High Quality Link Building Services & Social Media Marketing

Alec Baldwin’s Schweddy Balls A Viral Hit

With all the hype trending around the release of the Nike Air Mags that Marty McFly wore in “Back to The Future II” after a 23 year wait, you might not have caught another viral product announced at the same time: Ben & Jerry’s “Schweddy Balls”. This new flavour from Ben & Jerry’s, like with the Nike Air Mags, have come from fantasy to reality. If you’re not familiar with the Saturday Night Live skit Schweddy Balls is based on, check out the video below.

This combination of vanilla ice cream with a hint of rum with fudge covered rum and malt balls is another stellar example of viral marketing that was practically competing with the Nike Air Mags on Twitter. This limited edition flavour was able to virally leverage the SNL Schweddy Balls meme to completely cover all marketing costs.

Twitpic of Ben & Jerry's "Schweddy Balls"

@cherrygarcia's twitpic has 2119 tweets and 33,000 views

Twitpic Credit: @cherrygarcia

Let’s look at the social data from Topsy.com for the three days since Schweddy Balls was first mentioned. The original article by Time announcing Schweddy Balls has been Facebook liked 867 times and Facebook shared a staggering 42k times. It has had 4560 direct tweets, 245 Diggs, 54 Stumbles and 74 +1’s. The link has also racked up 4,457 social mentions. Ben & Jerry’s official Twitter account, @cherrygarcia, tweet linking to their Schweddy Balls page on their site received 1,899 retweets. The now famous fake family name “Schweddy” has 7,768 social mentions 7,768. Alec Baldwin (@alecbaldwin) has a massive following of 330,766 and his tweet of the Times post received 505 tweets plus 19 influential tweets alone.

Imagine the ROI of promoting a new flavor of ice cream through traditional channels like banner, print or TV ads, compared to inbound marketing tactics like blogs and social networks, and you just can imagine the money saved. All it took was a clever idea and the balls to actually put it into action. Yep, had to throw in a balls joke somewhere.

Like with my previous post on the viral marketing hit of the Nike Air Mags, Schweddy Balls stands a premium example of successful viral marketing and leveraging inbound marketing. What was great about Marty McFly’s Nike sneakers was the proceeds go to support the Michael J. Fox Foundation. I think it would have been a smart and funny PR move by Ben & Jerry to have proceeds of the limited release of Schweddy Balls went to support prostate cancer, which gets much less attention than breast cancer but affects just as many men. Too bad they didn’t aim to do some social good like Nike, but both reap the benefits of viral brand building, which resonates in today’s marketplace so much stronger than traditional ads or commercials.

Follow me on Twitter:@S_Gerard

Tagged Alec Baldwin, Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, inbound marketing, Nike Air Mags, Saturday Night Live, Schweddy Balls, SNL, topsy.com

Scumbag Google – Bounce Rate

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September 9 | News | Ryan Clark

Tagged google, meme

Marty McFly’s Nike sneakers have finally come Back From the Future

1 Comments

September 8 | Viral Marketing | Simon

As a senior member of Gen Y, the 80s holds many of my fondest pop culture memories. The Back to the Future movies were huge hits when they were released and are still loved by millions today. I still remember seeing the original Back to the Future when it was first released to VHS. When the sequel came out, where Marty McFly travels to the future, my whole generation was blown away. No one can forget the flying DeLorean, the hoverboard, the 3D Jaws movie billboard to the self-tying Nike hi-tops that Marty McFly wears. With all this and so many other imaginative details, Director Robert Zemeckis and producer Steven Spielberg were able to send us all to the distant future: the year 2015. Now in 2011, Nike is finally releasing the same Nike’s Marty McFly wore to ride his hoverboard, after over 20 years of rumours and hype.

The legions of Back to The Future fans have always discussed and fantasized about when the hoverboard and the self-tying sneakers would become a reality. On September 6^th, 2011 the Nike “Air Mags” finally came back from the future in a teaser Youtube video by user “DocEmmettBrown88”, for those who don’t know all their BTTF trivia, that’s the name of the scientist who invented the time traveling DeLorean.

