RATM Saves Christmas - Facebook Campaign Leads to Surprise Viral Victory
The ageless metal-rap rockers, Rage Against the Machine, are making noise again, and this time it’s by pure accident. The political-driven rock group hasn’t released an album since retiring back in 2000, however, they surfaced last week on the UK’s biggest radio station, BBC Radio One, to talk about how they suddenly emerged on the UK pop music charts for the much fought over “Christmas Number One” title for 2009.
The UK “Christmas Number One” title has normally been held by the UK series, X Factor, winner - a version of American Idol produced in the UK. For four straight years, the “Christmas Number One” winner has been held by the X Factor winner, and this year it was Joe Mcelderry, who was expected to win the title for singing the Miley Cyrus song “The Climb.”
However, a Facebook inspired campaign that was launched by UK resident Jon Morter as an entertaining (joke) protest against the mainstream pop that in most ways does dominate music charts across the globe these days. Morter’s Facebook group “Rage Against the Machine for Christmas Number 1″ quickly grew to 800,000 fans, and was overspread with users who pledged to buy the track to help push the band to the top of the charts. The Facebook Group currently has more than 970,000 members as of Dec. 20.
The mainstream news picked up the story after the first two weeks of December when the Facebook group, which launched in the beginning of December began to grow quickly, and while going offline many times during the beginning days of December, prompted some to make several claims of foul play - however it didn’t slow the Rage Against the Machine victory.
And once Joe McElderry’s track was released in a hard copy on CD, unlike Rage Against the Machine, the X Factor winner from the UK began to close the gap on the suddenly popular American rock band and their 1992 produced single “Killing in the Name Of.”
On December 20, BBC Radio One announced the final winner, and thanks to a surge of downloads via blog posts, Facebook comments, and Twitter tweets - the infectious campaign influenced social media channels and led to a Rage Against the Machine victory.
Analysis Breakdown
Starting in the beginning of December, from Dec. 1 - Dec. 11; while the Facebook Group was going on and offline sporadically, the number of social media mentions among Twitter, Blogs and Facebook were small in numbers of original posts to users’ profiles. However, after December 11 when the group went back up live, it kicked over dominoes that sent tweets, blog posts and Facebook updates soaring in numbers.
The mainstream news did not pick up the story until December 14; with social media leading the majority of the charge based on the following data:
**The charts above include only a limited set of data, due to a number of other keywords that could have been used in Twitter, Facebook Updates and Blogs; keywords like “Rage”; which were too broad to analyze more specifically at the time of this posting. The above posts do however represent the trending to their exact details.Conclusion
It is really nice to see the effect a viral marketing campaign that had no direction, but was more led by a crowdsourcing effort to push a final result -putting RATM at the top of the charts. It normally takes many dollars to create such a buzz in the matter of a few weeks, and this was done with nothing but spirit and passion for the push to the top - led by users with little outside influence, and all with the help of social media!
**This blog was first published by Nick Cifuentes on the Overdrive Interactive Marketing Blog
How to Improve Traffic & Enhance Your Brand With Flickr
When considering social media applications, and those that are effective to not only drive leads, but also generate conversions – you have to consider the magic of Flickr.
Flickr is a social photography website that allows you to upload and share your pictures with friends, family and other registered Flickr users; as well as the general Internet audience.
Similar to Photobucket, Flickr functions as an image host – but its strength lies in the social sharing of the images with a massive community of users. Photographers use Flickr to showcase their art, computer bloggers use it to save on bandwidth and keep their own servers empty by dumping massive photo files on Flickr.
One thing very new, yet very effective, in terms of marketing this social media showcase – is to build traffic to your website using this creative tool.
Let’s look at few things about Flickr:
- It is the #2 rated photography website in the U.S., UK, and Australia, while holding a near 40 percent market share in the U.S. While Photobucket is still the leader in all three markets, - Flickr’s global presence could still be greater.
- And with Yahoo! acquiring the image giant in 2005 – it has been optimized with the Yahoo! Image Search tool.
- Flickr’s photos are listed in the Google, Technorati, personalized and start pages, as well as various other portals, websites and blogs which pull in and display Flickr pictures through RSS feeds.
- All of these direct sources can be funneled back to your website, and at least make others aware of your brand and/or product.
