Last Summer Cameron Olthuis and I met for the first time in person at SMX Advanced Seattle and we quickly became friends as we found we had a lot of things outside of seo in Coming. We both love to surf, he lives in my hometown near San Diego and I live near his home town in Utah and we both had been thinking for years how we wanted to use our seo/promotion skills to launch something in the Action Sports Industry.

After the conference we both said to each other lets just start a blog to at least get something going in action sports and we can figure it out later. We wanted to have something tangible to start with to at least commit us to starting on a project in action sports.

Why Action Sports? Well first like Cameron I don’t watch football or baseball I watch the X-Games and live feeds of surf competitions. I don’t subscribe to Sports Illustrated I subscribe to Surfer, Trans World, Skateboarder, Snowboarder etc. Action Sports have always been a part of my life and they always will be, it is a passion of mine. I was born and raised by a Mom from Oahu and a Dad from Manhattan Beach, we grew up in the water and surfing as well as other board sports have been in our blood for generations. The business reason is also a very good one as well, Action Sports is a 91 billion a year industry, with Skateboarding and Surfing making up the majority of that. We are talking billions a year for each sport and it isn’t slowing down anytime soon. The other reason with this is there isn’t a lot of Action Sports websites and communities that are adapting the new trends of the web. Companies are just starting to add blogs, but they are usually sub domains on a free service and they are not promoted or optimized at all. We have always been disappointed with the websites available in the space so we decided to do something about it.

My brother who is just as dedicated to action sports as we are and a killer web designer joined us and we built an all things actions sports blog called 5ones(don’t ask about the name I don’t have a good answer). This was last summer. We just finished our official web design and launch and are now prepping it for some mainstream exposure. We have seen some really cool things from our quiet push over the last year. We have over 5,000 natural backlinks we have been accepted into Google news which is a must for any news site. Our traffic literally doubled from Google referrals when we were accepted. We are also growing a large fan base.

Some things we found interesting when promoting something in the action sports industry, is first because Web 2.0 is still so new to the industry the large media outlets are not used to having people post opinions about brands or products. The industry is good and bad that way, it is good because everyone is cool with each other even if they are in competition with each other, but it is bad in that there is a lot of stuff that goes unsaid because people are afraid to ruffle some feathers or hurt their “bro” status. We came into the industry with no “bro” status so we would write posts about brands and we criticize them or praise them in a very opinionated fashion, and we see a lot of links and traffic from these types of posts because it isn’t being done anywhere else.

We also add our marketing twist to things and talk about things like why Volcom was able to go mainstream but still be core, and why other brands are diluting themselves by partnering with the likes of Wal-Mart. All in all we have been very well received.

One thing we found very surprising is very few people subscribe to RSS they all bookmark the site and come to it each day (which is good in the page view world) and if they are technologically advanced enough for RSS it is always to the email subscribe and rarely to the Feed Reader subscribe. It definitely gets you thinking about different approaches as we are both used to the tech savvy world of people subscribing to anything and everything they find remotely interesting.

If you are launching a blog some words of advice, set up alerts for anything and everything, submerse yourself in the industry, don’t be afraid to voice your opinion and if you cover news be very quick on the trigger and make sure you get into Google News. Then come up with posts that haven’t been done before and reach out to others in your community and you will see growth 100% of the time. Focus on good thought provoking or informative content and you will get a user base before you know it. Most important of all blog about something you are passionate about, it is true just as in business that if you are passionate about it, you will give it 200% and you will reap the rewards.

Also if any of you are looking for a designer by brother is one of the best bar none, you can find him at Modern Blue, and Cameron Olthuis really is one of the pioneers of Social Media that guy understands the Demographic like no one else. Follow his stuff.

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I got asked the other day by a dry cleaner owner what could be done to drive more local traffic to his site. With a big smile on my face I told him to read this post today! I did start to have a conversation with him about the different things that I could do, but what really impressed him was how I got him thinking about the viral things that could be done with his website.

He did have a blog on it (because he heard websites would do good on Google if they had blogs on them) and the last time any post had been done was over 6 months ago. There was a total of three blog posts over a couple year span. This is a good place to remind people that having a blog for the sake of having a blog because you “heard” it would be good for your website is completely idiotic, unless you take the time to actually post, and provide something worthwhile…and often. Anyway, (for you non coders thats my end rant) thats another post another day!

