Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
which, in turn, raises that site in search results. With that said,
I should point out that it
sabadpracticetooverloadyoursites
with links to each other just for the sake of raising their
popularity.
'
Viral Marketing and Social Networking
If the site is designed and built right, users will walk away remem-
bering not only the information they learned or the fun game they
played, but they
ll be able to tell their friends and coworkers whose
microsite they were visiting and the URL to get to that site. Believe
it or not, this is actually a form of advertising that goes by different
names like
'
s
one of the best forms of advertising available. For one thing, out-
side of the initial expense to get it going, it
“
word of mouth
”
or
“
viral marketing,
”
and they say it
'
s free of cost. The other
great aspect is that it seems to be in human nature to listen to and
trust people we know much more than we listen to or trust typical
advertising. If a friend tells you about a Web site they visited,
chances are that you
'
re going to give it a visit because if your
friend liked it, it must have been good and you
'
'
re guessing you
'
ll
like it as well.
One of the great things about microsites is that they are so
perfectly built to accommodate viral marketing. If you think about
how many times you
'
ve suggested a site to a friend or how many
Inside Advertising
times you
ll start to see that those
sites are microsites more often than they are full corporate/
company Web sites. When you have a site that is centered around
one specific idea, product, or service, you
'
ve been told about a site, you
'
“
t about how you
get someone to your site;
it
Viral isn
'
s about what happens
after they leave.
'
re able to put more focus
and energy into that one item. With that energy, your creations can
dig further into the realm of entertainment and that
'
”
John Keehler,
Director of Digital Strategy,
Click Here, Inc.
—
swhenyou
start to hit on the things that people talk about and pass around to
each other.
'
Generating a Buzz
Before people start talking about your site, those first potential
visitors will need to know it exists, right? After all, if nobody ever
sees it then nobody will be able to talk about it. This somewhat
wraps back around to using the other forms of driving traffic to
your site previously mentioned in this chapter because those
other methods can be used to generate the initial buzz. Then,
once people have started talking about the site and passing
the URL around to their friends, you can phase those methods
out and let the site advertise itself for a while. If traffic starts to
die down at any point, you always have the option of stirring up
a buzz again.
