A Changing Perspective

And really, why would they? The radio has always been the Twitter to television’s blog. You’d listen to the radio, and little bits of news or current events would be fed to you between songs. It was constant and you got spoon fed important bits as you listened.

However, in today’s onlinecentric world, we can get everything the radio offers with none of the interruption of commercials. Pandora, Last.fm, and other digital music services offer custom radio stations based on your interests. And if you want the news, flip over to Twitter, and you can see what’s happening without even interrupting your listening.

So how does the traditional radio station keep you interested? By creating an engaging social media campaign. NPR has recently brought on Gary Knell, who was responsible for turning Sesame Street from a simple children’s show into an online powerhouse of interactive fun. NPR is hoping he can do the same for them.

Robert Siegel's been looking a little green..

However, NPR is not the best example. They already deliver something unique as a nationally syndicated talk radio station. They have numerous interviews and guest speakers that you won’t find elsewhere. While a strong social media campaign will bring them new listeners, they weren’t looking at closing their doors anytime soon.

No, the people who NEED the strong social strategy are the traditional radio shows. Sure, most of them have a morning talk show and personable DJs, but their content is still primarily focused on delivering music. Music I can get from Pandora.

Even in the car, you can plug your smartphone into the radio and listen to Pandora as long as you get 3G, which is pretty much everywhere at this point. If I’m taking a long road trip, why would I struggle to keep finding stations I like when my phone delivers the same station everywhere I go?

Tune In

So how can social media keep listeners tuned in? It’s all about content and interaction. You need to deliver the content people want and interact with your fan base. Nearly every radio station is online already, but that’s not really enough. Radio needs to have a campaign strategy that encourages listeners to actually listen.

• Encourage DJs and talk show hosts to interact via Twitter and Facebook live. This encourages people to interact and gives you some great feedback.
• Run contests both online and off. Most radio stations are constantly giving stuff away on air. Make sure you fill your online fans in, but require them to listen in order to win. Name that song type of contests are great for that.
• Pull the videos for songs you’re playing off YouTube and put it up on Twitter or Facebook.  Better, pull fan made videos and post them. YouTube is full of homemade videos for nearly any song. Video is a strong sell online.
• Encourage listeners to go interact with the social media campaign. I this day and age, people can listen to your radio station from anywhere they have a computer. If you live in a tourist industry based area, connect with listeners who will be listening to you when they come within radio distance. Expand your audience by expanding your area of influence.

But What About the Future?

Those are just a few ways social media can help a radio station. But realistically, even with these measures, it may just be delaying the death of radio. With digital content becoming more and more easy to access from anywhere, fewer people are looking at traditional methods of content distribution. The only sound coming from print is a death rattle, and Hulu, Netflix and Amazon On Demand prove that the TV can already see the end drawing nigh.

How much longer can it be until music radio has its final broadcast?

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Horror Movie Goodness

As you know, we’re no strangers to working on social media campaigns for movies. One of the most recent projects we’ve been working on is a new movie, The Theatre Bizarre. It’s an indie horror movie that the Chefe has dubbed “gore-porn” and that’s a pretty accurate description. We started their social media campaign pretty much from scratch, and really relied on Twitter to promote new stills and clips from the movies.

The Chefe used Follower Wonk to find influential people in the horror movie industry, and developed lists for outreach. We contacted them and worked in conjunction with their Twitter accounts to help spread the word around about TTB. In the weeks to come, we’ll be talking about Follower Wonk and it’s usefulness in other types of campaigns, not just movies.

More Movies, Plus Games

Another project we’ve been working on is a series of three sites, two based around movies and one on video games. When the Movie Gallery franchise went out of business, it sold its assets, including its web presence. The sites for Hollywood Video, Movie Gallery and Game Crazy were all bought buy the same company and it was our job to figure out how to turn a profit on them as well as market them.