The next day at around 3pm, NiceKicks.com, one of the leading authorities in the world of sneakers, received a special package from the future. Just like the scenes in the movies where Marty would receive messages from Doc Brown for another point in time, an iPod Shuffle had a special message from the Doc himself saying: “Welcome to Los Angeles. If my calculations are correct, over the next 24 hours you are about to see some SERIOUS SH*T!”. It included an invitation to: “IT’S ABOUT TIME…an unveiling that could change the course of time”, a special event in Hollywood tonight. I’m sure the NiceKicks staff are BTTF fans and I couldn’t imagine their excitement, I would have screamed and fainted for sure.

The package contained Throwback Pepsi (the mid-80s formula), some 80s candy, such as Nerds and bubble gum tape. It also had the Back to The Future Trilogy and a pair of Doc Brown’s metal shield glasses he wore in the film.

While there have been a few Nike releases with a “Marty McFly” theme, none have been official or done the pair from the movie justice. Last August, NiceKicks reported that Nike had filed a patented for a pair of battery-operated self-tying shoe with LED lights. Many dismissed it as a hoax since rumours of this sneaker being made have always come up over the years.

Now we have confirmation that the dream is real, tonight at 8pm, the real-deal Marty McFly Air Mag sneakers will be unveiled. They will be the first rechargeable footwear from Nike, featuring a glowing LED panel and it actually auto-ties itself with a button… JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIE!!!!

1500 have been made, with 150 to go up for auction on eBay for 10 days, starting tonight. All proceeds will go to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s disease. In case you are not aware, Michael J. Fox who starred in BTTF, has Parkinsons which led to him starting this foundation. He will appear on David Letterman tonight, hopefully in his signature outfit from the movies. Leading up to this release, Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki said they would match all donations to this foundation up until 2012, at a max of $50 million. With over 20 years of hype for this release, I’m sure it will be an all out 10-day bidding war for these sneakers, so it’s great to see Brin and Wojcicki stepped up to match all donations.

Mark Parker, CEO of Nike, said he wanted to translate all the built-up excitement for this sneaker and turn it into a positive action to raise money and awareness for Parkinson’s disease. A great PR move by Nike to help a great cause. The viral-ness of this sneaker has blown up across Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere. This has covered all marketing costs, outside of the teaser video, release event and promo packages. And Nike and BTTF fans get a chance to fulfill a childhood dream while giving to charity. This ends up being a win-win-win situation, with Nike, charity and fans all benefiting. It also stands as another stellar example of viral marketing and leverage of inbound marketing techniques, brought to us by the geniuses at Nike.

Still waiting for the Hoverboard to come out...

Let’s take a look at some of the real-time stats from Topsy.com after 24 hours of NiceKicks’ post on receiving the promo package. The Back to The Future hashtag, #BTTF has been used just over 1000 times. “Back to The Future” has been mentioned 5,600 times, “Marty McFly” has been mentioned 2,800 times and “Nike Air Mag” mentioned 1,500 times. The post itself has had over 19,000 FB ‘likes’, 228 +1’s and 3683 retweets. The teaser Youtube video has received almost 185,00 views in two days. All this without the shoes even being released yet. Just imagine the ROI of promoting a pair of sneakers or a charity through traditional channels like banner, print or TV ads, compared to inbound marketing tactics of social networks and blogging. You can imagine the $$ saved.

We’ll see how long this topic trends with 10 days of auctioning. And I’ll also update if I’m incredibly lucky and win a bid… They would just make the perfect pair of (online)work shoes.

UPDATE: The winning big on the first pair was $37,500 by British rapper Tinie Tempah, who also received a plutonium case to carry them in and was apparently promised a puppy by the auction’s host. And unfortunately, the sneakers do not auto-fasten, guess we’ll actually have to wait until 2015 like in the movie… But in other BTTF news, Coke-a-Cola has angel invested in The Hoverboard Program, which aims to bring us the hoverboard by 4:29pm on the 21st of October 2015, which is the exact date/time when Marty McFly arrived in the future. Its hard to say how serious this program is, they are hiring though. Just like with the legacy of the Nike Air Mags, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Follow me on Twitter:@S_Gerard

Photo Credits: NiceKicks.com

Tagged air mag sneakers, back to the future, inbound marketing, marty mcfly, michael j fox, nike, topsy, twitter

Distilled Conference Taste Test!

