MAD MARKETING TACTICS™ !: hashtag

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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

MEMES: Increase Backlinks And Traffic. "Heavenly Hashtagging"

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This is a pertinent image of Dawkins and memes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Your first question should be, "What, exactly, is a meme?" Your second question should be, "Could you give me several examples of memes?" And your third question should be "How can I utilize memes to build blog and website backlinks and increase traffic?"

We at The Mad Marketing Tactics Blog (we actually have a secret slogan, soon to be incorporated into a graphic meme which is... Get MAD... Get CRAZY... Get MOVING... Get ATTENTION!

1) But what exactly is a MEME?

According to Wikipedia, a wonderful and underfunded source of information...

"An Internet meme is an idea that is propagated through the World Wide Web. The idea may take the form of a hyperlink, video, picture, website, hashtag, or just a word or phrase, such as intentionally misspelling the word "more" as "moar" or "the" as "teh".

The meme may spread from person to person via social networks, blogs, direct email, news sources, or other web-based services. An Internet meme may stay the same or may evolve over time, by chance or through commentary, imitations, parody, or by incorporating news accounts about itself. Internet memes can evolve and spread extremely rapidly, sometimes reaching world-wide popularity within a few days.

Internet memes usually are formed from some social interaction (Rage comic or reaction faces), pop culture reference (Xzibit in "Yo Dawg" or Bear Grylls in "Better drink my own piss"), or situation people often find themselves in (Socially Awkward Penguin or Futurama Fry / Not Sure If X).

Many memes also come from video games (such as the "arrow in the knee" from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim). For researchers it's hard to track down the birthplace of memes due to their viral nature, as well as the high chance of the meme spreading to the major websites nearly instantly.

Their rapid growth and impact has caught the attention of both researchers and industry^. Academically, researchers model how they evolve and predict which memes will survive and spread throughout the Web. Commercially, they are used in viral marketing where they are an inexpensive form of mass advertising."
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NOTE: Of course, if the above thesis was too complicated (or too boring) for you to understand/endure, Timmy's Uncle Bart gives this very simple definition:

"An internet phenomenon or a meme is an image, video, phrase or simply an idea that spreads from one person to another seemingly for no logical reason at all. When people see a meme, no matter how silly it usually is, they find it amusing for one reason or other and forward it to their friends; soon millions of people know about it thanks to how fast the information can spread online and the viral effect. That's the whole doggone ball o'wax, Timmy! Now go get me a root beer, nephew."

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2) Could you give several examples of MEMES?

Why of course! We'll even vary them in terms of types, styles and sources so that you'll have a good picture. Her are some examples of memes and links to examples of memes. All we aks (in New Yawk) is that if you visit a link, that when you've finished devouring all of the content there that you hit your browser's "BACK" button and return to continue reading this article. Really....we don't ask for much.

http://www.ranker.com/list/the-50-greatest-internet-memes-of-2011/williammtx

http://www.squidoo.com/top-10-internet-memes

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/subcultures/inception

Memes truly are very simple, easily generalized, broadly applicable words (spelled correctly or inkorekly), pictures, word-embedded pictures and symbols. They are easily transmitted, require minimal translation and were probably created for internet use by the same geniuses who created emoticons. Favicons are a whole different matter.

3) How can I utilize MEMES to build blog and website backlinks and increase traffic?

Now we're getting down to business! Let's address the ways in which you can utilize MEMES to build blog and website backlinks and traffic... and there are quite a few...just insert the search terms: Memes+Increase+Website+Backlinks+Traffic into your Google search engine and you will wind up with a veritable cesspool roiling with imaginative possibilities.

Now, as a special bonus for coming to visit this site, I offer you (with head bowed, revealing male pattern hair loss) a free meme (a #freememe) to experiment with and to propagate:

CLICK HERE TO GET THE JAVASCRIPT FOR THIS KILLER MEME - OR JUST SNAG THE PHOTO.

Douglas E. Castle for The Mad Marketing Tactics Blog

#MadMarketing

Friday, October 7, 2011

Twitter Math: Tweets To Sales

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Twitter is a broadcast medium, as opposed to Facebook, which is truly a two-way sharing and relationship-oriented platform. Twitter's highest and best purpose is its use in front-lining marketing campaigns. In terms of the marketing funner, Twitter status updates, especially those containing "Action Links," are simple to post, are often reverberated (exponentialized) through the re-tweeting process, and are dynamic -- you can simultaneously build credibility, branding, SEO prominence and greater site visits which can be converted to actual sales ot other revenue production (every monetizer's objective).

It is as inexpensive as it is powerful, and the process is elegantly simple: post, increase followers, offer them a well-blended and non-advertorial feed, be certain that every "nth" post contains a 'grabber' headline [this usually involves questions, shocking news, controversy, gossip, a self-test, a quick (numbered steps) fix to a problem, the mention of a major trending term, or anything involving tragedy or celebrities], and a call to action hyperlinked into an Action Link. Incidentally, Action Links are close cousins to Anchor Text.

A good blend of feeds might entail 80% (by number of posts) content from appropriately topical RSS feeds, and 20% Action Link laden posts.

For you Mad Marketers, there is a simple protocol to follow to help you in automating the process and making it more powerful as a conversion and monetization tool. The basic campaign steps are summarized here:

1) Set up a growing number of Twitter accounts, each relating to a particular topic or theme.

2) After you have found RSS content resources for each of these accounts, start producing the 80% - 20% posting that was referenced above. Remember - more than 20 or so tweets per day (unless they are fabulously interesting and from a variety of credible sources) in any account can lose you followers.

3) Thank each new follower with a direct note which references (via hyperlink) your website or blogsite, but don't sell...invite your new follower to visit or to visit and comment. Be gracious, polite and friendly. Nothing disgusts me quite so much as an instant solicitation in my first direct correspondence from someone I have chosen to follow. No foreplay. Very insensitive.

4) Be certain that you website, blog, landing page or other point of arrival for the action-taking follower is superbly written and not simply a giant ad. Frame the ad in some content. Let your new visitor enjoy his or her first customer experience with you.

5) Lather, rinse and repeat.

Illustrative Math:

A) Create 10 accounts;
B) Follow the procedures above -- at twenty status updates daily, four will contain Action Links;
C) Build up a following of 1,000 (average) on each one;
D) Note: That's 10,000 followers, folks, with 200,000 "broadcasts" per day, out of which 40,000 contain live calls to action;
E) If 2% of these calls to action result in site "hits," you will have 800 hits per day, wherever you've directed your followers to go - always tell your followers where to go;
F) If 2% of these hits result in conversions to revenue, that means your efforts will be rewarded with 16 conversion (or revenue-producing events) daily.

The ancillary benefits are that your SEO prominence will increase, your ad rates (for pre-paid advertisers) can be increased, and that your workload doesn't have to increase substantially in order to support all of this growth. Time to get started.

Douglas E Castle [http://aboutDouglasCastle.blogspot.com]