Event Launch Strategies

Imagine you were Rubik, the guy who invented the Rubik’s Cube. You knew how it works… you knew how to approach it… you knew what thinking mechanism is best for solving it. And yet, as soon as you launched your new fascinating puzzle, some genius came in and solved it before you. Would that make sense?

This is how the social traffic team and their two waves of evangelists are feeling right now with their recent win on ranking for “Google Friend Connect” (Google’s product) on Google’s search engine. Ahem. Excuse the pompous remark, but I can’t help but feel pleased with the strategies and techniques we’ve pulled. Allow me to explain the scenario:

Google’s been planning its launch for months, and yet it took us 8 days, with only 800 odd views (less than a fifth of the Google owned videos), 160 odd comments comments, and 57 or so faves to bring our video up on number 1 spot on YouTube for the phrase “Google Friend Connect” on YouTube. This was an amazing 8 day period and our evangelists doing our course had a hands-on experience learning through some of the rarest online challenges. And you know what.. they won. They won the challenge at a glorifying level of just 8 days of involvement and no fowl play.

In case you’re wondering, we were competing for that spot against 12 highly viewed Google owned videos and also against the highly regarded Digg mover Chris Lang who is probably one of the best in the bookmarking for SEO business. Google’s videos have over half a million views all up, and back-links from PR8 and PR9 ranked Google blog pages. The reason, we got ahead in Youtube was because we understand the technology, we understand how it measures popularity and because of the comments on our video. Comments, the % of a video viewed throughout and it’s ratings are regarded as more important than volume of views in their search algorithms. They show activity.. life.. and interest. Who cares if 100,000 people view a video if they stop it a minute in and don’t leave a comment. YouTube won’t serve that video to their customers, people are searching for results not statistics. They want a video that best solves their problem.

You can watch our video here.

Our free Social Media marketing in evangelism for charity course is based on learning how to gain a strong hold on different social media touch-points; including EventsListed, Google, Article marketing sites, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. The program is run on engaged schedules revolving around training videos, weekly meetings, mentorship and hands-on exercises.

This YouTube challenge was one such exercise that helped them learn how to create and promote future campaigns for viral distribution in cut-throat niches. Imagine, some of our students had minimal experience online before joining Social Traffic. All of a sudden, here they are locked in a three way battle, a gloves off, fight to the death lasting 8 days. The prize,…YouTube search engine supremacy, achieving the impossible and living to tell the story. I hope to hear them tell it over and over again because it’s their story now, they own it because they deserve it. Can you believe their competition in this massive fight was non other than 12 Google developer video’s not to mention a foremost social bookmarking expert going toe to toe to rank number 1 for one of the “hottest” search phrases online at the moment. Let’s put this into perspective, our guys were newbies just 5 weeks ago yet taking on the 800 pound Gorilla of the Internet jungle. No, let me correct myself. Beating the 800 pound Gorilla of the Internet jungle.

I’m sure they’re all much more confident in their marketing skills now. Someone once said the best way to learn how to swim is to jump in the deep end of a pool - these courses have thrown these guys into the deep end of a very big pool,…the difference, we threw in some Olympic champions along side them. Watching them take to swimming so fluently in such a short period of time has made all the work I have done preparing these lessons very rewarding for me.

It’s priceless to be able to learn and make mistakes when your company’s bottom line or reputation is not dependent on it, especially when you can share the experience with so many amazing people, people you will continue support online forever - this was the primary motivation for the early sign ups we got and I am sure you can see by the comments across Facebook and YouTube they are very happy customers.

This practical experience of participating in getting a video to the top, watching it rise from page 26 to page 1 first, then rise up and fall down between spots 3 and 9 over an 8 day period until we finally cemented top ranking makes all the difference. Participation in this process is a lesson you don’t get in other courses online. Watching the effects of Digg votes, comments, ratings, views on the video itself gives you an opportunity to gauge the mechanics of how things work on YouTube. And this was just 1 module out of the 8 across all facets of social media marketing that we’re offering in our courses.

But like all good things that have to end, Social Traffic will be closing sign ups for our third (and last) free course on the 25th of this month. This is the last free wave of evangelists that we will be creating until our next charity launch. Lots of people are interested in it after seeing the amount of fun the first two waves are having. We had over 100 people sign up today alone. If you’re one of those who are receiving our emails and are watching what we’re doing, but haven’t joined in the efforts, then perhaps this is chance to do so.

This just might be your leap of faith in the sea of socially influenced traffic.

Everything else aside, the core lesson for our trainees here wasn’t how to rank number ONE on YouTube for a competitive keyword, the lesson goes much deeper. It’s about the power of having quality relationships across social media. About how smaller networks who are more connected to each other, networks that work towards common goals can beat the most successful company in modern times at their own game in not just search, in anything. The moral of this story is one that I have been singing across Facebook for over a year now, don’t waste your energies on huge followings that ignore you, forget people who don’t have time to maintain a relationship with you. Focus your energies towards building alliances with small groups of closely connected individuals (who may never have met each other in real life) and connect these small groups with other groups like them. The common denominator must be mind set, this is the priceless lesson that we pride our courses on. You can make great things happen on the internet. All you need is for participants across space and time feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, and to for anyone to enjoy this feeling, the pay has to be a willingness to act when action is required.

After this last free round, the next Social Traffic course will be selling at $1500/seat for the exact same experience.

To me, this is exactly what defines social media - a means of developing quality relations spread all over the world using social sites. People who are joining in for the courses, are becoming part of this super-charged-and-connected group that is growing with every wave that passes. If nothing else, they’d come out of the course with a strong network and having known some of the big names in the social marketing world. Just having a chance to build such quality relationships for FREE is a win-win.

We offered 10 FREE places yesterday and got 100 opt-ins before we blinked. Our reaction was to let another 100 people enjoy this experience. It gives us am aditional 100 people as social proof of of the courses value before we start selling it next month. BE WARNED, If you don’t participate in the practicum one week, you won’t go through to the next week. To avail this opportunity of the last wave of evangelists course, you can sign up here: http://www.socialtraffic.biz/our-story/join-us/social-traffic-evangelist-sign-up-here/

Simon U Ford

Earth Day Birthday

Social Traffic

SUF.EDBD

Today’s tip! YouTube’s the second most searched engine after Google. Because of the barriers to building a video centric community you often find they’re the best quality. Tubinator helps build your YouTube community faster!

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