The Chefe had the brilliant idea to turn them into collating sites. The Hollywood Video and Movie Gallery sites automatically post content the most popular posts from several major movie news sites, and the Game Crazy site does the same thing for video games. We also supplement the sites with unique, humorous content written by yours truly.

We’ve created Facebook, Twitter and Google+ business pages to reach out to new fans as well as connect with old fans of the sites. While the direction of the sites is entirely new, it still offers plenty of content that should appeal to older fans. We post unique content to each fan page as well as repost more popular posts from the sites.

More Posts Coming

With the increase of new and unique projects we’ve been doing, we have plenty of new content for Social Media Guerilla. So while we’ve been off the radar for a little while, we’ll be posting more frequently again so we can share our experiences with you. Sorry, we’ve not been around much, but as you’ll see, the wait has been worth it.

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Cornhole Competition

If you do a Google image search for Cornhole, I hope you have the SafeSearch on. And if you do, you’ll see plenty of pictures of the game cornhole, a popular party game. I’ve never played it, but the rules are easy enough. You have to throw three bags full of corn into a hole on a sloped board. Probably harder than it sounds.

There are numerous companies online selling cornhole supplies, and even numerous Cornhole Kings. As a matter of fact, just yesterday we had a polite little C&D letter. So now he’s the NEW Cornhole King, which was actually the name of our site all along, and we refer to him as The King.

Cornhole Comedy

The most immediate way we convey the humor is through the blog and Facebook. Anna has done a wonderful job building up a faux mythology behind both the King and the game. She has provided detailed descriptions on the Cornhole Court, the way Cornhole Evolved From Warfare, and other posts that are pretty funny. However, she also puts useful info into the posts, like the rules and etiquette; things of that nature. And every other week is a news update from the world of Cornhole. Real news, not fake. Cornhole is amazingly popular.

To go along with each post is an appropriate picture. Initially it was a photo-shopped picture of the King’s head on some real kings body. He had a terrible grin and sunglasses on. So now I do some simple editing to pictures of real nobility to give them sunglasses, and the King has an instant family tree.

Of course, all of our posts make it to the Facebook page, and our FB specialist posts humorous updates on the page daily, as well as frequent twitter updates. It’s proven pretty popular, and we’re pleased with the reception it’s had. Moving forward, we’re going to do a few videos with the full Cornhole Court in attendance, and see if we can’t get those going around.

Well, that’s it for today, Guerilleros! It’s too nice to stay in here all day. I’m going to the beach. See you next time!

Social Media Guerilla brings tips and tricks for effective social media marketing, as well as social commentary to anyone who is interested or will at least listen. We are waging a war on traditional marketing techniques. We are the underground. We are the future. Enlist now.

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I also noticed that we now have 42 followers on Networked Blogs, and 42 just happens to be my favorite number. Our 42nd follower also happens to be the newest writer I’ve been working with, and I invited her to write a guest post. Dr. Anna Gralton is a talented writer from Australia, and has been very helpful to the Chefe and I with some blog posts lately.

One of the blogs Anna has been running is topcornholeboards.com. The company name is The Cornhole King, and Anna has written some brilliantly funny posts following the royalty theme. They are completely worth stopping by for. But let me stop going on, and here is Anna’s article!

Tips on Writing Humor in Social Media

Writing humor for social media can be akin to a minefield. Humor’s a great way to get the message across, especially in this day and age with social media. If you get it right, the benefits can be nothing short of a miracle: increasing brand awareness; buzz; attracting new clients and leads; promoting firm-client interaction; increasing followers, fans etc. In contrast, if you get it wrong, you’re likely to confuse the heck out of your readers or, worse still, insult them. They will lose interest and not come back.

Although social media marketing is ultimately about selling and is very serious, the fact of the matter is that much content is set in a light-hearted, entertaining backdrop. As such, if you can find a funny angle or if it just slaps you directly in the face, such as with our Cornhole client blog, then why not run with it? Let’s face it; no one wants to read dull, dreary blog posts about an obviously funny topic.