Flickr – Getting Started
Flickr allows you to create a profile, using a buddy icon, screen name, profile where you can place relevant links and information about yourself or business. And then, you can create your own Flickr address – meaning http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicholascifuentes
Flickr also offers two options when signing up, a free and paid version. The free version allows you a bandwidth limit of 100mb per month. This is reasonable if you don’t’ have too much traffic or photos that are limited sizes – but to be honest; the Pro Account (paid version) is the best way to go. They charge you only $24.95 for the year, but you get an unlimited number of bandwidth, and you are able to upload not only pictures, but video as well. You are also able to setup an unlimited number of photo sets, as compared to only three for the free version.
Strategies to Grow Your Blog in 2008
Your blog is like a baby, you nurture it, feed it daily, take care of it when it is sick and watch it go to sleep every single night…yes, my friend – blogs are addicting. It is 2008, time to build readership, and begin to grow your brand’s awareness through the social media channels. As popularity has grown in blogs, and blogging, there are some key steps you can take to market your blog and grow effective strategies to increase readership.
Here are some key strategies for growing your blog in 2008:
Bring your Blog Home: One tactic to consider when trying to harbor more traffic, that will almost always work, is to localize your blog. Targeting a specific market and reaching out to them, using their language, all is a great way to reach more outlets. Localization allows you to cover topics that competitors probably won’t take the time to cover…something that should be considered when considering new material to write about.
Have Others Write It: User generated content is a great way to expand your blog’s reach. You can ask the public to submit articles that you feel might benefit your blog’s purpose and publish them accordingly. This can be gained by seeking out online writers, using article PR services to get content, and affiliating with other blogs in your field.
Start A Forum: A forum is great way to let your users interact with each other. You want reasons for your audience to come back to your blog, socialize, and interact with each other online. A forum is a great tool that will encourage this. By creating this outlet, you create a magnet for your users, which encourage them to return to your brand daily.
Start a Newsletter: Newsletters are an excellent way to reach an audience with information that differs from your blog. Depending on your product, newsletters are almost necessary to keep your customers returning. Newsletters are an excellent way to send out narrow messages, or more concentrated, to your audience. Create a weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly newsletter to connect to your followers. One of the great advantages a newsletter has is being able to monetize it in several ways (advertising, premium content), as well work them into effective methods for capturing leads.
Social Media Anyone: Social Media Optimization starts with social bookmarking. Creating an outlet for other readers to take your content and submit it, talk about it, or even blog about it in the social media channels will ultimately grow your traffic. Allowing applications like Twitter, Facebook, Digg and countless other social news websites, can help disseminate your information to a target user. Open up accounts in these channels and begin the process yourself, befriend the influencers in each channel and begin to watch your content wind its way through the Internet, and leads grow on your blog or website.
New Writers: New writers can be a great way to bring a new ‘voice’ to your blog. Otherwise, a change of pace. Just remember, when you pay someone per an article, make sure they are the best at what you need. Don’t bring in writers who are unsure and could question your blog’s voice, keep it lively, bring in TALENT, and then you can pay more attention to marketing the blog instead.
Premium Content: This is a great way to further monetize a blog. Premium content refers to exclusive content that is not made public to everyone and anyone who may fall upon your website. Create member only pages inside your blog that you can tie to subscriptions and promote alongside your free content. One suggestion I do have, when you do this, please make sure the content is original and most likely can’t be found anywhere else – it is what makes it PREMIUM!
Other Blogs Like You Too: Working with people in your industry can bring surprising results. Collaborating with other bloggers in your practice would be done to initiate some sort of social network possibly, large writing projects, online applications, awards, and contests. This helps build your brand and drive specific traffic to your website.
Videos & Podcasts: Consider video blogging, as a new tactic to your approach. Your content can reach an entire new audience through some major social video websites like YouTube, Metacafe, Dailymotion, and other high traffic video websites. Podcasting works the same way, obviously your hearing instead of visually applying yourself. Viral video marketing also falls into this category, and should not go overlooked. You will be surprised how much traffic and new conversions you see using this technique.
Overall, in 2008, be creative! High quality editorial content will keep audiences interested, however, building a supportive audience and broadening your distribution channels will only help the original cause. Expanding your blog through some of these channels will increase your user participation, create new delivery channels, grow your reputation and influence the audience around you.
Get Blogging!!