traffic referral through social bookmarking submission.  It may not be on the level of a viral spread but you can expect some level of click through.  The more networks you submit to the greater the amount of traffic you can receive.  Since your bookmarks are tagged by niche-specific keywords the traffic you receive will likely be very targeted as well.  If you’ve got compelling content on your site then the chances are high that you’ll get returning traffic.

Personal Branding with Social Bookmarking Submission

Social bookmarking sites give you a space to create a profile for yourself as well.  This profile lets you list your personal webpages so on top of getting quality links that point back to your sites you’re also branding yourself as an expect within a certain area.  Sharing quality content or links to quality content is a great way to build credibility for your brand – even if it’s a personal brand.

Quality Backlinks with Social Bookmarking Submission

While sharing through social media is more about creating a viral spread and starting social buzz you can get backlinks from social bookmarking submission.  Personal profiles within these social bookmarking sites can often grow and increase in page rank, making them more valuable in terms SEO value.  When you link to your pages and share content you’re generating authoritative backlinks to your site.

Combine all of these 4 irresistible benefits and you can see why most of these services continue to operate and perform a valuable service to marketers and business owners.  Leverage social bookmarking submission and you’ll start to see just how easy it is to dominate your niche.

Ask yourself what you value more – the words of a close friend in their recommendation of a product or service or the rambling hype and trust-statements that are fired at you like projectiles from a mounted machine gun?

It’s hard to take a message seriously when it’s coming from a lobbyist, especially when the person lobbying a product owns that product.  This is the problem that’s been building in search over recent years – product pushing and overwhelming sales content.  It’s also why Google has been ramping up their efforts to put more SEO value on social buzz – but how effective will it be in eliminating junk content in the SERPs and how easy will it be to game the system?

Google Rallies its Forces to Fight for Social Buzz

There’s pretty clear evidence that the search engines – especially Google – have been moving toward this type of setup for some time now.  When you look at how content is indexed, the original concept behind building rank and relevancy was supposed to be about social proof at its heart.  That’s what building links was all about.

It took work to generate those organic backlinks because you had to often make personal contact in order to get someone to manually create a link for you.  The content farms diluted the process greatly as did automated link building systems.  The result has been less than pleasant.

Over a year ago, Google’s Matt Cutts stated that they were evaluating the potential of social feeds and how social buzz worked.  Seeing value in it they moved toward ‘blended search’ to give people live social access to trending content.  Around 6 months ago Google stated that social buzz had potential for SEO ranking but they were not yet using it as a ranking factor.

With the Google Farmer/Panda update – social buzz as a ranking factor is now live.

Social Buzz?  More like Social Swampland

At least that’s how it’s getting started – a bit on the murky side.  All the years of gaming the system by people pushing products has left search results mired in poor quality articles, long form sales pages, more affiliate links than a recycle bin could handle and a general distrust for reviews.  With everyone trying to sell something it’s gotten to the point where content couldn’t be trusted and that’s bad business for a search engine that bases its business on delivering the most relevant content to users.

While search has grown to be a little musty and a bit of a swampland it’s not beyond hope.  These most recent updates are taking search back to how it should be – with a very tight focus on editorial review, social sharing and social buzz  as well as author authority to determine the real calculable value of content.

Why Social Buzz Works for SEO

Social buzz is only one factor among thousands (or more) when it comes to how content is ranked, deemed popular, or chosen to be more relevant for a given topic.  There’s a lot that goes into determining how sites wind up on page 1 of Google but social buzz is going to be an important piece of that puzzle.

As complicated as that puzzle can be… it’s easy to see why social buzz works.

For anyone that works hard to build their network, it’s either filled with trusted friends and family or close business relationships – in some cases both.  You’re not likely to want to share poor quality content among your networks because those you connect with are likely to think less of you.  Do it enough and they’ll digitally ditch you.

As the Tweets and ‘likes’ grow for a document, as well as social bookmarking, you get a clearly viral spread – something that’s impossible to fake or game.  This is the heart of social proof and building a social buzz.  It’s just not something you can manipulate to your heart’s content.  You need real people to help you rank.