You might also think that writing a humorous piece is easy and can be done on the spot. Wrong! When writing for social media, as you know, there are many more considerations that go into it. This is where you have to sit down and consciously merge the two.

Considerations

• Commonsense 101. Make sure the product and/or site is really set up for humor. Consider what the client wants and needs. What type of content do they already have on their site? Consider their brand identity and tap into it. This is where a thorough understanding of the business, their target audience and their objectives is required.
• The Underlying Guts. Think about the guts of the article. What is the post really going to be about? This will be serious and you’ll need to connect humor to it, not vice versa. Only create this connection after the crux of the post has evolved. Unless you have a specific idea in mind, don’t start with humor first.
• Idea Creation. Revolve humor around a subject matter that everyone gets. If a client is entering a nationwide market from a localized geographical area, the humor must be understood by everyone out there in cyberspace. Pick a genre that’s popular. You could even tap into a subject that’s already been done, such as a slapstick movie. One pointer, though, if you’re going to continue to make a series of posts, ensure the topic is large enough to run with.
• Tread Carefully. When writing humor, there are a few basics you should be cautious off. Readers won’t get in-jokes and it will only come off stupid. Don’t say anything politically incorrect – remember it’s for your client, not you. Also, don’t go overboard. A nice subtle bit of humor before getting into the core of the piece is great. Too much and it will come across as ridiculous.
• Feedback. Get a friend or family member with a normal, but lacking, sense of humor and find out on a scale of one to ten what they’d give it. This is the person you tell a joke to and they give that socially inappropriate smirk and walk away. If the scoring hits above five, there’s a good chance you’re onto a winner!
• Frame of Mind. Don’t write the piece when you’ve just had a screaming argument with your next-door neighbor because his dog dodoed on your front footpath for the umpteenth time and you were lucky enough to step in it – again! Do it when you’re in a relaxed, happy frame of mind and thinking happy thoughts. If this happens to be limited in your universe, at least jot down the outline when you’re in a happy mood. You can fill in the contents later.

When writing humor for a social media client, try not to get too carried away. This can lead to “humor specialization” – that is, humor that only you find funny. Keep it light, simple and connected to the brand and customer base.

• Dr. Anna Gralton is the head of Freelance Formations,a freelance writing and research company based in Australia.

Social Media Guerilla brings tips and tricks for effective social media marketing, as well as social commentary to anyone who is interested or will at least listen. We are waging a war on traditional marketing techniques. We are the underground. We are the future. Enlist now.

For an example using humor to drive traffic check out the Cornhole Kingdom, the place for custom cornhole boards.  The Kingdom is a great site for humor, and it certainly spreads into the realm of social media.

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Last season, one of the episodes had Jack, Liz (who I always think of as Liz Lemon, thanks Tracey) and Cerie all in Liz’s office. Jack is upset about a post on YouFace, a Facebook clone, and wants to check it. Both Cerie and Liz rush into action, Cerie on the smartphone, Liz on the desktop. Before Liz can even finish entering in the sites name, Cerie announces she has the relevant post. And this scene is clearly meant to be a joke on Liz.

But this innocuous little scene really hammers some facts home. It clearly demonstrate that Lemon’s generation of 30-40 year olds has  already been left behind in the IT field. Tech is advancing so fast, that people who were not brought up with this constant race are not adapting as quickly as younger people.

Of course, we all knew that. What’s more interesting though, is that Cerie went to her smartphone first. And this is the most common way to get on the web if you just need something quick. I’m on my laptop, and out of habit, I still used my phone to find out how to spell Cerie’s name properly. A vast majority of younger people get there main exposure to the internet through their phones. Google Mobile Search has drastically increased this year, no doubt in part because of the slew of new smartphones that really cater to the tween crowd.

But we knew this too. So what did I learn from that episode of 30 Rock? The fact that everyone already knows these things so well, that 30 Rock had a throwaway joke about it.

This is a quickly changing world Guerilleros. But you knew that.

But you can at least stay up to date on Social Media Marketing information with us. So sign up to get us everyday. Or at least as often as we post.

And now for something completely different.  The Williamsburg Wedding Guide is up and running with the goal of helping people plan their marriages in the Colonial Williamsburg area.  They have some great vendors and are going all out to be the best in the area.  If you are looking for a great place for your wedding, you should certainly check out the Guide.

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Once we took over the marketing, we took control of the website and started updating both the site and blog on a regular basis. It was a custom WP site, which we’re pretty familiar with, but we still haven’t entirely figured this one out. It’s a pretty advanced theme.

The biggest aspect of our campaign, however, is on Facebook. Kill Cliff sponsors some pretty big name athletes, including UFC fighters. And since we have more than a little knowledge of the MMA world, we decided to go with what we know, and focus on that.

We created fan sites for the more popular fighters, and we’re monitoring their organic fanbase’s growth carefully. All the pages prominently feature the Kill Cliff can and have a trail back to the Kill Cliff page. Depending on the success of that experiment, we may develop more pages.

We’ve also developed a campaign demonstrating that Kill Cliff isn’t just for athletes. It features three videos of some of the more advanced students at our local MMA gym. We’re using those heavily in the campaign.

We have a lot more in plan for Kill Cliff, but we want to see what works best before we commit any more resources to a project with less than minimal results. We’ll probably come back to the subject more in future articles.

PS. Speaking of marketing, you need to check out some of the great real estate that is selling cheap on the Outer Banks.  For a lot less than you might expect you can get a Nags Head luxury home.  If you prefer something in a quieter neighborhood, how about a beautiful oceanfront home in Corolla?  I know what you are thinking: One is too far south and the other is too far north.  How about splitting the difference with a great investment property in Duck?  With OBX real estate prices so low, buying an Outer Banks home is one of the best investments you can make!

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Twitter stays at the front of user privacy protection

Hello Guerilleros! Recently, the Guerilla Chefe received an email from Twitter discussing two big changes they are implementing. These improvements will be unfolded over the next couple of months. More than likely, a few of you also received the same email, but perhaps, you were a bit confused. Well, lets clear that up.

Update #1- The Rise of OAuth!

The first update is for new authorization rules for applications. This change will begin implementing OAuth, an open standard that will not require you to hand out your password to programs anymore.

Much like a valet key, OAuth gives applications very limited access to your account, so unauthorized users can’t hijack your feed. And you can control exactly how much access this key permits.

And, applications are no longer allowed to store your password. That’s great. You no longer have to worry about someone stealing your phone and gaining access to your password. And lets face it, the majority of people use the same password for almost everything, so keeping it safe is pretty important.

Update #2 – See Where You’re Going!

We comon folk will start experiencing the t.co URL wrapping. This is a n order to provide better content.great feature too. No longer will you need to fret over following a link in a Tweet. Before it even gets to you, it is screened to make sure it’s not affiliated with any sort of malware.

Plus, with the URL wrapping, you’ll actually be able to see where the link is taking you. No more clicking a link to go to amazon, and ending up at 4chan.

Also, Twitter plans to collect data on the sites we click through to, to enhance user experience. I think that is just market speak for “So we can more effectively target you with ads”.

In light of all the problems Facebook seems to have over privacy, it is nice to see a social media site trying to stay ahead of the curve. These updates, while not exactly super cool, are important, and will help protect you and your clients in the long run.

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Too often it seems that people want to use their blogs as long winded advertisements. That’s not an effective use of a blog. People don’t come back to a blog that’s just a string of commercials. They want content. They want to be informed. And there are several good ways to do this, but generally, I tend to go with two.

My favorite style is to talk about what is going on at the clients place of business. This makes people want to come around more often, so they don’t miss the excitement. Or they see what they DID miss, and make doubly sure to go the next time. It also drives more of the client’s clientele to the blog posts, because they can relive the event they participated in. Try getting a member’s name into the post for bigger bang. We occasionally do member profiles on a fitness club site. It works well for everyone. And it’s just more interesting.

