The mid-1960s, rolling into the 70′s that ushered in a new era of drugs, sex and rock and roll.  The world had never seen such a thing.  The “new morality” created a whole new world outlook.

That’s a an awful lot of “new” talk considering that the hippies and the “new freedom” (there’s that “new” thing again) thinkers of the 60′s and 70′s had not developed anything new at all.

In fact, they had only leveraged the teachings of Epicurus, the 4th Century B.C. Greek philosopher who taught his followers that life was not about enlightenment as so many of his peers thought.  It was, instead, about people living daily lives of enjoyment and pleasure, immersed in a world devoid of divine intervention and religious structure.

That part, the “New Age” movement happily adopted.

The most “pleasurable” thing an Epicurean would do, though, was to live modestly and usefully, content to work hard and tirelessly for a mere subsistence level existence.  Physical comfort and heightened sensuality were strictly shunned as being harmful to the soul and counter-productive to the good of civilization.

The “New Age” movement folks (some of them are still around), of course, would have nothing to do with that part.

Exactly what the “new society” throw-back evangelists did, was to leverage the ancient Epicurean ideas and adapt them to their own notion of the “pleasure principle”.  This “Epicurean principle” really had very little to do with the philosophy that Epicurus espoused.  But the leveraging principle was adhered to dogmatically.

Leverage and Internet Marketing

Leveraging is what social and internet marketing is really all about these days.

There’s no such thing as new ideas.

Actually, there never have been, and never will be.

Aristotle’s concept of divine intervention was not new, having developed well before pre-Socratic thought was even whispered.  The “New Age” clamour of the last half-century for a society devoid of religion, God and morality … purely hell-bent on some new ill-defined “pleasure principle”, was really just a throw-back to many ancient and modern movements.

So rather than building a product from the ground up, savvy network and social marketing engineers are more overtly building their businesses on the shoulders of bigger, more successful and ridiculously influential online platforms and market sites.

Enter: the Social Media Wars of 2012

Ryan Deiss talks about the “piggyback launch model” as it applies to marketing and as it is lately manifest in the wild, wild world of social medial.

In Driving Traffic, Deiss refers to the crafty “borrowing” that internet marketers engage in when leveraging working ideas from other marketers, for the express purpose of making them work better.

The piggyback model is clearly demonstrated by reviewing the many “leveraged” applications spun from social media giants like Facebook.

Two quick examples here, are Friendsheet and Pinview.

Friendsheet

I first heard of Friendsheet from a Techcrunch post. 

Friendsheet is an app that ties in directly to Facebook, thereby capitalizing on its immense sharing capabilities.  It “borrows” from Pinterest in offering pinboards for photos that can then be directly shared on Facebook.  Rather than develop its own community and build ground floor relationships with social-hungry consumers,

Friendsheet allows commenting and re-sharing, even uploading your photos and images directly to Facebook. It actually piggybacks on 2 working models, Pinterest for product design, and Facebook for marketing and visibility.

Not long after Friendsheet was launched in January (2012), even Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg “liked”, a tip of the hat to stealth ingenuity.

But Friendsheet wasn’t the only kid on the block.

Pinview

Only a few months later, Pinview arrived to further leverage the success of Pinterest via Facebook’s huge and established marketing network. 

Stealth marketing, or” leverage” technique.

Call it what you like, the “piggyback” is really a method used by clever entrepreneurs to leverage larger marketing platforms and networks to better distribute their own content, and popularize their own apps and software programs.

As Digital Marketer observes, “The better your execution, the more credit you can take. It’s like that old saying, ‘A good artist borrows, a great artist steals’.”

That there’s more valor and even bravado than shame in this tactic, is evident in Pinview’s very own promotion.  Mashable observes that “The spiffy app”, far from being a clandestine operative, “launched [in April, 2012] with the mantra, ‘Browse Facebook like you browse Pinterest.’

Speaking of Pinterest, well, it doesn’t seem to me like they’ve done as good a leveraging job as Friendsheet and Pinview, insofar as they have not built in the same intuitive connectivity to Facebook that their “imitators” have.

Leverage – Stealth Internet Marketing Tactics

Entrepreneurs know that it is far more profitable to leverage great ideas than to come up with your own.  

After all, my hometown of Ithaca, New York claims to be the “the home of the ice cream sundae.” The claim is arguable.  The fact that Ithaca, New York has virtually no vested interests in the industry today is a monument to the entrepreneurs who leveraged the idea to the point that even MacDonald’s now retails them around the globe.

And what about the “New Age” movement?

Well, it may not have invented “Epicureanism”, but it certainly got the cool marketing of it down tight.  I mean, behaviour that for centuries constituted “immoral behavior” in virtually every culture, suddenly got spun into the free expression of an entirely “new morality”.

Pretty good stealth marketing, if you ask me.

Please feel free to share your thoughts below, and I always appreciate you sharing this post in your social circles if you’ve found it interesting.  As always, I’d love to hear what you think of how internet marketing has become an exercise in leverage mechanics and stealth tactics.

Forum marketing is one of the most powerful ways to drive free traffic to your site and it is a cornerstone of solid “list building” campaigns.  A tried, tested and true traditional method of online marketing and list building, forum marketing is one of the best methods for connecting with people in your niche on a personal and professional level.

Forum Marketing List Building Basics

First thing you need to do to develop this list building strategy, is to find the forums in your niche and register for them.

Try googling your niche or keyword terms to see what popular forums might suit your business model.

Engage Others In Your List Building Niche

Once you register for a forum, the most important thing to do is to offer value, advice and assistance to other people you meet there.

This is how you can become a perceived leader and expert among peers and students in your field. The better the value you give, the faster you will become a “go-to” person for others to watch.  By adding consistent value to a forum, other visitors will begin to see you as a person that they want to follow.

Forums are developed, by and large, for people to share ideas and information shared in common within particular niches. So add value and offer advice to help people out… just as if you were sitting in a room with them, discussing problems that you share in common and sharing information that you might both benefit from.

If you follow these guidelines and engage people in forums on a regular basis, people will start knowing who you are.  They will start looking for your blog entries, Facebook page status updates, and other platform entries.  Eventually, they will become your base of support as customers, clients and subscribers.

Don’t forget that your followers also have circles of friends on their social media pages and elsewhere online.  They will drive their friends and associates to you as well.

In this way, forums constitute a viral strategy for you to develop a huge following online, and vastly enhance your list building campaigns.

Coordinate Your Personal Brand With Your List Building Strategy

List building requires that you have a distinctive, identifiable brand to promote.

It’s important that other forum visitors know who you are and how they can contact you.

Building your personal brand, and showcasing your expertise are some of the most important benefits of forum marketing. Your main purpose for being involved in a forum is to let others know who you are, what you do, and what you have to offer.

Most forums allow you to put a signature on your in your profile. A signature is a way that you can show other people how they can connect with you. Sometimes a signature can be promotional, such as building a link to a website or blog or Facebook page, sometimes even a squeeze page.

Forum marketing is a tremendous list building technique, if utilized properly to build your personal brand.

Common Forum Marketing Mistakes When List Building

Make sure that you do not use forums as a center for spam activities. You do not want to be dropping links to your products and business opportunities, as this is strictly forbidden in most forums.

Don’t make the common mistake of failing to take the time to build a good author profile and signature that others in the community will rely on to get to know you even better.

Be respectful of forum rules at all times.  Don’t be negative, argumentative or self- promotional.  These things not only violate forum rules, but also undermine your own effort to look professional.

Time To Get Started

The best way to start forum marketing is to determine what forums are relevant to your niche.  Sign up for them and develop a strong profile.  Then jump in and start getting involved in the conversation.

When you are developing an online business, or looking to enhance an offline one, forum marketing is one of the best list building techniques you can use.

More About List Building With Forum Marketing

You may want to read the 3-part series on List Building I’ve written a on this blog. 

To learn even more about Forum Marketing and other great List building Strategies, on an on-going basis, just follow these quick steps:

• Enter your first name and email address to the right of this article, where the Large Arrow indicates. 
• Then Click the “Give Me Access” button. 
• You will receive instant access to strategies I’ve used to “Build A Super-Sized Subscription List”, and can “look over my shoulder” as I develop new ones in “real time”.
  

Meanwhile…

I’d love to have you share this post in your social media outlets, and offer your comments below.

What list building strategies have you used, and what experiences have you had with forum marketing?

Facebook page, a great place to start is with an app called Static

HTML: iframe tabs.

This can be used to set up a landing page above the fold of your

Facebook page, in the tabs section.

The tabs section are the spots that run to the right of the “About” and “Photos” tabs.  The

“About” and “Photos” tabs are “sticky”.  That is, their positions are stuck where they are. 

They cannot be moved.  However, you can add a tab before the “Likes” tab if you

want.  The position of the “Likes” tab can be moved.

To add a tab, simply go into the “Search” browser when you’re logged in to your

Facebook page.

Type in the words “Static HTML: iframe tabs”, and the app will appear in the results. 

Click on the app, and it will open into a popup that gives you the message that  “You are

using Facebook as ….”.  It will then prompt you to continue.

You will then be further prompted to “Add Static HTML to a Page”.

Once you click on that, the app will be added to your timeline.

You then will be given a choice to add html coding to a page that everyone visiting your

page can see.  You will also be given the optin to add “Fans-only content” so that only

fans can see the content, others will be prompted to become fans.

Further tutorials as to the specifics will be furnished when you’ve loaded your Static

HTML: iframe tabs app.

This is a super way to add “likes” and build “buzz” for your page.  You can use it to stage

contests, offer rewards, discounts and all the other traditional marketing hooks that can

make your Facebook page the talk of your niche!

If you need some tech help, let me know.  Otherwise, just dive in and have fun with

Static HTML: iframe tabs.

fads, some are long-term success stories.  

Google Buzz was all the buzz a very short time ago.  Everyone

scrambled to get on-board.  It has now been replaced by

Google +.  Then there was the My Space.  It was such a big

deal that people were sure Facebook was nuts to take it on. 

How’s that little rivalry going these days?

Pinterest On The Rise

So now everyone tells me I’ve just got to get on board with Pinterest.  It’s the latest,

greatest, infographic social media platform. I wonder.

The Commitment

Am I wasting time getting involved in pinning a bunch of stuff onto a virtual bulletin

board that others may find interesting?  How much time will it take from my already

“overwhelming” schedule of things to do, events to attend, products to develop,

webinars to view and blogs to follow?

The Payoff

The payoff seems to be that those who like my “pins” may be inspired to follow my

internet marketing brand.

I think that’s nice, but I’m not really a social media driven enterprise.  I really depend

very little on social media to build my brand. 

I use Facebook primarily for casual and peer conversation.  I barely use my YouTube

channel at all, since I self-host the majority of my videos.  And Twitter is a minor

after-thought.

So, why would I now add Pinterest to my already paltry social interaction?

The Challenge

My main motivation to get onto the bandwagon is my wife, Donna’s insistence that it’s a

really cool way to get to know new people, and have them understand what you are

involved in.

So I feel challenged to get in on the action… to test it out for myself.

I decided to look over Donna’s shoulder to see what she was doing with Pinterest, since

I don’t even know how to open my account yet.

I was immediately taken by the enormous amount of attention she got from a “pinned”

pair of heels.  I couldn’t believe how many people that never knew her before that pin,

now want to know everything she’s doing online, and how she can help them do the

same.

Enter My War Room

Since I looked over Donna’s shoulder to see what was successful with her on Pinterest,

it’s only fair I let you look over mine to see how I might go about designing my own

pin-board.

So, for starters, I thought I’d hijack Donna’s “SHOE PIN” success.  So I took a picture of

my sneakers.  You can view them above (disclaimer: not clip art, they are the “real

deal” for authenticity buffs). Not sure if they rival platform heels, but then again, I’m not

altogether sure what platform heels even are.

Speaking of labels, I can’t really call these my “running shoes”.  I hate running and am

prone to knee injuries and bursitis.  I use them for walking on sunny days only, since the

soles are seriously compromised and the rain quickly soaks my socks from the bottom up

if I try walking in the rain.

They are, in fact, my dog walking shoes.  That’s not a minor thing though.  I have 3 dogs

that get walked 4 or 5 times a day.  So  they’ve got some real history and utility to

them.

So, this just could be my maiden journey onto the Pinterest playground.  I’d like your

help.

• Is this likely to catapult my internet marketing brand? 
• Or should I stick to dry tutorial videos, shop-talk articles and my daily newsletter to adoring fans?

The picture you see here is my gravatar, and it represents my

personal brand. It may not be the best photo in the world, but it

has a lot of impact on my online brand and my SEO rankings.

I bring this up because I’ve seen a lot of SEO-craved anxiety lately.

One big concern among my students revolves around the issue of gravatar enhanced

search results. That is to say, they’ve done a whole bunch of work to get their sites and

posts ranked in the search engines, only to get disappointed to find that their search

engine-ranked pages were absent their gravatar and therefore, their personal brand.

But let me back-step for a moment.

Most people use a gravatar (the little thumbnail image that accompanies your comments,

facebook entries and the like).

Without a gravatar, you are not likely to be taken seriously. You appear to have

something to hide, or you just don’t want to be socially engaged. In either case, not too

many people will be interested in carrying on a conversation with someone that does

not have a gravatar.

So most of my students get that, because I make quite an issue early on about the

importance of their personal branding not only on their blogs and social media sites, but

also for their ability to get top search engine rankings.

But they far too often get fast and loose with their gravatars. They just assume it’s little

more than a nice little window dressing to accompany their articles and posts.

Unfortunately, taking your gravatar too lightly can definitely have a pretty serious drag

on all your hard work.

In particular, your ranking –and your appearance– in the search engines can be

adversely affected by the way you handle your gravatar.

Here’s how.

Google ranks your pages based partly on your authenticity… that is, the

authenticity of your authorship.

So if you write a blog post that you hope to get ranked, Google will try to verify that

you are truly the author of the post. It doesn’t do this by calling you and giving you a

pop quiz about the blog. It simply sends out “bots” that search your blog to determine if

you’ve “proven” that you are, in fact, the author.

If it finds sufficient evidence for your authorship, 2 things can happen.

First, you will optimize the likelihood that your post will be ranked highly. Of course,

there are many other “metrics” or determining factors, but authorship is a significant one

that so often gets overlooked. But first and foremost, Google wants to be sure that YOU,

and not some auto-blog system, has written the post.

It’s not interested in ranking automated posts, and gives preferential ranking to original

work authored by real people.

Second, you will stand a far better chance of having your gravatar displayed along with

your results search.

You see, your gravatar and authorship credentials are inextricably linked.

Your gravatar is part of your “proof” to Google that you are, in fact, the author of your

posts. And once you’ve proved that, you greatly increase the possibility of having your

gravatar displayed in the results.

Now, you may not think it’s a big deal to get your gravatar alongside your ranked post.

It is.

Just like people don’t trust or engage with people without gravatars in social media,

they are FAR less likely to click through on your post, even if it’s in the top 10 of the

search results, if your gravatar is absent. When other posts have gravatars on the same

search result page, readers will be FAR more likely to click through on those posts, not

on yours.

In short, your post, no matter how highly ranked, will lack a feel of authenticity and

proven person branding qualification if it is not accompanied by your gravatar.

So it really is a big deal.

Now, getting back to my clients…

They don’t really care so much about the theory as described, they want to know WHAT

to do to avoid these problems.

First and foremost, don’t change your gravatar if you can avoid it.

Your gravatar goes a long way in establishing your “brand”. When you change it, you

change your brand.

Think of MacDonald’s golden arches.

Don’t you think MacDonald’s could have come up with a newer, edgier look by now? It’s

been a half a century. Time for a change, right?

Of course not.

A half a century of “branding” has been etched deep in the heart of the golden arches.

When people see them, they don’t even have to think about what they stand for, it’s

already in their customer DNA. They see, smell and taste everything the golden arches

represent to them. The “sale” has already been made, in one visual instant.

You’re not MacDonald’s…

…but if you’ve been online for any amount of time, your gravatar is already familiar to

some readers, and they right away relate to your brand in a specific way when they see

your gravatar.

Perhaps more important, Google knows you by your gravatar.

When you change it, Google gets a little squeemish (that’s a technical word for “low

ranking”) about whether or not your “authorship” is authentic. And it may therefore

determine that your relevancy is in question and therefore suppress your ranking.

So first, stick with your gravatar if at all possible.

Don’t worry about your new hairstyle or shades. People identify with your gravatar, not

with the real “you”.

Now For Some Yiccky Stuff

The second thing you can do to authenticate your authorship and thereby increase your

chances of getting both your post and your gravatar ranked high… is not so easy.

It requires “telling” Google via html encoding, that you are the author of your posts.

I’m not a deep-level techie on this subject, so I’ll briefly tell you that you need to code

your “About Me” page, and your posts with something called “rel=author” scripts.

This coding looks something like this:

<a rel=”author” href=”https://profiles.google.com/0987653673788939″>Your Name</a>

-or-

<a href=”https://plus.google.com/0987653673788939/about?rel=author”>+Your Name</a>

The first code is related to your Google Profile, the second to your Google+ Profile. The

string of numbers above need to be replaced with the string of numbers that your own

Google Profile is identified by.

I know this is getting a bit scary.

You could ask your own CSS programmer to take care of this for you, or if you are a bit

more adventurous in these matters, I’ll leave you with this very cool tutorial from

Google’s very own… and very cool, Matt Cutts, as he interviews another Google

developer, Othar Hansson on this very topic.

The video is only 3 or 4 minutes. For more detailed instruction from Google, refer

to this special instruction on “Google Authorship”.

Good luck.

This may not be “fun” to many of you, but it’s a really big deal if you’re spending tons of

time to get ranked in the search engines. The takeaway is this: Don’t make light of your

gravatar or your personal brand.

viral videos. Easier said than done, you say? You’re right.  But there

are some common characteristics shared by most viral videos.

Kevin Allocca, YouTube’s Trends Manager, tells us that there are 3 things that

seem to be the key ingredients to having a viral video.

The quality or artistic quality of the video is NOT on that list.

Participation

According to Allocca, you must primarily get people to participate in your video.

Develop a Social Media campaign to get some buzz.

A guy named Yosemitebear Mountain did a video showing a double rainbow.  He calls

it Double Rainbow.  It is a few minutes long and is essentially a very rough,

unprofessional video of a guy (Yosemitebear himself) showing us a double rainbow

that he happens upon.

 
Pretty simple.  Almost tedious.

But couple that with a hefty Twitter campaign and Yosemitebear Mountain’s video

has hit over 32 million (No Typo, guys) views and IS TRENDING!

Rebecca Black’s “Friday” not only has over 200 million views, but has inspired

10,000 parodies that have been spun from it.  And it’s just a silly little video

of some good old fashioned singing in the car.

“Nyan Cat” is a bit more artistic… barely.  It’s a simple, monotone looped

video of a cat, in animation.  It has over 50 million views, and trending.

So the main thing, as with anything, is “advertising”.  Not paid advertising, but

social advertising.  Hyping your video through the social media in particular.

Unexpected Events

Ever since the beginning of time, unexpected things like a guy walking and

suddently disappearing in a puddle, or someone falling off a bike while

demonstrating bike safety… these things ALWAYS get laughs… and LOTS of video

views.

And a good way to create a viral video is to “stage” and “unexpected event” if

you’re not lucky enough to capture one by accident.

Luck

I guess he gets paid big bucks to come up with these analyses, and for that,

Allocca devised his 3rd ingredient to creating a viral video.

Be in the right place at the right time.

Upload a video… almost any video… on YouTube… at the right time, and

sometimes, just by LUCK… it goes viral!

Most importantly, though, Allocca points out that the world of viral video making

is a grass roots enterprise, because, as he puts it “No one has to green light

your idea”.

In parting, let me refer you to another post I did on this topic to see how you

can get lots of traffic from trending videos that aren’t even yours. 

Check out this super YouTube Video Strategy.

If Yosemitebear Mountain Can Do It, Why Not You?

So grab a camera, have fun, shoot some ordinary, simple, even boring stuff and

who knows… Luck might be with you!  Drive traffic to your online

business or sales funnel with viral videos.

This is a very brief discussion of the evolution of the internet as a serious communications medium.

With the increasing sophistication of the internet, it has followed the path of most communication mediums. It has “matured” as an increasingly primal form of communication in the form of human dialogue, which has proven to have far greater stimulation and relativity to its end-users than purely digital information.

I’d like to hear what you think about the evolution of the internet from a bulletin board of information into a vibrant social community.

In this post I will describe a YouTube video strategy that can get you more views on your own videos.  More importantly, this strategy will allow you to leverage the high ranking videos of your competitors.

By “leveraging”, I mean, you can use their traffic to get people to your own sales funnel, squeeze page or whatever else you want tot target.

Find Rising Videos in Your Niche

The first thing you need to do is find what YouTube videos are on the rise in your niche.

You can go to YouTube and search “Trending”, but you will find such a conglomeration of videos that it will be difficult to find ones in your niche.

A better method, I have found, is to do a simple Google search like this:
“YouTube trending videos: SEO”, if you are searching for trending videos about SEO methods.

Use the Same Title

Upload your video in the same niche.

Use the same title as the “trending” one, but add a few words to it.

So if the trending video is “White Hat SEO Tactics”, you might call yours “White Hat SEO Tactics Made Simple”.

Use Similar Description and Tags

Give your video a very similar description to the trending one.

You can also use similar, even exactly the same tags.

Upload To The Same Category

Upload your video the same category as the trending one.

Funnel Traffic To Your Video

Using this method, you will get many viewers to your video who are searching for the trending video by title, category, niche, and keywords.

Make sure the content of your video lives up to it’s promise, as given in the title, description and keywords or tags.

That way, when people view it, they will not be disappointed, and will be likely to heed your call to action (sign up, click here, etc).

I would love to get your feedback in the comment section below.  I’d also love to hear how you’ve been able to make use of this YouTube video strategy.

This Twitter strategy is a great to get traffic to your offers, your sales links, your affiliate links, your blog, your sales page or your squeeze page.

Really, anything at all that you want to promote, or any place that you need to drive traffic to, will benefit greatly by applying this proven Twitter strategy.

Select A “Product”

Decide on something you want to promote.

Maybe a Clickbank product.

Possibly you want to send people to your squeeze page to build your mailing list.

Perhaps you want to get peopel interested in an affiliate program.

Maybe you’re offering a business opportunity and seek downlines.

Whatever you want to promote, you need to drive traffic to a link that will accomplish that.

Your Target “Audience”

Consider WHO you are looking for.

If you have a company that sells vacation plans, you’ll want to find people who like to travel.

If you are an affiliate of a financial advice newsletter, you may want to zone in on people interested in investments.

If you are trying to sell a diet plan, or a program or product to help people lose weight, you want to find people who are overweight.

Twitter Search

Go on your Twitter search, or log on to twitter.com/search.

Think of what your target audience needs.

In the “search” bar, type in keywords that might represent a problem that your audience would like solved.

If your promoting a diet plan, for instance, you might want to use keywords like “lose 10 pounds”. Then, your results will turn up people who are telling you they have a problem they need solved. Their problem: they are 10 pounds overweight. How do you know that? They just told you by searching to “lose 10 pounds”.

The problem, here, is that you will probably get far more people SELLING diet programs and plans than those seeking them.

You avoid that by prefixing your keywords with “-http”. Since most competing vendors will put in their own links for the same keywords, you will be screening them OUT of your search.

So, instead of searching for “lose 10 pounds”, you will search “-http lose 10 pounds”.

You can be even more precise by putting quotes around the “lose 10 pounds” phrase so that you get EXACT results for that phrase. So in this case, your actual searh would look like this:

-http “lose 10 pounds”

Your Reply

Reply to people who you see are wanting to lose 10 pounds.

Solve their problem with a friendly response, and a link to your problem solver. Make it sound casual and informative, not like a sales pitch.

You do NOT want to say: If you really want to lose 10 pounds, here’s a great diet plan for you! http://yourlink . com.

You might prefer to say something like this: I know people who struggled with losing weight. It’s not easy, but if you stick to a good program, I’m sure you’ll do it! Good Luck. PS: here’s a great resource you might want to check out: http://yourlink . com.

With this simple Twitter strategy, you can drive VERY targeted traffic to your offer.

I’d love to hear how you make out with this!