How I got this dry cleaning business owner thinking was by asking him a series of questions. “What are some of the craziest things you have found in peoples pockets when they leave their clothes with you?” He started to respond with some pretty crazy things, one for example was a certain thing that women (or men I guess if your into that) can purchase that vibrate. He also started to talk about how he found a wad of cash before (over 1000 bucks - how on earth people can be this stupid I have no idea?) and the one that amazed me the most that someone would actually leave was - WEED! Someone had actually left marijuana in a business coat pocket.

I think this can give you some pretty good ideas how you could take this post viral. I just told this man to start taking pictures of funny things he found inside pockets, and start to document everything. Someday it could turn into a pretty good post that I would title - “10 Things You Would Never Believe A Dry Cleaner Found In Pockets” or “What 10 Stupid People Forgot To Take Out Of Pockets Before Dry Cleaning” or “This Dude Got Busted Because He Was To Stupid To Take The Pot Out Of His Pocket Before Dry Cleaning” … and so on, but I think you get the point of where you could take this.

There you have it! Even a dry cleaning business can come up with some creative enough to go viral. I had a blast talking with this business owner and hearing some of the stories so I know they would do well online in a social environment. It is something that could give his little website buzz enough to help with local rankings, and bring him more business.

Thanks to all for participation in the viral marketing idea Fridays, and continue to email your questions, or suggestions to us. As always if you have something you would like us to give viral examples on then email us, or leave comments on any of our viral marketing idea posts.

Another reminder to always stay up to date with our viral marketing examples and ideas is by subscribing to our SEO Blog feed today.

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I have talked about about how you can do viral marketing for any industry. Mat has also posted every Friday on Viral Marketing ideas and he always tries to share an example in a “boring” industry. This last week I came across a viral piece that blew me away and it was for one of the most boring industries on the planet, appliances. I found it on Digg and SU one of my buddies had submitted it. It is the perfect example of how a very boring industry and website can garner links and traffic. It is brand new so as far as links goes it isn’t showing too many, but i am sure in a couple weeks it will. It didn’t go popular on Digg but got over 300 votes. That is another post in it’s self because it had over 22 comments as well. BTW is it just me or has the quality of stories and experience gone done on Digg dramatically. I use to use Digg everyday and I loved the content that made the front page as well as the networking, it seems exactly the opposite now, due to all the changes it has gone through this year, but I digress.

The site sells Appliance Parts and the piece it came up with is “Appliances Right out of the Jetsons.” It is brilliant! The content is awesome the layout of the page is great. They did their research and found appliances that I thought were fake when I first read through them. A microwave that scans the barcode on a product and automatically sets the timer accordingly, a dryer that texts you when your load is done and a bunch of other really cool stuff. My wife and I just moved and I made sure she didn’t see this and I am sure I would be a few thousand dollars poorer.

So to all you lawyers, ink toner sites, fruit and gift basket companies that think you are too boring to create viral content use this as an example next time. I would love to hear from the site as to how much traffic SU brought, it got a lot of reviews and I will watch the links as well to see if it really paid off.

Also another really good example from a relatively boring industry (pearls) I came across last year check this out, “The 14lb Pearl and other World Record Gems”

As I come across these I will try and post more about them. Also I have an actual case study from a piece we did for a client last September that got over 200k uniques in 2 days and 3,020 back links. They company is looking to be acquired and after that they won’t care if I share it.

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If you own a photography company, and are trying to go viral, I think you have one of the easiest industries (and biggest opportunities) there is to go viral with. I have had more posts hit the front page of Digg that were pictures then anything else, but the key here is to make sure you have some good link bait, and most importantly - let people know what you are offering them [Unbelievable PIC] - for example.

From the work I have seen of a few of my friends that are Photographers, you probably don’t have to look to far for something that could do well in a viral marketing scene. For example, I have a friend that is an Alabama Wedding Photographer, and he has showed me some of the funniest, non flattering, and “oops” type pictures he has taken (of the wedding goers) that I am sure these families do not want to end up in the family album. Without me even giving any ideas, I know you are starting to think of ways you could turn this into a viral post.

With permission (of course) he could use some of these photos on his blog, and give the post the title - “10 Pictures You Don’t Want To End Up In Your Wedding Album!” or “10 Things That Went On During Your Wedding That You Have No Idea About” or how about taking the cute route - “The 10 Cutest Kids Ever Caught On Film - Doing Something Bad” and then share a picture of the kid throwing a fist full of cake at Grandpa (while being very cute).

It would all depend on how long you stuck around taking pictures during a wedding, but at weddings where alcohol is involved, I am sure you could come up with a huge post laying out some of “The Funniest Pictures Of Drunk People At Weddings You Have Ever Seen” or “What Happens When You Are Drunk At A Wedding And Don’t Know Your Picture Is Being Taken”. You see, these would probably be some of the funniest pictures you have looked at in a while, but just telling people in the social networks to look at wedding pictures is not going to cut it. You have to make sure you are attracting users to click with these catchy “link baited” titles that make you want to click.

