I’ve spent a little time and San Francisco and had the chance to witness what I would consider the best marketing and business strategy.  In 1980 David Johnson, took a look at what the people around him were doing, and with a little creativity became one of the most famous street performers in America, if not the world.  He tried dressing up like a robot, which everyone was doing in the 80’s, but realized that didn’t work, everyone else was dressing up like a robot and may of them were doing a much better job.  So what do you do when you are in a crowded market, and everyone is doing the same thing as you?  Do something different.  Pick up a bush and scare the crap out of people.

David Johnson is the World-Famous Bushman, at Fisherman’s Wharf.  He hides behind a bush and jumps out and scares the crap out passers.  That’s it.  He doesn’t ask for money, just has a jug, and people give him money.  So why does he bring in a reported $60,000 per year, with NO upfront costs?  A strong value proposition.  If he scares the crap out of one of your friends, you are probably going to give him money because of how funny it was.  Then, you and your friend he scared are going to walk across the street and watch him scare the crap out of more people.  That’s a viral ratio, and a strong business model.  You just “bought” something, which in this case was giving him a buck for scaring your friend, and are now going to watch other people use his product.  

The other amazing thing about Bushman is that he illustrates peoples willingness to pay for a quality product.  He gives his product away for free.  He doesn’t say, “Hey, give me a dollar and I will scare the crap out of your friend.”  People see his product, and decide that it was worth giving some money.  Bushman knows he has a value proposition and relies on the quality of his product to generate revenue.  Sure this model won’t work for everyone, but we can all take the time to see if we can’t employ some of his tactics.  Are you struggling to keep up with your competitors?  Take a look around, and ask yourself if you are doing the same things they are.  Maybe it’s time to do something a little different.

Watch the bushman at work, I picked this video because you can really see the crowd gather.

Mike Palmer
Analyst

     Do you have a core group of followers around your product?  Do you want to interact with your customers on a more personal level?  Try starting your own social network.  Sure, you could buy some $300 program and then pay some developers to set it up, etc., etc., etc., and now you’re down a grand or so and need to figure out how to get people to use your network.  Forget that, there is an easier way.  Ning, it means peace in Chinese.  Ning isn’t a new technology (started in 2004) and isn’t the only one on the block, but they seem to be the ones doing it the best.  I had thought about signing up for this one a few years ago, but it didn’t have the features I wanted.  I couldn’t even host it on my own domain.  That has all changed.  Ning has an active development community with documentation that can help even beginners start a thriving community around pretty much anything.  They have architecture and development guides, widget guides, API refrences, and more.  Finally, you can do what you want with a social network, but don’t have to begin at ground zero.  The Yovia network will be up soon.  Feel free to sign-up.

Mike Palmer

Analyst

When building a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, it is very important to consider a number of factors like PageRank, keyword density, and backlinks. Social media optimization (SMO) works very closely with SEO. Many tactics for running successful campaigns benefit both. One of the main things Google suggests is to build content for your reader, not search engines, and build high-quality content. This benefits both SEO and SMO by giving your reader something interesting, which makes it more likely to be passed around. As it gets passed around, more backlinks are established benefiting PageRank and weight, key pieces in Google’s algorithm. High-quality content also benefits by adding keyword rich content to a site which helps increase relevancy to search terms, another big piece in the algorithm. If people begin talking about your content (i.e. posting your content on their site), the content benefits by the PageRank of their page. Social media optimization is a process by which viral growth is ignited by moving quality content past the initial negative inertia which prevents the success of most content and sites.

A great SMO tactic that benefits SEO is using a paid campaign to begin viral growth. If you are starting from scratch, then it is very easy to begin an SEO campaign, by using paid search to give yourself some traffic and a few links so that you will be indexed quickly. Sure that works, but try running a StumbleUpon campaign in addition to paid search. The one problem with paid search is if you start a campaign then stop your links disappear. When using something like SU you can begin the viral push, but more importantly, SU gives you links, permanent links. Every time someone thumbs up your content piece, you get a link placed in their profile. If they thumbs down your content, you get a link in their profile. When someone visits your site, you get a link in their profile. That’s about $.05, per backlink, even if no one likes your page, and as everyone knows, links are one of the big keys to SEO.