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September 8 | Link Building Videos | Ryan Clark

The crew over at Distilled is well known for not only their great content or their highly respected marketing services, but for their conferences as well. The most innovative minds in our industry speak at these conferences on the more advanced and cutting edge topics. They sell these now on their website, and I could not be more happy to recommend that you buy these without hesitation. You’ll see from this taster video what you’re in for and some of the brilliant minds who are sharing invaluable knowledge. I also recommend checking out their Youtube profile for a whole bunch of great videos that are really worth the watch!

Tagged conference, Link Building

Guest Blogging Link Building Strategies & Tactics

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September 7 | Link Building | Ryan Clark

We’ve recently launched our guest blogging link building service after getting a little bit more in our groove. While we’ve always incorporated the tactic into our campaigns, there’s now enough to go on to create a campaign based on just straight guest blogging. Keep in mind we don’t recommend guest blogging as your sole link building strategy, but it definitely is in heavy rotation for our established clients and in heavy demand for our potential clients. If you’re in a competitive niche then guest blogging can be a huge help in ranking for those hard to rank keywords. It’s also a great way to splash in targeted anchor text links(don’t over do it) that are in content – my favorite!

Like I mentioned, there is a lot of work involved in guest blogging, especially if you’re doing it right. There are so many things we factor in to ensure that the utmost quality is being applied to every guest blogging venture. So that means not only finding great blogs to get involved with, it means taking the time to create awesome content. A lot of the guest blogging taking place these days is really on the junk end of things. I want to steer clear of that and make sure it doesn’t become a baron wasteland like article marketing has become. The cliché is a cliché because it’s true. The quality of the content should always be paramount.

I’ll be covering not only a variety of ways to land guest blogging gigs, but also which content is going to fair well on which blogs. Keep in mind that if you score a really influential blog, you best not be bringing boring content to the table. A really great piece of content on the right blog can produce some serious link juice, and a lot of that is going to funnel your way! On the other hand, a fluff piece will establish you as somebody who writes fluff pieces with everybody who reads the article. There are hundreds of guest blogging opportunities just waiting for your touch out there so pay attention and learn something new.

Guest Blogging Services:

We’ll start with the easy bit first because there are a few guest blogging services out there that can make life a little easier. If I could give any advice/wisdom about this form of discovery, it would be to be very careful. With ease comes great lack of quality in a lot of cases, and you have to keep a sharp eye to get your work in the best spots. I tend to notice a lot of the blogs have too lax of a policy and a lot of garbage content is spewed out. Lazy webmasters are too easily swayed by free content, even if it is sub par.

MyBlogGuest.com – This is by far the best option for quick and good access to a bunch of different types of blogs. While there are still a lot of low quality blogs I wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole, the good outweighs the bad for sure. It’s a great community as well and it makes the whole process a lot more easy to handle. A pro account is $20 and simply requires that you submit articles into a pool; it is honestly the easiest way to get content published on blogs that you don’t run. The free accounts don’t let you release articles into the pool, but making connections with other members is still a very good way to get your content published.

Guest Blogging Network – I’ll be honest and say I had never heard of or seen this service prior to writing this post. It looks like they connect you with writers when they have a match in their network. Sadly, I wish I could say more but you’ll just have to check it out yourself and see if anything good comes of it. We’ll be doing the same in the coming months.

Web Traffic Control – This is another guest blogging network that connects writers and webmasters for guest blogging ease. It’s also a service we’ve never tried so if you have, let us all know in the comments below! I’ll be signing up today and Geoff is going to let me know whether it’s worth your time. He’s currently doing a big guest blogging campaign for a client so he was pleased to find this out.