I have done case studies where I have shared pictures that were super funny, but gave them a boring non descriptive title, and no one ever saw them or knew about them. I would then use the same picture with a sexy title, and they caught like a wild fire and made it to the top of most social bookmarking or sharing sites. I know a lot of this may seem like common sense to us who understand this industry, but to a Photography business owner whose main focus is to take pictures that make them money, may not understand the power they may already posses with their photos when adding a blog and catchy title into the mix. That is the purpose of viral marketing idea Friday, and for me sharing this information.

Take this picture (below) I found after doing a simple Google image search of funny wedding photos - could have the funniest title ever “Just Imagine What The Wedding Night Is Going To Be Like”

As always, please feel free to send any viral marketing questions in the form of comments! We would also love to hear how you would add to the ideas we give (if you have suggestions). I love viral marketing, and the world is a much funner place (in my mind) because of it!

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I had some interesting conversations this week (with people who don’t have a clue what viral marketing is), as well as some thought provoking ideas go through my mind this week that I wanted share for todays viral marketing idea.

After having a post about my son telling me to Google It go popular on Digg several months back, it got me thinking about what a preschool could do to go viral, or even if they would need to because the competition is so little - But thats just it, easy for someone like me, but not for someone whose main focus and goal is to run a preschool business, and who has no skill (or know-how) when it comes to Internet marketing. Thats when this does make sense, and I am going to share why it can help grow their business more then they could ever have imagined possible.

I was at the Zoo a few days back with my son and his entire preschool class and teacher, as well as all the other kids parents. During lunch I overheard a conversation (I was sitting right next to them so, no I wasn’t spying - ok, well I was but it was because they were talking about marketing) about ways the preschool teacher could advertise and market her business. I remember when I first got my son in this preschool she was going to have another teacher join her, and they were going to have two sets of classes etc., but then could not because they did not have enough people sign up for the school. This is basically what the conversation was about, and what the teacher could do to generate more to her business.

First, the teacher (at this point) does not even have a website, but thats not a deal breaker because with the lovely local search results that Google and other various engines are providing us, and different social media (viral) websites that are local based (Yelp) and focused - she still has a chance. I wanted to yell to her to go list with Google Local, and that alone would probably help her fill up her classrooms more then she can, but this post is about viral marketing so I will resist from talking anymore about local search.

Back to the point - the example above I gave about my post going popular on Digg talking about something funny my son said. I never intended on that post to go popular, I did not write it (no matter what all my Internet marketing peers think) to go popular, I just wanted to share something I thought was cute to my readers, and the people in (or out) of my industry. Well, my son said something pretty dang funny again the other day, and it got me thinking about how a preschool business could turn the funny things kids say to a viral campaign that could really set them apart from anyone they are going up against! One campaign gone viral in this industry and they are on top for ages, not to mention the credibility when people to “Google” your business and see multiple results and people talking about you.

I was outside with a neighbor and others (which makes this more embarrassing) and the kids were playing with this balloon toy that would launch these hot dog looking balloons (for what seemed like a mile) into the air. They were having so much fun, then my son comes and has this long balloon, and holds it in front of everybody and puts it down by his mid section and proudly proclaims “Look, I have a big dong”! After, all the laughing from the neighbors (or trying not to because I was trying to teach him this was not a nice thing to say) and the neighbors trying to hold it in, I just could not stop thinking how this could be used for viral marketing.

Rather then getting another front page of Digg for talking about something that my son said again, i wanted to share this as an example of what a preschool business could do to go viral. I am not saying they use this exact example. I probably would not suggest it, but kids say so many cute things (even take the things your own ones say) you could probably come up with a pretty good list that would make people laugh. If you are thinking this has been done to much, or there have been shows about it, or there is just nothing funny anymore about it, then I need to remind you again about the post I wrote going popular for something my kid said. It can still happen if its good enough.

Here are the “link bait” examples of titles that could work really well - “10 Things Your Preschool Teacher Hears About You When Are Away From Your Kid” or “10 Things You Wish Your Kid Never Told Their Preschool Teacher” or (even better) if you have video “10 Of The Funniest Videos Capturing What Kids Say About Mom And Dad”. I think these are enough title ideas to get you thinking of where I could go, and am going with this viral idea for a preschool business.