Mike Palmer
Analyst

    Today’s Web has terabytes of information available to humans, but hidden from computers. It is a paradox that information is stuck inside HTML pages, formatted in ways that are difficult for machines to process. The so called Web 3.0, which is likely to be a pre-cursor of the real semantic web, is going to change this. What I mean by ‘Web 3.0′ is that major web sites are going to be transformed into web services - and will effectively expose their information to the world.

The transformation will happen in one of two ways. Some web sites will follow the example of Amazon, del.icio.us and Flickr and will offer their information via a REST API. Others will try to keep their information proprietary, but it will be opened via mashups created using services like Dapper, Teqlo and Yahoo! Pipes. The net effect will be that unstructured information will give way to structured information - paving the road to more intelligent computing.

Written By: Michelle Amos

This is a little piece of advice for the people who don’t promote themselves.  If you have good content, and you know it, it is ok to promote yourself some.  There  are numerous people out there who seem to feel like promoting themselves is wrong.  This is not the case,  it is perfectly  fine as long as you don’t cross that line into “shameless self-promotion”.  As long as you aren’t the person who introduces themselves and begins pushing their stuff  without regard for tact or decorum, you’re fine to do a little promotion.   It is all about the conversation.  It is perfectly fine, if in the course of a conversation, be it online, in person, or wherever, to tell someone else about what you are doing or what you are excited about. 

So how do you apply this to marketing or traffic driving?  Go ahead, take the first step and digg your own content.  Give your article a Thumbs Up in StumbleUpon.  It is MUCH more difficult to get an outside person to give the first digg  or thumb than the second.  It requires much more work to describe the article, select a category, verify the entry, and finally submit it than just rating it.  By adding the first one, you are giving your approval, saying you like the content (which hopefully you do since it is yours) and adding a “face” to the piece.  You could also think of it as asking for feedback so that you can improve you content.  Getting the initial momentum will place the piece in front of a few people, and hopefully, if the content is good enough, approve it so that others can pass it on further.   

Here is an example of someone trying too hard to promote their stuff, and coming across as shameless self promotion.  This is at the top of many of their articles:

Hey, Stumbler! Don’t forget to look around before hitting the Stumble! button again
http://www.holycool.net/2008/03/gun-egg-fryers.html

I looked around, it wasn’t that interesting.  Since I gave them the benefit of the doubt and was let down they got a thumbs down instead of just moving on.  In addition, this tactic is a little misguided.  A ThumbsUp is more valuable than the two or three pageviews you will get from a new visit because  a positive review will put the article in front of more people.  It is the difference between three  pageviews, or six more new visitors (and however many pageviews they visit). So, it would be more beneficial to say something like:

If you liked this post, don’t forget to digg it or give it a thumbs up. Thanks.

The reminders and mild self-promotions work, you just have to let people decide what they like.  Don’t be afraid if people don’t like it that just means you need to change something, and try again.  Eventually something will take off.

By Mike Palmer
Analyst

Today’s topic is:

The Hollywood Writer Strike : What are they striking about, and what is the solution.

This will involve research and opinion. Article must include at least 500 words and at least one legal photo or video.

We are at BlogWorld Expo, so feel free to stop by our booth.

This one is simple: Help save some lives….

Watch the trailer.
Invite people to the Facebook Group

So there are rumours that Hollywood writers may strike.

Apparently, they feel there are too many reality shows, and not enough quality sitcoms.

In reality, what is happening is people aren’t watching. With the writers gone, what will be the first to go, are things like Letterman’s Top 10 list. Creative pieces that make TV fun to watch.

Fox is in the best shape to weather a strike, with American Idol getting ready to start. But everyone is going to need content for TV if this happens.

There’s an opportunity for ‘us’ to create this content, so we are going to start with:

10 Day Reasons ______________________

Any topic you want. If you can make it a video, even better.

Other areas we need you (The Yovia Community) to help out and give feedback on. These are the things that pay our bills:

1. We need you to check out Rubber Chicken Cards on YouTube.

They are an animation company and are just getting started with YouTube. If you have ideas for a viral Holiday Card they could create, let us know. They can create pretty much anything.

2. Check-out some of this week’s entries, and support your fellow Citizen Journalists

I’m voting for Hillary

John Edwards in ‘08 & God outside my window

Crazy UF Students Tasing Themselves for YouTube Views

Halloween: One Day for Darkness

He did the Monster Mash

It’s almost halloween, and the ghosts and gouls are out in force. But what is  halloween?

Why do we celebrate it?

And most importantly, who has the best costume this year?

Paying $8 per approved photo, video or article.