I have been seeing some pretty interesting picnic and outdoor related blog posts and articles show up online lately, and I wanted to share some more ideas on the industry of picnic baskets and share how I think this industry could do really well in the social communities.

Now picnic baskets themselves are pretty boring (in my opinion) but when you can put them side by side with the reasons we use them (food, tailgating parties, outdoor romance) they get a lot more interesting, and that is when my mind starts to work its magic when it comes to viral marketing. The reason I got to thinking about picnic baskets was because I was watching a movie the other day where these people were having a huge picnic, and I got to thinking of how many other movies that I have seen have had scenes where people went on picnics. During the picnic things got out of control, and what started off as a simple game they were playing during the picnic ended up making people mad, and food flying and feelings hurt (in the movie).

This made me think about some of the craziest picnics people have been on, or disasters. “10 Totally Freaking Awesome Picnic Disasters Caught On Video” and then go to You Tube (or your own collection) and find some disasters while people were eating in a park or on a picnic. I already did a search and found some pretty funny ones. “You will Never Believe What I Caught On Video During A Picnic” and you could share a video of people in funny situations, or whatever…use the imagination. Its pretty easy to do so with a title like that.

Here is my favorite one I just came up with (to go along with this video I found) - “Boy vs Picnic Table, Who Will Win?” then show this video:

You can have some fun with this because picnic has so much to do with the outdoors, football (tailgating parties) and lots of crazy stories to be told and found. Even more crazy videos and pictures to be shared with people all over the world wide web!! I hope this gives you some ideas if this is your industry or at least gets you thinking of different directions you could take this. I have to keep reminding people that you can think outside the box and that you do not have to have a perfect fit with your industry because I will be the first to admit that there is nothing special about picnic baskets … just the stories to go along with them!!!

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I thought I would get a few variations of searches, but I had no idea what kind of ideas would pop into my head after asking this simple question today.

I wanted to share a very important lesson taught by students of mine (ironically enough) today, during a webinar presentation on Social Media Marketing that I was giving. Most people that I run into have no clue how to properly research out keywords, and they just want me to do it for them. If that is the case with you, then this post is not for you (email me and we can set something up ..lol). I want to give this advice to the people who want to try to figure out things like … oh … basic Internet marketing, and keyword research for themselves!

There is a reason the title of this post is what it is (no it’s not ALL for link bait). If you ask someone how they would do a search online for a “keyword”, have you ever wondered how many differed results you will get? I wondered, and so I did this little experiment. Out of all who were in attendance of this webinar/presentation I was doing, one of them had products and information for those who suffer from headaches on their website. A simple question to the class got me thinking about this post. “How would you do a Google search for information on headaches?” In other words…if you were looking for information right now on Google for headaches, how would you search it out? Out of the 15 people that were online here is what they came back with: (I left spelling errors)

relieve headache pain
headache relief
migranes
www.headache cures.com (my favorite - don’t ya just LOVE when people “Google” the URL?)
How to end my headaches
Migraine, Headache, Pain relief
get rid headaches
sinus pain
headach remedy
headaches
headache
headache medicine
Natural ways to relief headaches
headaches nomore
I’m done with headaches

To me the results are pretty interesting because often times we get to caught up into finding the perfect “keyword” and we miss out on many gems. I am also amazed that not one person did the Google search the same way. I am further amazed that people are still Googling URLs .. WTF is that about? Again it just further testifies that you need to be diverse in the keywords you chose to go after, and think about all options and all ways that people could find you.

This is a great example of how you would take one of your main keywords, in this case - headaches, and have 15 different versions of the same keyword, or anchor text for it when you are link building. The lesson here? Not everyone searches the same way, yet many people doing online marketing get way to caught up in just going after the big (slam dunk) words. If you were able to get decent rankings for each specific way people were searching for headaches in this example, I am guessing it would bring some pretty decent traffic to your website.

Next time you are thinking about some keywords that you would like to be ranked for, make sure and take the time to do a quick poll of family members, friends, neighbors or people you know on sites like Twitter, or Plurk. These can be great resources for researching out almost anything!

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I had a great viral idea the other day when my son came home with a shoe full of sand (see picture, because I really mean a SHOE FULL!!). This picture I am showing you is the sand that came out of only ONE of his shoes from a day of playing on the Kindergarten playground.

I got to talking to my sons Kindergarten teacher about this and how she keeps her room free from all the sand, or whatever else they bring in, and that got the conversation started. She started telling me all the things that the kids will walk around with and is amazed that more of them do not stop to empty their shoes out. One kid had a rock in his shoe that was the size of a golf ball (she says) and no wonder he kept complaining about how his toes felt.