I think that some preschools could really benefit from this information because, as there are some really small ones out there that are run out of homes, there are some huge national chains that (from what I have seen) really need to do a better job with their Internet marketing, and search engine optimization. They are missing out on the better portion of the local traffic by not taking advantage of the simple things that are right in front of them for the taking. I can talk personally about this too, because about 5 years ago I did some marketing for a local (at the time - a very small run out of basement one) preschool in Utah, who now has a huge building with several different classrooms, a gym type dance studio, fully functional office (and staff), and is full to the breaking point every semester! It has been 5 years, and I have not touched the marketing, and they still dominate for everything they wanted to!

If you have viral marketing idea questions, and would like us to tell you how to make your business go viral in one of our VMIF posts please leave a comment here (or on any of our posts tagged viral marketing), or as always send Chris or myself an email.

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I just could not help myself with todays “viral marketing idea” post. This is almost so unbelievable (but not) that its crazy. You will learn why (in just a minute) how there is something wrong with me, and even in the situation I was in, I could not stop thinking about how I was going to turn (what I was experiencing) into a blog post related to viral marketing.

Let me give you a little background - It was my brothers birthday yesterday and he called me up and said a few of his friends were taking him to lunch and asked if I wanted to go. Of course I did, so I told him to email me directions and it was on! This is where the fun begins to this post.

To my surprise I walk into this “fine eating establishment” called “The Heart Attack Grill” that has just about the most unhealthy food you can find on the planet - no kidding - one of the burgers is estimated to be 8000 calories. They even warn you about it. The concept is pretty clever, and you soon realize how come they are doing so well. They call it “The Heart Attack Grill” because of the menu, and give it a catchy one liner “A taste worth dying for”! The cooks are Doctors and dressed in Doctors outfits and scrubs, and the waitresses are dressed in “Naughty Nurse” outfits. This place is like Hooters on steroids. Here is a picture I took to share my experience with all, and believe me this one is probably the most tame outfits:

To me, its not even about the whole concept of “sex sells”, because when I was reading all the press, and media these guys are getting, and how the owner gets 80 emails an hour from people wanting him to franchise (all over the country) it really makes me think of what made this business go viral? CONTROVERSY!!! It all comes down to the controversy that this guy has created with two key elements, 1. The girls in skimpy nurse outfits (even though the owner calls it “PG rated sex”) and 2. The unhealthy food - (this food is way worse for you then anything on the McDonalds menu and they had a documentary done on them!) the owner has sparked up so much controversy that there is no way for him to not succeed. Look here - I am even talking about it! I just found out about this place yesterday!

I thought this was appropriate for viral marketing idea Friday, because it’s a good reminder of what can do well for business whether you are an off line business owner (selling food), or just trying to gain momentum for that new business blog you just launched. If you are not into selling sex (like myself) there are plenty of ways that you can create controversy and go viral without it, I am simply just using this as an example to get you thinking about the whole concept of viral marketing and controversy!

Because I usually give examples of link bait with my posts, the only one I could think of for this is - “10 Bathrooms I Would Never Go In” and of course list this place as one of them for … um …. obvious reasons! Yea, I’ll just end it there!

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Despite the huge audience and Brand that Digg has it is still widely misunderstood by new users. I get so many emails and talk to a lot of people all saying things like, “I submitted my homepage to Digg and no one voted on it?.” So I hope this article can help you understand the the process of a successful Digg which should also help you in understanding why only good content makes it and how it makes it.

This is not a how to spam article, this is an article that will hopefully help you better understand the life of your stories on Digg. If you better understand the stories and the process you can increase your chances for a front page Digg. This is from my experience this isn’t written in stone and with that if you have any additions or comments to add please do.

Within the 24 hour time span that your story is allotted to reach the front page of Digg there are different milestones that it needs to reach to better it’s chances at “Going Popular”. This article will discuss what I feel from my experience are the most important milestones in order.

1.) Hot In Your Sub Category:
If you submit a story to Science > Environment, your very first goal is to get it into the Hot Up and Coming Sidebar for Environment. This is done by getting a good amount of Diggs right off the start to separate your story from the rest of the pack, but even more importantly you need Diggs from non friends or those that don’t often digg your stories. Getting Diggs from from users that don’t frequent your stories is the best way for a story to grow in a way that is pleasing to the almighty algorithm.

This can be tough for a new user, a lot of people think that when starting out on Digg your story is automatically in front of thousands of users who will vote for or against it. This is not true, in fact unless you submit a story from a very popular website or blog and they have some sort of Digg Button on the site notifying the readers that it has been Dugg your story will be seen by virtually no one unless you have friends.