This means people will support and share the quality content they like, they’ll power their favorite brands to the top of the search results and if you’re searching for something you’re far more likely to find what you’re looking for as opposed to an affiliate endorsement or “sucker” linkbait content.

Without social buzz and true social proof backing your content or your brand you’ll have a tough time scaling the Google Mountain to play King of the Rock.

As social media marketing blossoms and expands and becomes ever more popular, there are an increasing number of companies that are jumping into the same boat as customers in order to improve engagement and brand visibility.  With that social media marketing however there is the potential for companies to self-destruct.  It doesn’t have to be as intense as a couch-jump or rant on voicemail.  It can be as simple as a self-destructive tweet that slips by the corporate mega-filter.

It’s not a matter of whether or not it will happen to your company – it’s more a matter of what kind of tweet will upset people and who will be the culprit.

You can place those public relations tweet-time-bombs into three different categories

Social Media Marketing Twitstorm #1 – Gettin Slizzerd

There are a lot of people on Twitter – million really.  It stands to reason that the individual or team managing corporate Twitter accounts more than like have accounts of their own.  Mix in mobile computing where personal laptops or phones are used in the corporate environment in favor of a ball&chain desktop PC -and- the use of multiple account tools like Hootsuite?  Well… the result is a good chance that someone handling the corporate Twitter account is going to send something out through the corporate feed that was meant for a personal account.

The most famous social media marketing incident via Twitter happened recently with the American Red Cross when one of their employees sent out a rather humorous tweet clearly intended for a personal account.

The Red Cross handled the situation with grace and a laughable response because they recognized that a simple mistake like this can and does happen.  Their reaction to the incident was swift and their followers loved it.  So much in fact that the #gettngslizzerd spread far and wide over Twitter as folks pledged donations to American Red Cross.  A great outcome… but unfortunately not all of them work out so well.

Want to avoid sending information down the wrong pipe?  Avoid a potential social media marketing fiasco by using different software for different accounts.  Likewise – directly logging into the site and forcing a login can help avoid this error.

Social Media Marketing Twitstorm #2 – Stuffy Bugger

While it can sometimes be humorous to watch a stuffy bumbling corporation attempt to engage their audience, and the resulting public relations explosion in their face teaches lessons we can only chuckle so long.  Sometimes the “stuffy” isn’t on the leading end, it comes as a response.  We’ve likely all seen handfuls of organizations and even Congressman make a mistweet and then try to cover it by making some disconnected, stuffy response or no response at all – the result of being a stuffy bugger is that those stuffy responses tend to fuel the fire and greater humiliation ensues.

If you mistweet, misfire and misrepresent then take the time to think of an appropriate response.  Acknowledge, Apologize and be Authentic.  Don’t just fire off a stuffy response right away.  Quickly own it and apologize and go from there.

Social Media Marketing Twitstorm #3 – Can You Hear Me Now?

We frequently talk about how important it is to listen and many corporations are involved in social media to use those social platforms a listen dashboard.  Being tuned in to customers gives you insight into thoughts, feelings, feedback, issues and more – but only if you’re really listening and staying engaged.

United Airlines found out the hard way when a customer tweeted “Thanks to @unitedairlines I can finally watch that Frasier episode I missed in 1994″.  The tone was obviously sarcastic but the social media managers over at United didn’t quite get it… and decided instead to tweet the lyrics to the theme song of the show.

They later apologized, but not until after an angry uproar from a large customer following.  United Airlines pulled off the “Acknowledge, Apologize and Authentic” response well enough to quell the storm.

In some cases in the past, employees have been terminated for errors like those above, while others were reprimanded for oversharing or crossing boundaries even on their personal twitter accounts when acting as representatives for a company.