But sometimes you have a client that is boring as hell. Like a hotel that doesn’t throw parties or anything. In that case, give info. Like the top sight seeing spots in the hotel’s area. Or maybe give the top ten travel tips. Shoot a video, and talk about it. Do not just repeatedly slam blog posts about how great the rooms are, or how low the rates are.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t do an ad post every now and again. I mean, you are selling a business here. Just spread them out over a couple posts. And unless you work at a place that is really jamming, you’ll need to use both techniques, and maybe a few you figure out on your own.

Here’s my question for the week. What would you like me to talk about next time? You tell me, I’ll talk about it, even if I have to pull the Guerilla Chefe out to answer it.  Preference goes to questions about writing. Hey, I know writing, what do you expect? See you next time, Guerilleros!

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The origins of chiropractics?

Hello Guerilleros! So much for the consistency I promised last week, huh? But here we are again today! And today, instead of giving you a specific tip, I am bringing you a rather unique resource I found while searching for some ideas for one of my clients. A whole website devoted to using social media, specifically for chiropractors.

The site is full of interesting info tailored to help chiropractors use social media for promoting their business. In a recent post, he even gave examples of iPhone apps that could be used. All for chiropractors.

Obviously, if you have a chiropractor for a client, this website is extremely useful to you. You can thank me and we’ll see you next time. If you don’t have a chiropractor for a client, which is probably most of you, you may be thinking I just found an easy way out of doing a quality post. Here’s a great example of a chiropractor in the Outer Banks that is using social media very effectively.

Well, your wrong. this site has tons of great ideas that would really fit into any business. Replace the word “chiropractor” with the word “pizza store” and BAM! instant help. But even more intriguing is the fact that this person devotes his whole site to chiropractic social media. Is it smart to provide social media for only one profession?We’ll ignore the fact that he IS a chiropractor.

I say if you can get enough clients that are not in competition with each other, go for it. A large part of my clientele is based around Jiu Jitsu. (Imagine that, guerilleros.) I had only the vaguest idea of what Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was when I started writing for my first client, who happened to be a Jiu Jitsu organization. And through a little rapid learning and a lot of some help from the Guerilla Chefe, I quickly learned enough to write about it, and picked up several more Jiu Jitsu accounts nationwide.

However, none of them are in competition with one another. They are all located in different parts of the country. This is of great benefit to me, because it allows me to use the same posts on their respective Facebook pages, and use similar items on their blogs, saving me time. Notice I said similar, not the same. I never recycle content. But I will use the same concept for more than one piece.

So if you can specialize, it can save you some time and effort, allowing you to take on even more work! And that’s what it’s all about right?

Oh, and I now practice Jiu Jitsu with the Guerilla Chefe.

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I am a writer by trade.

Hello Guerilleros. I am Guerilla Roberto. As you are probably aware, the site hasn’t been updated much lately. Unfortunately for us, but fortunate for him, our Guerilla Chefe has been overwhelmed lately with new projects that are sucking up all of his time.

As a result of this social media frenzy, I have been asked to step in and take over for awhile. And for my first post, I will just introduce myself. Next week we will serve up a new tip or trick from the mouth of the Guerilla Chefe himself.

I am not exactly a social media guru, I am a writer. Hence I will now be writing this blog. As a friend and co-worker of the  Guerilla Chefe, I have unwittingly been involved in the chaos that is social media marketing. So far, it has been very good to me, and I hope to share some of the things I have learned along the way. I hope you all enjoy my style as much as you do our Guerilla Chefe.

And while I don’t know what the future holds, I do know the revolution hasn’t ended. In fact, we’re just entering a new phase. From now on, this site will be updated every week at least once. That’s right, we’re bringing some consistency to the site (and some better grammar!)

And for my final parting shot, how many of you can say Guerilleros out loud, with the correct pronunciation? That’s a tongue twister!

No related posts.

