I have been thinking about this one for a while now because its time to finally get my backyard landscaped. The more and more I have looked online for “local” landscaping companies, there was not one company in my local area (through my searches) who is doing anything viral online.

If you own a local landscaping company, you could be taking advantage of a huge opportunity, and could grow your business by leaps and bounds with even just one viral campaign that goes popular on (any of) the major social networks. It will help their websites current SEO situation (which is pretty much nothing at least for all the ones I found) in the form of links and trust being pushed from many different types of sites. A boosting in the search engine rankings could mean more visitors and traffic and of course more phone calls, and even rankings for some keywords they never thought possible.

So the trick here with todays viral marketing idea is to find something inside the landscaping industry that is interesting enough, or funny enough for a social community audience. I start to think of the thinks I like when it comes to landscaping and what “gets my attention” even if I am not a part of the industry. I love looking at what other people have done with their yards, and even more, I like looking at what people with unlimited budgets can do with a landscaping project. This gives me my first idea - “What The Yards Of Billionaires Look Like” or “The Yards Of The 10 Wealthiest People In The World”, and finally “If You Were A Billionaire Your Backyard Would Look Like This Too!”

The other ideas I would have is giving landscaping tips that could appeal to a broader audience, because most people in this world are on budgets. I think this could interest a decent amount of people - “14 Amazing Landscaping Tips For Those On A Budget” or “10 Ways To Stay On Budget With Your Landscaping Projects”. You can even go into the archives of some of the HGTV shows, or TLC shows where they do landscaping makeovers, and provide videos of - “The 9 Coolest Backyard Makeovers Done On TV” I am not saying that all of these would make the first page of Digg, but could do really well on other social networks. I do think if one of these ideas were massaged out enough that it could even make a front page of Digg, like this one (I just thought of) “10 Landscaping Tips To Make Your Backyard More Environmentally Friendly” I gotta throw one more in there because I think this one would be the funniest - Do some research and find pictures of the craziest backyards that are so unsafe, and that you would never let your kids play in. Then write about “10 Backyards You Would Never Let Your Kids Play At” … then show pictures crazy unsafe backyards, or a spoof and show a picture of Michael Jacksons Neverland Ranch (then show some crazy ones). Here is a picture of a backyard that I feel would be on the list of “unsafe backyards”, and ones that could use a “landscaping makeover”

I think you can see there are so many ways you can go with this, and how it can help your business make a name for itself. I can’t help but think like a marketer all the time, and I really enjoy sharing these tips, and what comes out of my mind. I hope its helping you guys too, and that you are learning how to think more like a social media marketer as well! Chris and I always welcome your questions and comments, and we love when you ask us for ideas about your industry. I have received several amazing questions lately that I will be getting to over the next several weeks.

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I first must apologize for not posting as often as I would like to. I know Chris feels the same too, but this has been our busiest season ever at 97th Floor, and so much is going on that I almost can’t think straight. Don’t get offended if we are not posting as much as you might like because we are in the middle of creating some pretty amazing things that will benefit the SEO/Social Media communities in the near future.

That said, I did want to take a second (out of this very busy day) and say “Thanks” to Ezine Articles for sending me a “limited edition” mouse pad, and being ONE of 500 out of 82,000 members that got one. Now, its not much no, but for me its all about the thought that counts. I can’t tell you how many places I contribute to, and they do nothing for me, so its nice every once in a while to get a note from a website you frequent that says; “Thanks for being a member”!

Here is a picture of the mouse pad I took from my iPhone:

Not even speaking from an SEO view, I really do like Ezine Articles, they have been a good source of targeted traffic for some of my clients, and my own projects (and websites) and bring traffic that really converts well. With me, what matters the most is the quality traffic that converts the highest, and they have done a great job of helping me with that!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed, or follow Chris Bennett on Twitter and make sure you check out our free analytics product BLVD Status and Social Media for FireFox Which is used by more than 500,000 marketers

Just wanted to share a quick idea for this weeks “VMIF”, and apologize for not being able to post last week. Last Wednesday I woke up with severe pains that ended up putting me in the hospital for a few days because of a need to get my appendix removed. I am still not 100% yet, but am starting to feel better.

As I was in the hospital I had a chance to talk to a lot of Doctors and Nurses (of course) all of which were interested in what I did for a living when they found out I had no need for Doctors notes (to take back to a job), or that I didn’t need to make arrangements for my stay with my boss. I am the boss, and I said it was ok!

To make a long story short I had the opportunity to share a viral marketing idea with a local Gilbert Arizona lasik surgery center Doctor when he asked me how on earth I could make lasik surgery “go viral”.

I told him that not all posts that make it to the front page of Digg, or make it to the “buzz” section of Stumble Upon have to be funny. There are lots that do well that are informative and that provide useful information and thats the approach I would take with lasik surgery.

We talked about the things his clients ask the most, and what they are most nervous about when it comes to the surgery. I got some pretty good ideas how I feel a site like this could do good with social media. First I would take the safety approach and come up with a list (after good research) of “10 Lasik Surgeries Gone Horribly Wrong - Read The Real Life Horror Stories Here” then provide examples to why they went wrong, and give references to either the equipment of the experience of the Doctor doing the procedure. You can then take this opportunity to talk about the equipment your business uses, and the experiences your customers have had with you (in the form of testimonials). You may need a graphics person to help you with this next idea, but I was thinking to share the actual vision of someone with different levels of vision problems who are going in for the surgery, and show us before and after what are typical results. You can give it the simple title - “See What These 10 Individuals Saw Before And After Their Lasik Surgery” This would be interesting for those who didn’t need the surgery, but be very beneficial (and informative) to those who were investigating lasik surgery.

I don’t really see how you can make this industry “funny” as its not something to be made fun of (and could scare clients away), but I hope you get some ideas where I would take this kind of an industry - and that is the informative route! As I was writing this I thought of another idea that could probably go well - “10 Reasons Why You Should Research Out Your Lasik Surgeon” and then share real life stories that have been shared with you, while you are cleaning up the mess. Again, the informative route is the way to go with this campaign.

Please keep sending in your VMIF requests in the form of email, or comments on any of the VMIF posts and Chris and I will be more then happy to help. We love this topic so much (as you can see) I can’t even get away from it when I am at the hospital getting my appendix out!!

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An interview of a two part series was published over at Elance, 13 Ways to Make Your Blog Viral. I will be doing another interview this week that will go live in the coming month about basic SEO.

If you are not familiar with Elance they are one of the largest market place websites for Freelancers and Outsourcing. Everything from Virtual Assistants to Copywriters and Programmers.

It is pretty cool, when I first started offering seo services as a consultant I used Elance everyday to grab new clientèle and now Elance is one of my clients. Pretty cool how stuff like that works out.

That is my blogging Disclosure as well

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