Content marketing tools and training.
Stories sell, there’s no doubt about it.
But they don’t sell because they tell people what to do.
It’s what a story allows people to tell themselves that makes it a powerful selling tool.
Sometimes people do believe what you tell them.
But people rarely ever doubt what they themeselves.
Take the novel and film Fight Club for instance.
Do you?
Do you know what the secret to viral marketing is?
It’s participation.
How a Headline Can Be Link Bait for Bloggers Who Love Viral Marketing.
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Late last week I asked you fine folks to submit posts that you wanted me to take a look at to see if I could improve on the headline a bit. I ended up with more than 60 submissions.
Given the horrendous week this has been (don’t ask), I could only get to 5 for now, since providing my rationale for the changes that are made is important, too.
But I think we’ll also likely do this on a regular basis if you find it useful.
So I’m hanging around an Internet forum the other day.
People there are going on about how they “only write for themselves,” and if the reader doesn’t get it “it’s their problem.”
Was I in a creative writing forum? Or maybe over at Robert Bruce’s place?
Nope. It was a “professional” blogging site.
Can a tutorial attract links and traffic, while selling at the same time?
We know that a well-written tutorial that stays strongly focused on benefits to the reader can fly under the “sales-alert” radar and lead to great results. This has been true online and off well before blogging and social media became big.
The same benefits-oriented focus can also cause a tutorial to go viral, just like PDF reports, free ebooks, and white papers have done via email forwards since the beginning of the commercial web.
So let’s look at a time-tested 10-step process to creating an educational marketing tool that generates both buzz and sales.
So, it’s Wednesday morning of this week, and I’m right in the middle of the daily train wreck that occurs as soon as the kids roll out of bed.
As I deftly prevent the 18 month old from bashing his head on the corner of my desk, the old IM chimes, and despite myself I cannot resist its Siren call.
It’s Markus from AU interactive, and he wants some quick headline advice for a post he’s about to release.
We quickly bang it out, and go our separate ways.
Later on in the day, I notice that his post, 10 Things That Will Make or Break Your Website is on the front page of Digg. Last I looked it had scored over 1100 votes, a bunch of Delicious bookmarks, and spent time on TechMeme.
Not bad.
Used to be, there were two steps to using media to market your business.
First, you found an appropriate media outlet to advertise in, and you paid your money.
Then, you created your advertisement so people would call, order, or visit your website.
Now, you are the media outlet, and your “advertisement” had better be quite useful to your readers / listeners / watchers, or you’re wasting your time.
I haven’t posted about RSS much lately, since there’s been very little going on.
But this week Gabe Rivera of TechMeme announced a very cool use of RSS—he pulls posts from his sponsor’s blogs via feed and displays them in the sponsor area.
Great content is the advertisment (as it should be).
That’s very cool, and there’s a lot more to explore in the area that Gabe is blazing a trail in.
Now today, Text Link Ads released Feedvertising, a free WordPress plugin that allows you to rotate sponsored advertising copy and links in your RSS feed. If you’re reading this via feed (or email) right now, look down at the bottom to see an example.
Links and traffic… who wants some?
The number of excellent resources that have come out since the beginning of the year on attracting links and building traffic has really mushroomed. Plus there are some timeless classics that are still very relevant today.
I think it makes sense to compile the very best in one handy location and share it, so here’s my entire collection. If I missed your link and traffic resource let me know and I’ll take a look.
Now, it doesn’t matter if you like the term “link baiting” or not. It’s the process that one goes through to attract links that matters, not whether you prefer to think of your content as bait for links. I like to think that creating content that increases web traffic and builds links simply falls under the general social media optimization marketing buzz phrase that is gaining in popularity.
So, here’s your ultimate “how to” guide to creating content that attracts links and drives traffic in the social media environment:
