Making Blog Marketing Easy - Give Them the Code

So, you want people to blog about your product, but you have no idea about how to get them to do it.


Why not make it easy for them? A perfect example of this is IFILM's Academy Awards Blogger Toolkit.



This site not only provided the content including movie trailers and awards speeches as old as 1935 for bloggers to post, but also instructions on how to do so. They even included code for embedded movie players for various award categories.

Many bloggers love interactive content that will draw and keep readers on their site, so this type of high-quality content is sure to be welcomed by many.

Remember, the easier content is for the bloggers to post, and the more valuable they find it to entice readers, the more likely it will be posted.

Naming Your Blog for Effective Viral Marketing

Chris Garrett over at chrisg.com has made some great points about the importance of naming your blog.

In naming your blog or viral medium, you are creating a brand. Sure, you probably already have a brand, and it even is likely in the URL. However, the unique characteristics of URLs mean that the small differences between the it and the original brand can mean that it will have characteristics of its own, sometimes with only a partial relation to the original brand.

There are certain jobs that the name of the site fill in the diffusion process - as it is passed from one user to another - and all of them need to be fulfilled within the selection process - with as little as one word.

To start with, it needs to be unique. It needs to be able to catch the attention of the person who is expected to pass it on - it needs to be memorable. If a user can remember the content, but cannot remember the name, how can they be expected to pass it on? An unoriginal or unmemorable name can potentially kill a viral effect in its tracks.

It also needs to describe the content of the site. The sender may give little or no description along with the transmitted URL, or the receiver may not care to read it. If the URL can communicate what should be expected, the receiver may be more likely to visit the site.

Additionally, it needs to portray the correct image. Misspelling words or certain connotations may not portray the brand in the correct light (as ChrisG pointed out, a site for grammarians would not be well received if it used a creative misspelling), or carry other consequences.

The URL also needs to be able to be spelled easily. If one cannot simply rattle off the name, and instead needs to spend a moment explaining the spelling, or take the time to find a pencil to write it down, the extra effort may be enough to stop the potential transmitter from sending the message on. Viral messages are still often communicated by word-of-mouth the old fashioned way... which actually involves using the mouth!

These considerations are just a start of the what must be taken into account when naming a blog or viral campaign. Let it be known that the name is a very important part in lifting a campaign off of the ground and supplying the wind to keep it flying.

WiiPress: Enabling a New Landscape for Viral Marketing

Cell phones and mobile are the newest landscape for viral marketing… or are they?

As has been seen over the last year, the most sought after devices have been video game systems. And of those systems, the one that everyone is taking about (and experimenting with) is the Nintendo Wii. They still continue to be sold out across the US, and lines still continue to form each Sunday as retailers hoard their shipments for the Sunday rush.



The Wii is unique in many ways – which drive its popularity. One of the many innovations included in the system is the Wii-customized Opera browser. What makes it so great and unique? Well… with one hand, and from the comfort of one’s couch, the Internet is within reach.

The Opera browser is still in beta mode (meaning they are still working on it, but the final product is not finalized). However, it is fully available to anyone who owns a Wii and would like to give it a try.

There are limitations with the browser, and many are being ironed out through this open-beta process. However, there is one limiting factor that no software update on the Opera browser would be able to surmount – the relatively low resolution of the system.

The resolution refers to the amount of detail that the unit is able to display. The Wii is able to display a maximum of 480 lines of resolution, whereas even the most basic of computers today are able to resolve an equivalent of 768, and most 1024 or more.

Therefore, when the same page is displayed on the Wii, less detail is provided. The portions of Web pages that suffer the most are text, as they can become hard to read when text scales to be displayed by the Wii. This means that text-heavy pages (such as blogs) are not well suited for the medium, and are likely to be ignored by casual Wii-surfers.

What can this mean for your viral campaign? It could mean that the reach of your campaign may be artificially restricted, as you are unable to reach this key video game-playing demographic.

Enter the WordPress Wii Edition Plug-in (a.k.a. WiiPress). The plug-in is integrated into a blog, and it detects whether or not your blog visitor is using a normal computer or viewing the site with a Wii. If found to be doing the latter, it will automatically render an optimized version of the Web site that will enlarge the text and perform other functions to make it easier to read for the Wii-browsing audience. A demonstration of the before and after affects can be viewed here.

This technology allows viral marketers to not miss out on a key demographic. Maybe the benefits don’t have to stop there. The possibility of being able to detect if a user is browsing with a Wii, and then taking action if finding that it is the case could also allow more targeted marketing.

For instance, what if a video game production company wants to promote a game virally? Information could then be presented about the key benefits of owning this game for the Wii over other systems. The writer may otherwise not want to promote these features if the site also expects visitors from PS3 and or Xbox360 owners. Cross-promotions could also exist, urging audiences to “see it on the Wii” for an enhanced experience. The doors really are open wide with this unique spin on an established medium.