To avoid the social media marketing explosions, companies should work diligently to put guidelines in place for how representatives and employees handle social media and Twitter accounts.  Good structure and clear direction can help to avoid these types of issues.  Important still however is taking the time to plan how a company will react when these issues occur – not just the response that will give the public relations of the company a winning chance but social media marketing responses that will shore up the credibility of a company and ensure that trust is not lost.

Marketers and business owners have been struggling with social media marketing since…. the dawn of social media (we say it like it’s as old as the wreckage of the Titanic) to estimate the value of a fan on sites like Facebook – or followers on Twitter.  They’ve long sought to put a price tag on the fan but ultimately it’s been impossible because of so many factors are involved; especially the fact that every business is different and not all fans are created equal.

Social Media Marketing – Science Says Fans are Worth…

Firms like Millward Brown’s Brandz even compiled data to see if those people in social media that have become “active fans” of a brand spend more money than those who are not “fans” but perhaps just active users.  Not surprisingly those who are fans of their favored brand tend to spend as much as 5 times more than non-fans.  But is that any real surprise?

One would expect that if a company is spending any amount of time and strategic effort in outreach and social media marketing that there would be some kind of return.  If this were any other type of marketing it would still cycle back to the concept that the more “fans” or engaged customers you have the more profit you stand to make.

So we’ve easily established that fans equal profit, and more fans equal more profit potential, but Google has added some additional value to each individual user/fan/customer you can land through social media marketing.

Social Media Marketing – Google Says Fans are Worth…

A lot more than money.  Thanks to the most recent update there’s a lot of ranking emphasis placed on “social proof”; that is – the overall sharing and engagement among people who like your stuff.  Whether that’s a press release, a blog post, some content pages or big thumbs up on for your social media marketing.

Taking it another step, Google is tinkering with the new Google +1 system that will allow users to -publicly- vote content pages up and down in the SERPs.  While there’s some mumbles and mutters in the industry (marketing, search optimization, etc.) about the potential for gaming this system it’s still proof that Google – and other search engines – are shifting their focus to social proof as a ranking factor.

This focus on editorial ‘likes’, sharing and content review makes a fan even more valuable to businesses.  It’s no longer about the dollar value but the social value.  Each person has the ability to personally affect the position and visibility of a website online.

The Anatomy of the Fanpage and Social Media Marketing

While I won’t necessarily dissect the fan page, there are 5 factors that can add extreme value to social media marketing:  Regular content, trustworthy brand news, new product information, contests and special offers.  For a business, these are driving factors in keeping fans engages while attracting new ones.  To ensure that they stay engaged, the content – in spot 1 of the 5 factors – needs to be entertaining, informative and relevant.    Hit on these marks with your social media marketing and you’ll be able to leverage the growing value of your own fans to improve visibility online as well as reinforce your bottom line.

Most of us know that you need to do more online to share through content marketing.  Even small business owners are growing acutely aware of the need for this type of content and user engagement.  What’s frustrating is the fact that they know a change in their marketing is necessary but finding the time to utilize all the social media tools and various routes of content marketing is next to impossible.

At least when you’re staring down a to-do list that looks like a pre-trip checklist for the Titanic.  That one labeled “don’t sink” is probably staring you in the face.

With a great deal of work on the plate of a business owner you can’t imagine even adding more to it when you’ve spent the last few months trying to streamline your business in order to free up personal time.  Now we’re going to add work with content marketing?  Forget it!

Content Marketing – An Example in Real Estate

Did you know that more than 80% of home buyers turn to the web to find information relating to homes for sale, foreclosures or other local listings?  While the old practices had families and potential buyers casing neighborhoods and asking friends and family about property, the web makes it easy to find a close fit for a new house.  This means that a majority of the client’s for a real estate agency will find them only after digging around on the web.  This is a perfect example of an opportunity to use content marketing in order to attract a target audience.

A real estate agent could utilize a blog and article resource directory to provide a great deal of information on how to choose a home, how to investigate a neighborhood, tips for hiring a remodeling contractor once a home is purchased.  Likewise they could give detailed information on local neighborhoods that give buyers insight.  If that content marketing is optimized, it’s much easy for local buyers to find the content.

A Case for Content Marketing

If you decide to avoid content marketing, or you skip the chance to get involved in social media marketing, you’re bypassing an unlimited number of opportunities to interact with potential as well as existing customers.  Intentionally leaving content marketing to the side is like an ice cream truck driver who opts to travel through an under-developed subdivision instead of the neighborhood two blocks over with children and families playing in their yards.  Eventually, the ice cream truck driver is going to have to close up shop unless he changes tactics.

To survive, you need to supplement your existing marketing with the new age of social media and content marketing.

Finding the Right Balance of Time and Effort for Content Marketing

While it’s necessary to do something in terms of content marketing, you don’t need to devote 30 to 80 hours a week in social media, blog production, writing articles, etc.  With that said you still need to devote some kind of time.

The key to success is consistency, because a stuttering content marketing plan doesn’t do as well.  Your followers don’t know when to expect content, and that means they’re less likely to pay attention.  What you wind up doing is doubling your promotion just to make sure that everyone knows you put new content out.

A perfect balance in your content marketing can often be as simple as a few hours a week on specific days.  Here are some quick tips to structure your content marketing on a minimal level:

• Set up a small time slot a few times a week to do some listening where you look for related discussions or trending topics that might give you fodder for content or for sharing with your audience.
• Schedule an hour every morning to make a simple update to your social media profiles such as Twitter or a Facebook business page – even short posts are considered content marketing.
• As part of the hour for social media, find a few blogs or discussions relevant to your market or niche and comment or join the discussion
• If you see any topics that would make a great article or blog post, jot them down.
• Once a week write up a blog entry for content marketing purposes using insight from your weekly discussions and listening/browsing.

When you’re just starting out, you don’t need to invest in a community manager or hire a bunch of people to watchdog your social media accounts.  You can devote a little time every day to spend on your profiles, discussion threads and listening dashboard in order to refine a content marketing strategy that will gradually improve your online visibility.

Content marketing is a magic machine that can generate a lot of social oomph, social proof and fuzzy credibility with your target audience.  The downside is that for some business owners it’s just impossible to find the time – or the internal resources – to generate topics, do the research and produce the content.  Beyond that taking the time to inspire sharing and get that content posted can be even more time-consuming.  You don’t need Jedi powers to juggle all the workload – relief isn’t far away as there are numerous options for content outsourcing to keep the referral engine chugging along.

Content Outsourcing From Around the Globe

While there is a variety of sources to use for your content outsourcing, you should recognize first and foremost that while it’s great to feed the content machine, your content outsourcing should adhere to specific styles and a voice that fits your company.  Likewise, the content outsourcing you choose should resonate with your customers.  Meeting those criteria helps it integrate seamlessly with your site and your other forms of content marketing.

Options for Content Outsourcing

Content Outsourcing with Curated Content

Consider an art curator who works to bring together the most timely and attractive pieces of art in a gallery based on interests and trends.  A content curator works in much the same manner.  Instead of producing content or having that content written especially for their business, a business owner relies on content outsourcing to services that share content based on category or relevant search terms.

Content outsourcing by curation does not equate to copying content.  Essentially, the site owner would provide snippets or clips of content with links to various sources on the web.  If you chose this method of content outsourcing you’re essentially doing the legwork to locate well written, extraordinary content for your target audience.  They eventually learn that they can come to you for the most relevant pieces all in one place.

There are services that provide content outsourcing and curation through a feed simply by selecting categories and keywords as mentioned above.  The most well-known are Curata, Eqentia and Lingospot.

Content Outsourcing with Co-Created Content

Another way to utilize content outsourcing is to turn to industry experts in order to share content with your target audience.  In some cases the content outsourcing may cost you but some are happy to provide guest content simply for the byline and ability to associate themselves with another strong brand.  The exposure of sharing content helps both parties.  For example, if you provide organic pet products you might call on a professional husky breeder like TajaSiberians.net and request an article or short blog post on natural diets for pure bred canines.

