Simple Social Media Marketing Tactics Amplify Your Brands Voice
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 
Why are the most simple concepts usually the most "successful" at drawing traffic on social media platforms? Simple marketing ideas like giving away free stuff, betting users to take action, and support a cause are just a couple examples. Using these social media marketing tactics can prove beneficial to your brand, if after asking yourself "could my brand profit from the attention of hundreds of thousands?", your answer is yes.
We’ve put together a list of a few that have proven successful. Why not integrate these ideas into your next marketing campaign? At the very least the below suggestions will get the creative juices flowing!
Give Something Away For FreeYou’ve likely seen it before, become a fan and we’ll give you something for free. Recently Einstein Bros gave similar incentive for users to fan their brand on Facebook, in return delving out bagels to the tune of $847,500 (1 for each of their 339,000+ fans) so far. Fans have flocked. Victorias Secret ran a similar campaign and had great success as well. What can you give away that will appeal to the masses?
Appeal to the 4th Grader in All of Us
Take for example Facebook groups or Fan pages like "I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who hate cancer" (1,727,510 members), or "I bet I can still find 1,000,000 people who dislike George Bush" (953,501 members). These groups and fan pages have become widely successful, so why not use a similar concept to fuel your online Internet marketing efforts? Over at Feverbee.com Richard Millington discusses this concept in his post.
Support a Cause
The outpouring of support for those affected in Haiti by the recent earthquake has turned to social media to help with donations. Popping up across Twitter and Facebook are brands looking to help, while also involving their fans. "Follow us and we’ll donate $1 for every follower", "Subscribe to our blog and we’ll donate $1 for every new subscriber", are just a couple examples. Others are getting involved and putting together Haiti Relief "Cause" applications on their Facebook pages. Donations can be made directly on the app, generating traffic to a corporate page (take for example Global Disaster Relief).
Destroy SomethingNot to sound like a broken record by giving this next example, but it still rings true: Blendtec’s Will It Blend. The concept: run tests on whether or not a simple item will blend, video it, and show it to the world. Also fun: will it float, and will it bounce.
Get Your Groove On
A simple dancing video uploaded to YouTube has the potential to skyrocket your popularity. Take for example the Wedding Entrance video seen ’round the world. To date: 41.4 million views. Give it a try, just don’t make it too commercial.
Interview and Promote
We recently took this simple concept and it yielded a large increase in our blog visitors. In our post "How To: Create and Promote Link Worthy Content" we discussed our method and the outcome. Who can you interview in your industry? Landing a big name interview can help you achieve more recognition for your brand.
What are some other simple concepts you’ve seen implemented that have been popular online?
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Amazingly enough Thanksgiving is here, and what better time to give thanks….with links! We’ve compiled a list of Thanksgiving inspired SEO sites for your viewing pleasure. Have some to add to the list, drop a comment below and we’ll attempt to update the list. 
If you haven’t discovered the wonderful social media tool Hootsuite it’s about time you did. Last night a few of us here at Vertical Measures, myself included, were going crazy because 
What is Hootsuite? 
We’ve all experienced it, all those annoying updates from Facebook pages you’ve fan’d, which have likely resulted in a ‘remove me from fans’ or ‘unsubscribe’ action on your part. If you have a Facebook Business page don’t ruin all your efforts by annoying your fans to death. Be smart about marketing your business on this 250 million plus user site. 
