June 12, 2006
The Alpha Marketer
The greatest challenge to online marketers when they want to expand there horizons by creating new online businesses is how to get viral marketing working quickly for them.
Unless you have a lot of money to spend on SEO, or have an inhouse expert, that's not going to help you in the short-term very much. Also because it takes a long time for you web site to be found by search engines, other than buying an old domain name that already has traffic going to it, this is going to take time also.
One of the best ways to get things going virally for you is to build your community. The best way to do that is to get your visitors and consumers empowered to talk.
A great and proven way to do this is through an active forum. It gives people the opportunity to grip, complain, encourage and even chew each other out for complaining. The point is to get it active.
You may have to get it active, but once that is done, it takes on a life of its own. This is one of the most powerful user-generated content tools available, although many online marketers don't think of it that way.
Still, an active forum is one of the quickest, fastest ways to get viral word-of-mouth going and spreading.
comments
Posted by: Ben | June 13, 2006 07:33 AM | Permalink to Comment
It does take work, but it can be done!
Posted by: Gary Bourgeault | June 13, 2006 01:02 PM | Permalink to Comment
No doubt it can be done, but don't leave out the part about how hard it is to do it. To me, the better option is to dive into existing communities that are talking about your products/services and become an active participant. Here are a few posts from my blog on the subject of creating community:
You can't "create" community
Community as a Core Competency
Posted by: Ben | June 13, 2006 06:15 PM | Permalink to Comment
Ben,
You make a good point about participating in existing and gathering communities. As with anything in online marketing, there is never only one thing that is "it."
It takes a number of things done together, that will lead to online success.
Posted by: Gary Bourgeault | June 13, 2006 07:03 PM | Permalink to Comment