On the 97th Floor SEO Blog where I post about viral campaigns every Friday, I got asked this questions about what good viral campaigns do, if they sell no product? Its a fair question to the un-learned (maybe not by the type of person that asked it – proclaimed SEO) I guess. The problem with this question is, the person asking it, is completely missing the point of why people like me are running viral campaigns. There are many other amazing places for stories to go viral, but for the sake of this post – I am going to focus on Digg.
The Digg Effect?
If you get a FP on Digg, and it gets you so much traffic it takes your server down because of 40-100k plus uniques to your site (from what I have seen) you are bound to get noticed by someone. So looking at your sales, and seeing none should not be alarming. You can get crazy traffic from Digg even if your story does not make it popular. But if it does …
You just experienced the Digg effect. What is the Digg effect? After your server recovers –
- People know about you now.
- They know about your site.
- They are going to be linking to your story. Yea Links! We love links!
- They are going to continue to talk about you for weeks, More Links!!
- Other social networks may pick up your story and send even more traffic, links and saves.
- Digg carries a lot of trust.
- Stories rank well and push more trust to your site.
- You get added benefits from Alexa (crazy burst, and then steady flow of traffic)
Great post Mat. This is something that I really do need to focus on in 2009, so thanks for the push!
@Dan Patterson
Hey Thanks Dan! Let me know if you need any help or have ?s – I would be more then happy to assist! Viral Marketing is going to be my big push and resolution of 2009!
In my experience, traditionally viral marketing has been far more effective that the new version, which includes Social Media promotion. While Social Media can produce wonderful numbers which impress people and clients, the traffic doesn’t seem to have the stickiness that traditional viral marketing does. For example if one publishes a white paper or (free) ebook and makes some buzz, over time, those seeking that information will find it, and it will convert at a much higher rate. Too often Social Media is misused, and the traffic, while impressive, is almost invalid.
@Anthony
You make a valid point here, but it makes me wonder if you even read the article, or got its point? You are using viral campaigns and the “buzz” to get people talking about you. The more they talk about you, the more people will be linking to you, pushing trust and in turn making it easier to rank for the words that will bring a higher conversion. I agree there is abuse out there, but if done right these campaigns can be powerful and help increase your overall conversion rate, gain additional rankings in the SERPs which will bring you more traffic AND sales!
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Mat,
This is a great article for business owners who are novices with Internet marketing. My experience is that experienced business owners who are Internet marketing newbies look at viral marketing as being ineffective b/c they do not see an IMMEDIATE return on their investment. What they fail to realize, and you point out so beautifully, is that their return will come in the form of increased rankings thanks to all of the links. Nice explanation.
@David
Thanks Dave and you too make a great point – experienced true Internet marketers know the value of viral marketing and one of my goals is to help more people understand the power of viral marketing in 2009. Thanks for your comments!