The importance to take your own videos
Video marketing has become popular just like blogging since the revolution of online viral marketing. People make professional videos detailing services, conferences, webinars and just for fun all to increase market presence and/or share with friends and family. I have watched a lot of videos on YouTube and the ones that show in all our inboxes and even shoot a few myself.
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Build traffic and have fun at the same time with blog contests
One of the most effective ways to build traffic to a website is through the use of contests. Why is that? Well, contests engage people, draw upon communities and spread like a viral infection does through a college campus (okay maybe not the best analogy).
One contest that has the real estate community smashing away at their keyboards is the Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World contest. Developers, SEO experts, do-it-yourself real estate webmasters, critics and so on are all participating to see who will own the top spot on Google for this term come May 1, 2008. The contest has drawn in a lot of attention from around the real estate industry and there are many top dogs competing, even when they say they are not.
Why do contests like this work or get so noticed?
They Engage People: People naturally thrive on competition; it is just in our nature. It brings out the best, and sometimes the worst, in people and test abilities where normally they would involve themselves.
Drawing Upon Communities: Usually contests happen in already established communities and those communities all come together to participate. Website owners gain traffic from communities members visiting as well as sharing the contest with friends & family who are usually not part of the community.
Viral Potential: We all know the story viral videos, like the Brittany Spears cry fest of last year, and how far they can spread. Viral strategies are nothing new to web and large companies have been working diligently trying to get things to spread through social media outlets.
Contests also have a dark side; they can bring out the worst in people. Nah, really? I am afraid so. Look at the Nancy Kerrigan attack of 1994. The extremes people will go to is not to far fetched.
What to watch out for.
When starting out in a contest like the Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World look at see who is entering. Are they friends you currently know, are they new people, what is there demeanor on their website, do they use hard language or take many aggressive positions, do you mind have your naming affiliated, no matter the out come, with the contest?
But most importantly; it is to have fun while participating in them and not to take them to seriously otherwise what is the point. Well have fun and try and enter a contest to see if you can get some free traffic out of it.
Being close to competition is not as bad as it seems
There is something I learned in business school but never paid to much attention to it then. It’s the concept of being close to your competition. Not in the sense of business strategy and model but in the physical sense of the terms. If you are a software company, like Google, then you move near you biggest competitor, like Microsoft.
In the olden days, 80′s, the concept was to distance yourself far away from your closet competitor in hopes that the competitor would have a higher difficulty obtaining information on what you were doing. Logical yes, smart no. Why is that? Keeping corporate secrets away as far away from competitors should be the smartest thing ever. Wrong-O, it should never get to that point.
Corporate secrets should never be based upon physical distance for security. If you can not lock down information technology long before moving near a competitor there is a serious flaw in the company. Getting back to the main topic: Why you should be watching your competition Right Now! Being close to your competition gives insight as well as providing a base for a similar recruiting pool. That goes for search engine optimization too.
Ever company, blogger or industry specialist should be paying a close attention to where their competitor’s ranks in the SERPs for every main and subsequent keywords. Concept of being close to your competitors so are able to watch what they are doing, especially since everybody and their brother is blogging these days.
During my day job, as Business Development Manager for Barnett Associates Real Estate, LLC I have found that is not so easy competing with companies that have a war chest. With my background it has enabled me to maintain the mind set of there are “weaknesses” in which companies are vulnerable.
So if getting close to your competition has contemplated your thoughts it is wise do make the move. In anyway shape or form that you have control of.
Competition moves forwarded….are you?
Commodity goods on the web
I have been doing some thinking regarding commodity goods and the vast number of websites selling similar goods. The number has to be astounding and getting a website marketed to effectively generate revenue is probably becoming increasingly more difficult. As I surfed the net looking at websites I found one that caught my attention JJ Enterprises.
This consumer goods orientated website offers unique products that can not be found any where else. One of the most popular products is the XS Energy Drink. Over the past few years I have seen more and more of these drinks in the gym. They taste good and being sugar free people will not have to worry about their mouth rotting.
I believe this is a new company and just getting started but after ordering my first round of stuff through it was satisfied with the whole process. Thanks JJ Enterprises!
Guest Blogger 1
Last week I had the opportunity to be a guest blogger on WebNewForUs.com, real estate news blog. The article focused on using local, not national, real estate statistics to determine the health of local market, read full article.