Viral Marketing Idea Friday: Local Moving Business
If you missed the update Chris gave on Monday, we are going to be doing something new on Friday from now on. If you didn’t guess from the title of the post, then let me spell it out for you.
Chris and I are asked all the time by businesses and individuals for help with viral marketing ideas in what they consider to be “very boring industries”. In some cases Chris and I have been challenged that we would not be able to come up with any ideas at all for some of these businesses. As always, we are up for the challenge and still feel that no matter what your industry is, you can find a way to market your site with viral content.
Before I get into today’s viral marketing idea (which I tried hard to find what I felt was one of the most boring industries on the web), I wanted to also note that anyone who is needing some ideas for their industry, please feel free to to either comment on (any) of the “Viral Marketing Idea Friday” posts, or click on the about us, find our email and let us know. We are going to go through all of the emails and comments during the week, and then pick out which one we feel would be good for that week. If we don’t pick yours one week, stay tuned into us each Friday, because it could be the next “Viral Marketing Idea Friday”!
Today’s idea was not sent in, it was not asked by anyone, but again - came from my brain that never stops thinking like a social media marketer (remember the post). I had gotten rid of a bunch of office furniture this week on Craigslist that I no longer needed since I finally updated (and upgraded) my new office. (By the way I sold the furniture in about 2 minutes after the posting went live on Craigslist - I guess I need to do an update to my post about making 500 dollars on Craigslist in 10 minutes. I honestly never thought I would top that - another day, another post.) Getting back on track - As I was taking pictures of the the furniture I wanted to take a picture of a piece that had gotten damaged (and disclose everything) by one of the movers when they were loading the furniture into our new house.
Here is the picture -
As you can see the damage is not bad, but that is not the point. The point is - This picture got me thinking about so many ways that I could turn this simple picture into a viral marketing campaign for a moving business that is found online (if only I had a local moving business, or general moving business as a client.) This gives me the perfect opportunity to share some of my ideas of how (even a smalll Mom and Pop) moving business could turn this picture (or idea) into a viral campaign that would increase trust, build links, build brand and name recognition, and help in the ranking of their keywords.
The picture just gives me the idea, so I am not saying I would use this exact picture, but you could find 9 other pictures of what you feel are some of the most horrendous moving disasters (either caught on video, or still picture) that you find on the web, You Tube or even that have happened in your life. You can give it the title “10 Of The Craziest Moving Disasters Ever Caught On Tape” or “Ten Of The Craziest Moving Disasters Pictures You Have Ever Seen“.
If you are the local moving business trying to gain more exposure for local keywords, you can use this in a blog post (or static page) talking about how that won’t happen with your company (of course), but it also keeps you really relevant when trying to use a social media site to market with, and it does not seem as out of place like it would on a site selling perfume. My guess if something like that was submitted on Digg, the community would eat it up.
I don’t know if you agree or not, but I feel that a local moving company is close to one of the most boring industries on the net, so if we can come up with something that would go viral for that kind of a company - anything is possible. Plus its something that I feel all would enjoy in the social communities because you are not creating something spammy that is full of garbage that won’t go anywhere. I can honestly see myself enjoying looking at videos of crazy moving disasters (mostly to make myself feel better for some of the crazy ones I have been involved in over the years).
Well there you go! That is pretty much the jist of “Viral Marketing Idea Friday” - and this would be as good of a place to remind you that if you are having a hard time coming up with viral content for your website - let us help. Either leave a comment in this (or any other “VMIF” posts) or send us an email and we will see what we can do to help.
Chris and I wanted to do this because we feel one of the biggest frustrations for companies that are trying to grow, and really learn about search engine optimization/marketing is the execution side of it. They attend search engine optimization trainings, and hear people speak till they are blue in the face about how important social communities are, and how you need to get your content on them, but thats as far as they go. They never teach you execution! The execution part is where Chris and i want to be able to help out! We look forward to seeing what this can turn into.
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Farfetched can work well if a company is trying to move from “mediocre” to “exceptional” when it comes to providing a product or experience 
Where or how do you recommend finding images good enough to make it on digg? I did a simple google image search but didn’t see any good results.