Can sharing be a marketing technique?

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Who would have thought a few years ago that sharing content with others would become so easy? Now we have blogging software for sharing ideas, Youtube for sharing video clips, Flickr for sharing photos, and great services like del.icio.us and stumbleupon that let us filter the best content from the web in groups.


But a common question I get asked is this - how do we manage content that is our IP, content pertinent to our event and businesses? Do we just publish it into the public domain freely?

Brad Fallon stated at a recent STOMPERNET conference that in the next 12 months alone, more content will be published for public consumption than has been published the history of time. The reason is that everyone can publish now days and not just the media barons.

That said I think its fair to say that whatever it is you are doing it’s been done before. The question you need to be asking yourself with the surge in open (social) media and content sharing is this; If you do keep what you are doing for your events (business) locked behind a firewall and your competitors don’t. Who is going to prosper over the next 5 years.

I know who I would be betting on and invite readers to comment on who they would put their money on. We will delve into this further in future posts.

I believe sharing content is very important - at a recent conference we discussed the fact that over 60% of media content being consumed by the new generation of people is content that was discovered and shared by their friends.

Sharing information that would be useful to people and to their friends is not just an important emerging way of promoting events or getting the word out about something, but to create credibility among people who would want to find you and follow you over time. The social web makes it incredibly easy to find the truth about a person - if a person wants to be perceived as an expert, that expertise will truly be tested with the strategies employed when sharing content.

Here are some of my own recommendations on content sharing:

1- Be Authentic and Consistent. This is incredibly important - the best strategy for sharing content is to genuinely want others to grow to understand and appreciate the space in which you are an expert. If you keep focused on this mindset, and on the subject matter that you want people talking about, you will find yourself sharing very relevant material about that subject consistently.

2- Share incredible content. Having content by yourself doesnt make you the expert - your expertise comes from how you have interpreted, thought about, and applied that content over years. So its ok to give your content away - this is the best way to build meaningful relationships with your potential consumer base.

3- Share content meant for learning. You should think about sharing both content which represents the cutting-edge stream of thought in your subject, but also content that allows newbies to get excited about what you’re talking about. This will not only increase the community of people who follow you but also enable you to start conversations with the experts on the best paths of teaching new comers. A community of participants starts to evolve from these interactions.

4- Time your multi-media content. What you are sharing at any given time is going to be perceived as how you are thinking about the subject at that time. The content starts becoming what you are exploring or what you are excited about, and that in itself gives your audience a hint about who you are. While creating a full roadmap of how you will “unfold” content may not be a nice idea, it is very important to share similar content across all mediums. E.g. if you are sharing links on del.icio.us and also videos on youtube, then make sure they are all touching on similar topics at any given point in time.

How do these techniques tie back into marketing and promotion? What you are trying to aim for here is to become a reliable source of good knowledge about a subject matter - if people can begin to expect good things from you, they are likely to invite their friends to follow you as well.

You will over time become the go-to authority on your subject, and if people trust the content you share to be good, they are also likely to trust you when you talk about your events, your services and your products.

Video Marketing Case-Study

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Since we’ve been discussing the importance of using videos as an integral part of your marketing strategies, I thought I’d share a case-study with you. A number of companies have been engaging audiences in activity based marketing to build viral campaigns. We all saw the red Gmail envelope exchange hands all across the globe, didn’t we?


The Heinz ketchup campaign specifically stands out. Here is a summary of what they did:

- They first checked to see where there market was. Youtube had a significant presence of their demographics, so they built a competition for Youtube users.

- They designed the competition perfectly: there was an incentive for the winner ($57,000 cash prize). The competition was to design an ad campaign for Heinz. A win-win for all.

- They got popular bloggers to spread the word.

- They played with the right mental triggers and feelings: association, loyalty, fun, good moments.

- They got smashing responses in thousands of participations. Anticipation and hype kept growing until they finalized the winner (has a link to the winning video as well).

- They finished off with great Ads and an incredible amount of media attention and hype.

- They let those feelings of association translate into brand attributes that those participants feel about Heinz. They got themselves a horde lifetime customers!

You tube & using Online Video In Your Marketing - Part 1

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What if I told you that by adding one more element to your marketing efforts, you can potentially;

- Increase your traffic by at least 20%
- Increase your search engine rankings significantly
- Increase your outreach and visibility significantly
- Increase your brand value significantly
- Make your customer interactions much more direct and personal

What would you say? That special something has a tested ROI of at least 150%. Yep, you’ve guessed it - I’m talking about videos. Yes, videos! We’ve all heard of Youtube and other such video sharing sites.


Whenever we’re working, researching or doing just about anything, we turn to Google. Its ironic how much we use it. Its almost like our lifeline. NOW IMAGINE this: the size of Youtube in terms of daily page views is DOUBLE that of Google. Can you believe that? Its pretty awesome, isn’t it?

The numbers of viewers and regular users of video online are massive to say the least. This crowd is averaging an age of 30 years and has people from all age, gender and location demographics. Half of the videos are watched on video sharing sites, and the other half are watched on other people’s blogs and websites.

I want this to be an important part of every marketing campaign that I see. You have to leverage the power of videos for your launch and see how it amplifies your sales. Depending on how well you execute it, you should be able to see measurable increases in your bottom-lines. This is a very powerful medium of communication so use it well. Some pointers:

1- The key here is to produce good quality videos. Make sure its something others would want to share with their friends. Make sure it is interesting enough to make them want to watch through it. It shouldn’t be too long. Make it short and crisp. Keep the file size to a maximum of 100 MB.

2- If you are launching a product; make how-to videos and propose your product as a solution. How-to videos are the fastest growing category of online videos. Make sure you add good descriptions and relevant tags to your videos.

3- Once you have made videos, integrate them into your social marketing campaign, your Facebook profile, your MySpace page, your blogs. your website and other content sharing sites.

4- Place your videos in multiple video sharing and content sharing sites. This will increase your search engine rankings. Make sure your videos have their own consistent personality and voice.

5- Having a video in your website will increase its search rankings as well, compared to those sites that do not have videos. The algorithms that are run give weight to rich content. So add your videos to your main company website as well.

6- If you have a website or blog that attracts good traffic, embed your videos there and set them to auto-play. In this way the video traffic will increase, subsequently increasing its visibility amongst your market. You can create short videos or infomercials that are quick to produce and can add value to your branding efforts. Whenever anything in your site or about your product requires clarification, explain it to them in the form of videos.

7- Use Tube Mogul to upload your video to multiple video sharing sites at the same time. Its a free site that distributes your content for you and provides you with accurate stats regarding your videos. These stats are useful for measuring the effect and value of your videos to your overall business. So, its great for tracking your videos and your competitors videos as well. You can also monitor comments and ratings on your videos by viewers.

When you’re building your launch strategies, make sure you have a solid plan of how you can leverage videos to your advantage. Different people use this tool in different ways for their business, so it all depends on what you’re selling and what industry you are in. Good luck and happy shooting.