Here are some of the things that she has seen her kids dump out of their shoes:
-bugs and insects
-gum
-cigarette butts (no lie)
-candy
-sand
-dirt
-rocks
-food

The list goes on, but I think you get the point of where I can go with this, not to mention the smell and state of some of these shoes … thats another post itself. It was good enough to get me thinking about what an online shoe retail site could blog about that just might get it some momentum in the social communities. Kids are cute, and if you can find pictures of crazy things found in kids shoes, or videos of them dumping out their shoes full of dirt, or rocks….or whatever it just might be cute enough for some people to want to pass around and share. I for one would love to see some kind of creative thought put into this kind of a post, because I would read it and share it with everyone!

“You Will Never Believe What Came Out Of My Kids Shoes” or “You Will Never Guess What I Found In My Kids Shoes” or “The Top 10 Grossest Things Your Kid Brought Home” (In Their Shoes) … You can have fun with this post for sure. As for the late posting today….I am sorry, but I was helping out in my sons Kindergarten class getting all this amazing ammo for the post today!! ha …

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Thanks to Ben for asking this weeks viral marketing idea question:

I read your site every now and then because I want to shape my mind to of a top level social marketer.

I especially like you insights marketing ideas for boring industries.

Here is the question though. I have been cracking up head to come up with some interesting and viral campaigns for the “stock photo” industry but I can’t seem to think of anything!

Stock photos are always so generic and their quality is controlled. Very seldom can you find anything remotely funny or stupid of the pictures to be viral.

Do you think you can help me figure this out?

Ben

Ben, this is a great question and an even better industry with unlimited potential. I say unlimited potential because, have you seen how many photos make the front page of Digg? Photos have always done really well on sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit and more recently Plurk, but are some of the best opportunities for exposure for any kind of a viral marketer.

You have to think about the industry as a whole and that you are in the photography business. You may be racking your brain trying to come up with something that is specifically related to “stock” photos, but does not have to be that complicated. If you can start to come up with ideas that are around the photography industry then you are really unlimited to what you can do.

For example - you can take the funny picture approach, the disgusting picture approach, the “oops” picture approach, the amazing picture approach and of course the “you will not believe this unless you see it approach”. These are just a few of the angles you can use when thinking of ideas and titles that would work well for helping something go viral, but understand there are so many more (but I don’t feel like writing till my fingers fall off).

Some titles (and ideas) would be (taking advantage of current news) “Ten Unbelievable Pictures Of Michael Phelps In Beijing” or “The Funniest Faces Made By Olympians Caught On Film” or “There Can Be No Explanation For This Picture” (thats going to make people want to click and check it out with the title alone) “Ten Things Your Cat Does While Your At Work” (then find 10 pictures of Cats doing funny things) or “Ten People Who Wish The Camera Was Never Invented” (then share pictures of people in funny or very compromising situations) A simple Google search would help you find any of these kind of photos, but if you own a Stock photo business, or a photography business in general you should already have a pretty good database of photos to pick from. Even giving you a specific example in your industry that I think would be fun to look at would be “The Top 10 Most Lame Stock Photos Ever Taken” - I mean you yourself said that a lot of the photos were generic, so do your best to find the most generic ones. You could even give it the title “Can You Believe People Use These Photos To Promote Their Business?” I think that one would be funny and do really well! Here is a last minute one (just thought of) that I will give an example of - “10 Online Profile Pictures That Beg The Question: What Were They Thinking?” then show a list of funny profiles pictures like the one below:

It seems I am always preaching this, but if you can think outside the box when doing viral marketing, you will always find something that is a good fit and will do well. its important to remember that you are doing this to drive traffic and get exposure to your website, so no matter if they find you for content or a funny picture - they are finding you and that is the point!

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I usually don’t go on rants here, but this one has been brewing in my mind for a long time. A recent trip to the Apple store made it that much worse for me too. I was one of the suckers that got the iPhone way back in the day, and own the old school, non 3G one. The one thats a piece of crap now … right?

I hear the commercials about how the new iPhone 3G is half the price, and twice as fast and the only thing I can think of is how I got 100% screwed by Apple. I go into the stores and hear from the Apple “specialists” that I can sell my old iPhone for good money on eBay or Craigslist (average of 400 on eBay) and I even heard of a service that will make it even easier to swap your iPhone (just today).

I have a problem with all this, and wonder why more people don’t. I have to worry about going through all the trouble of getting all my stuff off the old iPhone, make sure its clean and clear, go to drop off spots, figure out the shipping, worry about getting screwed or scammed on eBay or Craigslist (WAY MORE HASSLE THEN I WANT TO DEAL WITH)… especially when I feel I should just be able to go into an Apple store and exchange it right there, and have them take care of the customers that were loyal to them from the beginning.