Content Syndication = Your Own NON-PAID Army of Marketers

You write a blog post.

You tell somebody on twitter about it.

That person comes in, likes what you wrote, and click on the “add to digg” button.

When that person posts your article on Digg, their app automatically updates that person’s twitter saying that she’d just digged your blog.

That person’s twitter followers come to Digg and see your post. They read it through the Digg toolbar, and automatically “digg it”.

Now that more people have “Digged it”, your post is up on the Popular section of Digg – and you reach tons of other Digg users, who repeat the process.

This is called Content Syndication and it basically means Viral Marketing through Social Media.

Expanding The Syndication Of Your Content

In the example above, all you’ve done was update your twitter about the new post. Let’s say that brought 10 visitors to your blog.

What if you had updated Digg, Reddit, Jumptags, Social Median, Simply, Delicious, Folkd, Facebook, and Twitter?

Now, you may argue that you might not have as many friends on Delicious as you have on Twitter. That’s a good argument, one that leads to the understanding of what Content Syndication really is based upon: SOCIAL CONNECTIONS.

Here are tools that will help boosting your Content Syndication:

The Add To Any WordPress Plugin

You can see it at the bottom of this post – it even goes along the RSS feed. When you click on any option, the Permalink, Title, Description, and upper image are automatically inserted to the submit form of the service, reducing your time considerably.

You can get your add to any here

Ping.Fm

An impressive application that updates nearly ALL social services with the touch of a button – Ping.fm requires that you initially add each of your social networks to their list. They will then store your info and everytime you send a new update, it will refresh your status throughout as many social networks as you’d like.

Sign up for a Ping.fm account here

But You’re Still Alone…

Even with these great services, your submissions may very well never be clicked by anybody if you dont have an active social community of your own.

Luckily, there is a way to fix that: The Synnd Software

Synnd is a private community that exists solely to vote/bookmark/spread other users’ content, therefore guaranteeing a successful syndication (one that creates a viral marketing effect).

See the Synnd software in action here.

Exploring the benefits of social media and content syndication is a way to work around getting free traffic without having to know SEO and definitely not spending money with PPC.

If you’d like to know more about Synnd, leave your questions below.

If you dont want to know anything about it, leave your comments below.

If you hated my disorganized writing, leave your comments below.

See you soon.

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X-One is the most socially active coffee mug ever!

Guerilleros, today over at the ASI Central I read a cool post about 5 hot marketing trends and if it’s hot, there’s social media all over it.

No doubt, Social Media was the very first “hot trend” (they call it “trend”, we know it’s a GUERILLA!) and even though they didn’t seem to be very familiar with the topic, they picked a real Guerilla strategy to talk about: The X-One Mug Fan Page

The company that makes the X1 (Gold Bond Inc.) decided that

As a travel mug, the X-one is always going places, so the marketing team figured social media was a natural fit, and the X-one Facebook page was born

Pretty clever, huh?

There are a ton of reasons why Gold Bond marketing director Karen Sherrill should receive a considerable bonus, but here at the Guerilla we’ll discuss why their campaign works like charm:

Social Media Marketing With Humour

Attention to details: humor and constant updates on the x-one fan page

Now raise your hands those who enjoy when companies make fun of themselves… ???

When you go social, online or offline, it’s your personality that attracts people – and the X-One team have created a darn cool one for their fan page.

Mentioning personality is important not only to make the X-One remarkable but to instigate people to talk about it (like I’m doing right now).

I’ve written about the guerilla marketing viral effect and how content goes viral when there’s a benefit to the user that is syndicating it.

Sherill proved to be a master guerillera when she stated this in regards to being remarkable:

One of the important elements seems to be humor or intrigue that will give friends and fans a reason to pick your tweets and posts out of the onslaught of others

Why the x1 Guerilla Marketing Has Gone Viral

Sherill and her team have made the X-One campaign extremely engaging by asking people to share how and where they take their mugs. When customers send them pictures, they’re all published on the fan page under the album “Places I Have Been“.