Linknami Guest Blog Network – Linknami has an extensive guest blogging network that you can join for free! We’ve been checking it out for a while now and, while there are quite a few low quality blogs involved, there are some gems worth sniffing out for serious topical links. It’s growing rapidly as well so I’d definitely recommend checking out Linknami.

BlogSynergy.com – Believe it or not, this is yet another service that helps connect writers and blog owners to get their guest posting on! (I told you guest blogging was popular). I’ve yet to use this service as well, so once again I’m sorry for the lack of hard data here. You can however go check out some of the sites in the network to get an idea of what’s there. As usual, a lot of lower quality blogs where owners just want content to be wrapped with their Adsense.

The Guest Blogger @ LinkedIn – This is a private LinkedIn group that I’d recommend joining for the networking. There are just about 500 group members and the ratio of bloggers to webmasters is pretty good. Like the other sources though, there is still a good deal of junk in there so I’d only expect to find a few gems!

Hunting Down Prime Blog Targets:

This is by far the best method for a multitude of reasons. Going after blogs that don’t usually allow guest bloggers is always going to be the better link. I like to target the biggest blogs in the target vertical first, for not only the link, but for the branding and social media push. Riding off the coat tails of the established site is really going to give your content a huge push. That’s a nice set of extra features and will save you some time.

Like any good link building, this is all about building relationships with those influential people in your industry. I’m going to have to beat that into a lot of people’s brains, so I apologize if you’re getting sick of hearing it. These relationships will net the best links and make it really hard for your competition to keep up. While they’re doing the usual lame link building, you’re out there building your brand, which will last for years to come… not just the next 6 months.

Google Queries – There are a bunch of queries you can use to find guest blogging opportunities and I’ll run down a few of them. For the most part, just see who’s ranking in your industry and follow them socially, email them personally and even see if you can get a phone/Skype conversation out of them. Anything to make them connect with you and open up their world of connections. These search queries should get you going and lead you down a whole new path:

– intitle:write for us + “keyword/location”
– intitle:submit guest post + “keyword/location”
– intitle:guest blog for us + “keyword/location”
– intitle:submit blog post + “keyword/location”
– intitle:guest blogging opportunity + “keyword/location”

Twitter – I will state time and time again, Twitter is a great tool for building relationships that lead to links. All you can do here is reTweet your targets content, talk with them and get on their radar. If you email them later about writing for his/her blog, you can mention your past interaction: “hey, it’s so-and-so from Twitter”. I find that doing something for them before asking anything of them is a good strategy. If you notice anything that might make them more money or save them time, drop them a hint.

Bring Your Content A-Game:

Why would you waste your and the webmaster’s time with boring old content? So you land a writing chance on the biggest blog in your vertical, what kind of content are you thinking about? It better be viral/link bait in nature or I’m going to come down to your office and smack you good and hard! Since this blog is going to have an amazing reach to just about every corner of your niche, you’ll want to make sure your content gets that full potential.

Infographics – Put yourself in the blog owner’s shoes. If you got offered a custom infographic for your blog would you turn it down? I think not! This is a sure fire way of not only score a link from their blog, but the viral nature of the post should fire a lot of link juice you way. Not only that, you’ll get some much needed brand recognition. If you provide an embed code, make sure to include a link first to the host blog and a provided by link to yours and score some extra link action (booyah)!

The Ever So Popular List – Lists have always done well and they’re not quite done yet. Just take a look around your niche to see what’s popped on other social media sites and start gathering ideas. Obviously you cannot just copy another idea, so see where there’s a gap and start writing away. Picture and video lists really do well and they’re entertaining enough for the low attention span generation that we all know and love.

Cover An Event Or News – There’s always something going on in an industry so take note and see what’s doable. We’ve helped clients cover a conference and write about it for an industry blog which lead to a lot of positive results. Hot news can also be a “Godsend” if you can play down an angle and get people talking. The more controversial the subject the better!

Do Whatever…. – Everyone else is NOT doing! Amazing content that stands out from the norm is the best advice I can give. Research, research, research! There’s so much rehashed content being covered in every industry that it’s getting quite ridiculous(just look at 90% of the SEO blogs out there).