Besides the iPhone, I own an iPod shuffle, two Mac books, a powerbook, and am about to buy an iMac so I am starting to feel like Apples little bitch with things like this going on with the iPhone. I feel like they should take care of me, let me bring in my iPhone … clear it out for me, get all the files moved over and upgrade me for free - and NOT have to pay 10 bucks more for the unlimited data plan. I mean … COME ON!!!

I just keep thinking about how I paid twice as much for an iPhone that is twice as slow as the new 3G ones and Apple just keeps laughing at suckkers like me (all the way to the bank) that keep doing it and making them even more money. Ok this was a rant, and there is nothing I can do about it, and will probably go and upgrade because the old iPhone is incredibly slow and horrible, but I do feel better now!

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Just go to MSN home page anytime you want a good idea for a “link bait” driven article written related to money, as they always seem to have some kind of an article that sparks my interest. I have been reading a lot lately about a new online money management social community that offers tips, advice, and all kinds of tools for you to manage your money online as well as connecting with others. That is the inspiration for todays viral post.

I got to thinking about the way we Americans are spending our money lately with high gas prices, high food prices, high health care and just about “high” everything else. I have been super interested in some money trends and what people are still spending their money on, and who is still spending money etc. and things of that nature. I saw a headline the other day that read “Top 10 States where Household Spending has Decreased most during the Economic Downturn” and it got me thinking.

I would be very interested to know Things like “The Number Of Total SUV Sales Today Compared To 3 Years Ago” or “A Timeline - What You Paid For An Average Gallon Of Gasoline over the last 10 years” “The Top 10 Things Consumers Have Stop Spending Money On” or “Ten Things People Still Buy In An Economic Downturn”

This kind of data and information can be gathered from polls, or people actually using the online services of these Internet money management companies. That would make this information pretty amazing as it would be pretty much 100% accurate if the data was taken right from the database of users actually putting this info in. It would just be very interesting to see spending trends and things we waste our money on like “The Average American Spends ($ amount here) On Fast Food Every Month” and so on.

I think videos talking to people on the streets about these topics would do well too and just having fun. Whatever you may decide to do there are many opportunities in this industry that you could have fun with. Just make sure to have fun with the information and come up with something that could appeal to all groups.

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What does fuzzy handcuffs and the travel industry have to do with viral marketing idea Friday? Read on …

Chris and I have worked with a ton of travel industry professionals over the years and helping them with their online marketing needs. We have even spoke at travel industry conferences on SEO and Social Media. I feel I have a pretty grasp on the whole travel industry online scene and wanted to share a viral marketing idea that I was thinking about (because of my recent travels) that would probably go huge and make front page on every top social site out there. Also, because I have so many contacts, friends and people I know in the travel industry this is for you guys!

A week ago (about) I was at the Grand Canyon (south rim) and was staying in a Hotel suite in Flagstaff (about an hour away from the south rim (for those that don’t know). As the vacation was winding down, and we were getting ready to go home I did my usual walk through to make sure no items were left behind. Once I feel comfortable that nothing was left then we check out. I do this every time I stay at a Hotel and am kind of anal about it. During my latest trip to Tucson Arizona for a family reunion (for the first time ever) something was left at the Hotel. It was the power cord to my Daughters Nintendo DS.

It got me thinking.

Then this morning I hear on the radio something crazy that someone had left behind from a recent trip and the light went off. With the proper research you could do one of the funniest posts ever about “The 10 Weirdest Things Maids Found In A Hotel Room” or the “Funniest Things Ever Left By Accident In A Hotel Room” The reason I think this would do so well is because this morning when I was listening to some of the stuff it made me want to wet my pants it was so funny. The only thing I could think of that would make it better would be pictures of the items, or (even better) videos. Here was a list of some of the items left behind - a wooden leg, fake chest hair, fuzzy pretend hand cuffs (hmmm-wonder what that was for). This is what I want to know, how drunk do you have to be to leave your Hotel without your wooden leg? Don’t you think you would know you might be missing that???

All it would take is for you to talk to a maid for 5 minutes, and you would probably have some of the funniest viral opportunities on your hands ever!! They may even have some of the items on hand, and with a little bribing, may let you even snap some pictures.

If I were doing marketing for a travel industry website that was either affiliate, actual booking, reviews, or even one of the big dog travel websites, having a blog and running this kind of story would do so good in the social scene. It is also perfect because it relates to the industry perfectly. The key is to finding the stories and ideas that relate and grow them from there. Again, I can’t even take a vacation without thinking about viral marketing, but thats what I do and love! Enjoy!

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