Brad Powers

Internet marketing experts like Brad Powers are familiar with the various techniques used by online businesses today. An increasingly popular method is viral marketing. Why?

A viral marketing campaign, if successful, is an inexpensive way to promote awareness and interest in a product, brand name or idea. Viral marketing uses social networks and other popular sites to draw a large crowd and to spread information rapidly- for free. The hard part is thinking of something that will generate enough interest or amusement for it to then be shared. Many companies use entertaining or fascinating video clips to do the job. Images work well, too. The video is seen by the first layer of audience, which then posts it on its Facebook, MySpace or Twitter page. More and more people are exposed to the video, and the brand name/product is immediately well known.

Google is well-known as one of the largest companies in the world- with the smallest advertising budget. They have managed this by using a strategy that produces an enormous amount of word-of-mouth advertising, or, viral marketing. Viral marketing is an advertising technique which uses videos, photos, articles or audio clips which are ‘cool’, interesting or amusing that are spread throughout a large social group.

In Google’s case, their “Gmail” email service was available only for people who had been invited in by current members. The Gmail rules created the feeling of some sort of elite club, and drew its social networking-users into the role of salesmen. Viral marketing professionals such as Brad Powers are familiar with this, and various other marketing techniques which are used throughout the web.

There are many examples of viral marketing success stories. One that is particularly heart-warming is the Livestrong Wristband. This began as a fundraising effort by Nike for Lance Armstrong. The yellow wristband sold a staggering 45 million units and straight away became the identifying symbol for Armstrong. This signature look is a wonderful idea; it leads to people recognizing you or your product immediately and thereafter talking about it. It was such a simple (and inexpensive) idea but it worked so well. Viral marketing is often a great tool which social media expert Brad Powers uses in his work.

According to the annual Unisfair marketing survey in May 2010, social media is the hottest channel for lead generation among technology marketing professionals.  For instance, another study showed that 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers found that they were more likely to buy the brands that they like on Facebook and Twitter. This, again, strengthens the tie between social media and lead generation.  Certainly, for lead generation experts like Brad Powers, this news can be very helpful for the development of future campaigns.

This article offers helpful and quick tips about how to use lead generation for social media. It explains that you need to share content that showcases your expertise.  The article continues by giving helpful examples of how to do so. It’s definitely worth a quick read!