Check out these pics from the album:

Is that a successful campaign or what?

Remarkable social media marketing...!

They’re completely NOT A SOCIAL MEDIA SILO – From their facebook page, you can see that the entire company participates: there are mentions of the plant manager, becky the sales rep…

What they missed – Subtle Monetizing…

We could not find a link to the company website at the fan page, and we could not find a link to their twitter account either.

ATTENTION: Good social media guerillas are subtle about these strategies, and it’s not a bad practice to make it a bit less obvious for your visitors that you’re trying to sell something.

In the X-One case, however, they’re really not trying to sell anything. Their approach is almost entirely entertaining, and that’s where they missed the point:

What If I wanted to buy an X-One?

My wife drinks more coffee than Brazil can export it, and I’d love to buy her one.

How about a link to a “getthex1.com” domain with more pictures, and an online order form?

Anyway, many praises to Sherill and the marketing team at Gold Bond Inc. They’ve put together a really powerful guerilla campaign, and it should be an inspiration for companies who think social media marketing is about blasting 140 character ads over twitter.

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We'll help you go viral on twitter, so you'll maybe get off of it.

Guerilleros, this will be quick because my offline guerilla is taking up too much time. What I’ll show you today is a quick tip for lazy viral marketers.

I bet you’ve already seen the tweetmeme plugin, which automatically inserts a new status message into a user’s own twitter account.

TweetMEME Plugin helps viral strategies

That is a major twitter marketing tool, and I highly recommend you install it on your blog. After all, the easier you make for people to syndicate your content, the more they will. If you do nothing, you’ll receive nothing. That’s guerilla karma.

But what if you’re looking to add some twitter marketing juice to a good-ole website? What? No wordpress plugins?

Viral Twitter Marketing Snippet for Non-Wordpress Sites?

Yeap, there are still places where a widget doesnt quite work. For those places, you can use a simple HTML guerilla code:

The only thing you have to pay attention to is that you cannot leave any spaces on the code, so you have to use + whenever you have a space.

For example, if I wanted to tell you to please retweet this awesome post, I’d write the following line of code:

<a href=”http://twitter.com/home?status=RT+@leosaraceni+Gave+me+this+cool+twitter+tip+at+http://socialmediaguerilla.com”>RETWEET ME</a>

It works even better when you have a banner image, or even a simple twitter logo. Check out how I merged this technique at my non-wordpress site, while I was writing about keyword research with google insight.

That’s it for today folks. Be creative with your guerilla, and always include viral twitter thingys on your content. As you know, twitter is profitable for a bunch of people (except its creators), and it will help your social media guerilla.

Talk to you soon!

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1. How To Turn Guerilla Marketing Viral – The Viral Effect! The psychology behind anything that goes viral is that the...

The “viral” aspect only works if, after spreading it to their friends, that user will be seen as funny, smart, up-to-date, or valuable.

So, when thinking about new Guerilla marketing content, focus on creating remarkable pieces, that will separate those who have seen it (the cool, the smart, the savvy, the geekiest…) from those who NEED to see it (beyond your potential customers)

The Viral Effect Determines The NEED To See/Read/Try It

Therein lies the Viral Effect; divising the “have seen it” from the “need to see”. And the more remarkable your Guerilla marketing is, the bigger the “NEED TO SEE”.

You’ve probably seen a very old viral video on TV being advertised in the ‘news’ and thought to yourself:

“I’ve already seen it, those TV people are always behind…”

And of course, you’re a much cooler person because you had already seen it

Alright, but how does one go about creating the viral effect in guerilla??

First of all, check through this list to make sure your content passes “guerilla quality control”:

• Very little pitch, if pitch at all

• There’s no way anybody will know what it relates to unless they watch/read it to the end

• Creates expectation/suspense/thrill/curiosity

• Goes WAY beyond “target market”, attractive to a wide range of users

If it passes all these factors, there’s a big chance you’ve got a bazooka Guerilla on your hands.