Resources:

There are a ton of guest blogging resources out there so I of course want to hear what you got in our comments. I’ve rounded up some of the posts I’ve bookmarked over the years, so hopefully you find a bunch of useful tips and tricks, so get guest blogging!

– http://www.verticalmeasures.com/guest-blogging/25-guest-blogging-resources-2010/
– http://weblogs.about.com/b/2008/07/21/what-is-guest-blogging.htm
– http://www.viperchill.com/guest-blogging/
– http://www.seo.com/blog/guest-blogging-efforts/
– http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-guest-blogging-is-getting-huge/24818/

Tagged guest blogging, Link Building

Video Link Bait As Seen In The Wild

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September 3 | Viral Marketing | Ryan Clark

I often write about cool as a cat companies doing hot-as-a-dog things with their content. Everything from hotels getting 200,000 views on an imagine of their penthouse suite, to a Tacoma base auto shop getting 2 million views for a video interview. Video is a powerful link bait weapon and I hope these examples inspire you to utilise this platform more often. If you spread you good video to the right channels, really good things will happen which come in the form of brand buzz, links and social followers.

Before I get into the examples, there are a few things to keep in mind when venturing into this arena. Knowing your market is key, and this means knowing what forums, bloggers and media types are lurking out there. Having relationships built up with these people is only going to make life easier, and is crucial for your business to survive in this day and age. One thing is for sure, the Google rewards are plentiful from a well successful viral video marketing effort!

Photo Credit: Chris Duckett/ZDNet.com.au

Case 1) DC Shoes + Ken Block = Epic WIN

This is how you do viral marketing plain and simple. While this is not exactly a low budget attempt, I’m pleased with how DC Shoes does everything. This is a company that went from being a small skate shoe company to a full blown extreme sports conglomerate. If you haven’t seen this video yet you’re in for the best 9 minutes of your life. You’ll notice the use of Epic Meal Time and other awesome stuff that makes this a sure fire success with nearly 8 million views already.

As for link bait? This one was an ace before it hit the interwebz. Using the intitle: operator shows nearly 200,000 mentions of this on external sites. This of course hit just about every car forum, blog and media outlet in the world and nabbed links not only for DC Shoes, but for Ford as well. All I can say is my hat is off to the production team who put this together, and of course to Ken Block for his bad ass driving skills.

Case 2) How To Sell Make Up Online

We’ve worked with a specific make up company before and one of the best results we got were from getting reviews and tutorials done. There are a ton of talented video bloggers on Youtube and you can really get some reach via this route. This video by Youtube user Michelle Phan has 18 million views for pete’s sake! This was sponsored by no companies but she lists every product used, as well did a bunch of the blogs who wrote about it. This is free exposure those companies are loving I’m sure.

Case 3) Viagra Gets Ballsy

I’m a huge fan of risky marketing, especially in the age of the Internet. There are not rules online and the crazier you go, the better the results are. No press is bad press in almost all situations, so Viagra made use of some cheeky marketing to get a lot of press. Link wise, all you need to do is grab the attention of Adweek.com and you’re going to get all the press you could ever want or need. The amount of money the parent company of Viagra makes is drops in a bucket compared to what it cost to put together this commercial. I imagine they knew ahead of time it would be banned and would make a great PR campaign.

Tagged link bait, video marketing, Viral Marketing

Twitter’s Earthquake Commercial – Snoozfest!

1 Comments

September 2 | Brand Building | Ryan Clark

I was expecting a lot more 2.0 humor and pizazz to come from Twitter’s commercial but it fell kind of flat for me. You’ve almost nabbed everyone in the tech/nerd/hipster sphere, and if you’re wanting to reach the broader audience, you’re going to have to do better than this! The communication power of Twitter is immense and down right useful, so I expect to see something more emotionally moving next time around.

Tagged commercial, twitter

Alec Baldwin’s Schweddy Balls A Viral Hit

Scumbag Google – Bounce Rate

Marty McFly’s Nike sneakers have finally come Back From the Future

Distilled Conference Taste Test!