The most important thing before starting to submit stories is to go interact on the site and Digg stories from categories you like, then add the users that submitted those stories to your friend list and get involved in the community.

How do you get Diggs from non friends? I’m not going to go into all the hows there are a lot of ways both positive and negative in terms of how the algorithm sees it. It seems like for the most part users are using shouts, but you can also send out emails, IM’s, twitters etc. whether you think that is legit or not is up to you. The black and white of it is you shouldn’t pay for Diggs. Getting Diggs from “non friends” is really important as it makes your site look more “viral” or “natural” in that users that don’t have any interest in you as a user are voting positively for the article. The quicker you can get on up and coming hot for your sub category the quicker you can start to get in front of a larger audience on Digg and hopefully attracting more votes from early on. When first perfecting your Digg skills your first priority should getting on “Hot” for your category as quickly as possible as this will always place your story in front of more Digg users

2.) Hot Up and Coming Main Category:
This is the next step in your stories progression. Again if you submitted to Science > Environment and your story has been on the Hot Sidebar in Environment for the last couple hours you now want to make sure your story gets on the Hot Sidebar of Science to reach more concentration of users. You will see here that the avg votes are higher than that of the Hot for the subcategory as you are now competing with all the subcategory stories in one place. You will need more Diggs to get here and again a good ration of friends vs. non friends is essential. If you look at the stories that have 20 Diggs and under that make the “Hot” section of a parent category they have virtually no friends that have Dugg the story. Whereas there maybe other stories with 72 Diggs not on “Hot” yet because 68 of them are from mutual friends.

You want your story to reach this status as quickly as possible as there will be a much larger audience viewing your story which can get you more votes if the story is any good. Try to do it before the 12 hour half way mark if you can, giving an additional day of being on the side bar. This is really the first time your story will start to reach the make it or break it status, watch the comments and you can look at buries at the Bury Recorder to get a feel for how the community likes the story but more importantly the headline and description. When you are on the side bar your headline is all that shows as the snippet of the story, this and a thumbnail is the sole reason people will click through to view the rest of the story, so it has to be tight and good. I recommend the “Inverted Pyramid” method for most stories. If your Title is misleading or showing the story out of context in hopes to get more votes you will get buries for this. When I first started out on Digg I used to think this was needed and every time my story got in front of a lot of people they started to bury and comment on the Title being misleading and the story would die. Think of ways to succinctly tell the entire story in a few powerful words.

3.) Up and Coming Most/Hot in All Topics:
The last milestone to the stories growth is reaching “Hot in All Topics” and the “Up and Coming All Most” page. This is where the most Diggers will see you prior to a front page, this is where you can see your story grow 60 votes in 30 minutes. There are a lot of people that subscribe to these pages and or come to the site with these pages as the main pages to scan and look for good stories that are not front page yet. To get here your story has often passed the test of a decent title, good amount of comments and a lot of natural Diggs.

There are some exceptions as far as passing the test for the Up and Coming All Most page you can spam your way to that page with nothing but friend or bought votes you will see stories there that are 4 ours old with 180 votes all from users that are 2 days old, but it is just a matter of time before the right amount of people bury them. You don’t need a good ratio of friends to non friends to make this page, but you will to go Front Page so it is important you have it nonetheless.

The most important part of reaching this page is to do it quickly because again you will be in front of more users that are not your friends and if they like the story and vote on it your story will increase it’s chances on reaching the front page. It is best to try and reach this with 12 hours left or earlier but that isn’t always the case. if you can reach this by at least 15 hours you will still have 8 hours left in front of a larger audience.

Those are what I feel should be your 3 main targets or goals as you are promoting your stories, again I am not condoning spam, and it doesn’t really matter if I was cause the Digg community is getting larger and much better at burying spam and crap. On the Getting Votes from non friends again things that can legitimately help are opening up your shouts to all and then shouting to people that are not mutual friends. Shouting is what I think Digg made to answer people sending IM’s and emails, they know you are going to share the story regardless so why not do it through the site and in a way that will drive more page views to Digg. Also if you have “real life friends” that use Digg don’t add each other to your friends list and help each other out, but I also think it would be really easy for an algorithm to see voting patterns whether they are from friends or not so this would not work one very story if all you do was Vote each others back and forth.

If you need help finding good content to submit to Digg use the Social Media for Firefox Plugin it has been downloaded over 50,000 times and has helped hundreds of people build really good accounts at the different social sites.

Other Posts on Social Media:
- 12 Tips to Making the Front Page of the “New Digg” (Humor Kind Of)

- How To Research Your Social Media Campaign

- Viral Marketing for Boring Industries

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