Another great example would be a wine store partnering up with a food blogger to provide content that pairs popular food selections with wines.

Co-creating content as a means of content outsourcing lets you save time and resources while still reaching into your target audience.  The benefit to co-creating content however is that while you provide a byline for most of the content that content is still being shared in full within your domain – giving you the full social proof and SEO benefit of the content.

Content Outsourcing – Crowdsourcing at Its Best

User generated content is a great option for many communities and business owners that don’t have the resources to produce content but they have a passionate following and an audience with a desire to share their knowledge.  Essentially you turn your content outsourcing over to the very people you’re trying to market to.

This type of content can be anything from product reviews to guest posts, articles, recipes, personal stories and more.  AdoptionsTogether.org provides a space for adoptive parents to share their success stories while also providing a section on their site – within the blog – for biological mothers to talk about the challenges of giving a child up for adoption.

There are various modes for sharing with your followers within your domain as well as through social media.  Whatever method of content outsourcing you choose, always remember to ensure that the content you share provides value, education, information and perhaps even entertainment to ensure that your readers can gain from it.

There isn’t a guarantee – simply put it’s just not possible to ensure that anything goes crazy with viral marketing.  Anyone who tells you that they can guarantee viral marketing responses in the millions of shares is lying. What you can do however is plan and strategize appropriately to give your content the best chances of going viral.

Traditionally speaking, video has had the most success with popular sharing through viral marketing – often garnering double and triple digit millions on the view count in as quickly as a few days, often in just a few short weeks.  If you want to improve the odds if enhanced visibility through viral marketing then dive into video.

Tips to Use YouTube for Generating a Viral Marketing Outbreak

You may not infect people on the level of Romero zombie flick but if done correctly you could have a rapid spread on your hands.  Here are some tips to give your attempt at  viral marketing on YouTube a leg up.

#1 – Viral Marketing with Video Doesn’t Have to be Professional

You can shoot on a simple flip cam and you don’t need to hire a directory, a PR agency, a film crew and a special effects guru.  Trust us, people are exposed to the same professional commercials on a regular basis – it doesn’t play out.  Authenticity breeds more interest that obviously staged promo ads.  It’s ok if it looks a little sloppy – remember people like people but they dislike being blatantly sold to.

#2 – Keep your Viral Marketing Video Short

The chances of pulling off a viral spread with a video exceeding 10 minutes are slim… actually you have a better chance of dividing by zero.  Social media users and people who traditionally slip among video sharing sites do so while performing other tasks.  They’re looking for something easily digested.  Keep your video under 3 minutes and you’ll have a better chance of your viral marketing taking off.

#3 – Optimize among your Viral Marketing Efforts

Your title and your description are key to a good share and spread of content and the optimization ensures that your video is found.  If it just languishes in the belly of YouTube then your viral marketing campaign is dead in the water before even leaving the dock.  The world will use the total to refer to and share the video so clever is just as important as optimized – sometimes more so.  Take the time to add a clear (short) description that is also optimized for easy indexing and improved search placement among your target audience.  Work to make sure your viral marketing has everything it needs to succeed.

#4 – DO NOT SHILL in your viral marketing

The point of this type of video is to create interest, to generate mystique, to make people feel compelled beyond imagination to share the content.  Some companies try to be sneaky and they mix in some stealthy corporate message among their viral marketing.  Not only are your customers intelligent but they’ll be easily offended if they realize that you’ve attempted to dupe them.  Try to sell or trick users and you could have a reverse viral marketing campaign – one that paints your company in an extremely negative light.  Bad publicity is better than no publicity but it can be hard to bounce back from.

Lastly, to ensure that your viral marketing gets off to a good start, you need to tell everyone.  Leverage your own social networks but use social buzz building software applications like SYNND.  With a content syndication system you can leverage the reach of other people’s social networks as well as your own.  With a hard shove in the right direction you may very well be able to create the next craze online.  Think you’ve got what it takes to out-do the Old Spice Guy?  Give viral marketing with video a shot.