But well, it’s not like there’s an ignition button to fire up massive content syndication – specially if you don’t have a large syndication network – but here are strategies good for any marketer:

• Contact major twitter users with large heavy internet users as followers (those are the social media trendsetters). I.E: Guy Kawasaki, Perry Belcher, Richard Branson, Arleen Anderson, Chris Brogan, Chris Pirillo, etc.. You can check twitterholic.com for stats. Refer them to your video/post/campaign and ask for a retweet.

• Most twitter users have their own blogs, but it’s also good to check alltop.com for specific blogs and contact bloggers.

• On youtube, if you’re doing a guerilla video, it works very well to ALLOW embeds and comments. After all, you do want buzz, right?

This troublesome strategy of contacting social media personalities is the ONLY shortcut to those who do not have a large network of friends to syndicate your content.

The other strategy that seems to work (depending on budget) is to have a top-notch PR firm feed the media.

(of course, we’re talking about social media here – so don’t expect me to suggest helicopter-bombing-business-cards type of strategies here)

But turning any guerilla into a viral marketing depends on your ability to:

• be newsworthy

• be social (online)

(grow a large group of ‘friends’ on multiple platforms – your content syndication network)

• be remarkable

• be steady & keep ‘em coming

(turn a single campaign into multiple posts/pieces – start a specific website/blog just for it)

We’ll keep the guerilla rolling, and will post much more content here, but if you really want to overthrow the establishment and learn underground guerilleros’ tools to automate social media marketing, click here.

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1. Okay, Social Media & Guerilla Marketing? Yeah, Here’s How! First of all, a quick explanation on Guerilla Marketing, from...

The Social Media Guerilla Logo

First of all, a quick explanation on Guerilla Marketing, from the one-and-only wikipedia:

“Guerilla Marketing is an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget.”

How about a budget of $ 0.00, and results like this, or this ?

What if I were to tell you that Social Media Guerilla elected President Obama?

The possibilities are endless, and the results are extremely tempting.

So, what does it take?

Social Guerilla Marketing Starts With Syndication

Who turns any Guerilla content Viral? You. Me. Users!

And how does any content spread on the internet?

It starts with ignition:

• submission to social bookmarking services

• submission to news/media rating services (Digg, Social Median)

• a tweet

Which is all very simple; the kick comes when nobody rates, or bookmarks, or retweets your content.

For the viral effect, a key factor in the formula is Syndication.

Content Syndication is how your Guerilla content gets to the first page of Digg, which leads to several retweets, which all together creates copious amounts of traffic.

And as we know, traffic is good for two things:

• MONEY – either selling stuff or selling space on your website to promote stuff, traffic is a major asset (when steady)

• INCOMING LINKS – the more attractive (Viral) your content gets, more and more website owners will link to it in an attempt to enjoy some of the buzz you created. Search engines feast on incoming links, and your other content gets a nice bump on SERPs because of all that love you spread.

Okay, everybody knows that…

But how to get people to syndicate your content?

To answer a question with another:

How many friends do you have?

Just like word-of-mouth, the initiator usually tells a close friend, who tells another, and the entire chain is set.

Online, it’s all a matter of having the right friends – the more, the better.

Friends are created on social networking sites like Facebook, or MySpace (if you’re under 14). Those are great to meet and interact with people, but they are useless for marketing.

Good syndication-friends are created at services where user-voting determines the visibility and the quality of the content. We’re talking about Digg, Del.i.cious, Social Median, Reddit, etc…

The trick is not just to ‘add a friend’ but to lead attract that person to reciprocate, gaining a ‘mutual friend’ status.

This means (depending on the quality of your content) that your friend is more likely to vote positively for a content submitted by you.

So, forget about Facebook?

Why not?

From now on, your focus as an Underground Social Guerilla (USG) is to:

• Create high-quality content

• Create a powerful content syndication network

With the first task, there’s not much anybody can do except recommend good readings.

But for the latter, you can kick-start your syndication here

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