When we blog, we all want our content to go viral and these days, viral marketing is synonymous with success in our industry. But the question remains, how do we create content with that super-powered shareable buzz? Here’s a new technique you probably haven’t tried yet.
Viral marketing all begins with a survey
There are many ways to generate traffic to your blog with viral marketing. We know that videos can go viral and generate lots of traffic. Participating in blogging community sites can help also. But did you know surveys can be very powerful in spreading your message as well?
One of the many reasons blogs are so popular is the ability they have to generate a discussion. Readers can add their input and participate in the content being posted. You can leverage this same desire to create a viral buzz around your own brand if you know how to do it right.
Choosing a topic
As with most good things, it takes preparation to pull off viral marketing using a survey. You need to make sure it addresses a topic that will interest not only your readers, but the readers of other similar blogs as well. You’ll want to collect valuable information from them – information that can improve your content, conversion rates and help develop products. The key to success online is to provide a solution to a problem many people have. Use the survey to find out what those problems are in your industry and learn what solutions there might be.
Finding your viral marketing audience
The next step in creating a viral survey involves reaching out to other blogs who share the same interests. Ask them if they would like to participate by promoting the survey to their audience or e-mail list. In exchange, offer to share the results of the survey with them. Include a link on your blog back to theirs as a participant to sweeten the deal.
Interpreting the Results
It's in the interpretation of your results that your viral marketing campaign can really shine. By now there will be a lot of people looking forward to the results of your survey. When you’re ready to publish them, make them easy to share. I’ve found the best way to do this is to create an easy to follow infographic. Add your blog’s logo and URL to the bottom and BAM- instant shareable content. You can give the participating blogs a more detailed rundown of the survey results at the same time, but the infographic is like social media gold among your followers.
Danny Inny is a great example to follow
Danny Iny of Mirasee has done a great job at putting this viral marketing strategy into practice. He’s created a survey to collect information about those involved with or looking to switch to a semi-local business model (someone who does business both locally and online). It is obviously a topic that many bloggers would have interest in as many of us already do this (graphic/web designers, writers, teachers, etc.).
You can see the survey here (since the survey is over, you can see the results of the survey here). Be sure to fill it out yourself and share it with your friends! Take note of the participating blogs that he reached out to. Not a bad day’s work huh? Now we can all look forward to the results from this survey and hopefully know more about our industry. And you can bet those will be shared.
Final Thoughts
So are you ready to make a viral marketing strategy for your blog? Give your fans something worth sharing! For some great examples of infographics worth sharing, check out DailyInfographic.com. With some careful planning, you can create a buzz that spreads across the internet far and wide!
But enough from me. Have you had any experiences using surveys or their results to generate traffic to your blogs? How did it work for you?
I listen little bit about viral marketing earlier but your post described it good for me.
Thanks for it.
Will try to get some results from this method too.
You bet! It all depends on how useful the results are for your readers. Thanks for commenting!
This blog is so useful and informative..It can help a lot especially those who are beginning in the business..Thanks a lot for sharing it..
Survey is a great marketing tool! It really works! I’ve tried a new survey tool powered by dotSurvey. It’s so easy to create your own survey and brand it with CopyKat tool. The survey looks exactly like it is a part of your website – you don’t need to have any design skills at all. And you can share your survey by adding an HTML form to your website or send the survey to your friends in social networks using special tools. I really like it.
And what online survey tools do you prefer?
PollDaddy and Survey Monkey are two great options. Thanks for reading!
Hey Brandon! Great article. I’ve never thought about using surveys as a marketing tool.
I will definitely try it out.
I already read a post about viral marketing but at that time i have some confusions regarding help and more however you clear my all confusions.
Survey is good idea but i believe the response rate is very low.
You do need to make sure you have enough traffic to make the survey worthwhile, but the response rates are directly related to how well you phrase the questions. If you find a topic your readers really want to contribute to, then you’ll do great! Thanks for the comment!
This is really an awesome and new idea for generating traffic to your blog and I haven’t heard about it earlier. Although videos are well tested and tried methods of generating traffic.
Yep, videos work well too. Glad you liked it.
Hi Brandon, appreciate the advice! I think a survey is a great idea, but how do you get people interested enough to fill it out? Especially if your site doesn’t have a high amount of traffic yet? I guess I’ll have to try it. I think a more simple survey like “This or That” would be more likely to get people to take the time. Thoughts?
The best way is to just make sure your readers can see a clear reason as to why filling it out will make their lives better. You can do that with some kind of incentive or by telling them you’ll use the results to benefit them in some way. Sometimes you just have to experiment to see which topics your readers want to voice their opinions on. Get clues from blog posts that get the most comments and things. Smaller polls can be good because they know it won’t take long to participate too. Good luck!
I also tried but failed miserably. I managed to get a webpage semi-viral, or kind of….but worked only once and I didn’t get more then 6000 unique visits in 3 days from almost 0 traffic. But I didn’t manage to keep that spike alive and the website died in a couple of weeks.
I know plenty of people who would love those results. Just keep trying and the traffic will get more constant.
speaking honestly, i never tried any server for my blog publicity. Also I never seen any survey in technology news niche on personal blog. I am highly doubtful that this trick will work for blogger who is not big enough. I mean that this trick can make rich more richer but will not work for poor.
It will work if you make it interesting enough! If your results provide enough value, lots of people will want to share them. The tricky part is asking the right questions.
Hey Brandon,
This is a whole new marketing technique that I have never thought of. I will have to look into it a little more and see if I can add it to my marketing plans
Craig
Excellent! You’ll have to let me know how it goes for you. It all comes down to getting information people want to share, something they haven’t heard a thousand times already. Thanks for the comment!
I think in survey the might and main is to introduce your product. It is the way create an environment in which one can promote ones product. I think it is new technique.
It can be very useful to plan new products, good luck!
Hi Brandon, I’m Mezzo.
I like the post and all the top tips. Do you have any idea if videos on youtube are searchable. Can the current technology go into the content and find things to help its rankings?
I think this works best if you already have a loyal base of active participating people on your blog.
It is smart to pay extra attention and write down questions or differences in opinions you see between your commenters. And of course thinking of what you would like to know in the niche of your blog is likely to be close to the interest of your readers as you share the interest of your blogs niche with your readers.
We did conduct a survey through newsletter and we didn’t really expect the amount of feedbacks then returned to us. It provided in-depth detailed on what your audience wants and what they do not want.
I don’t know how you do a guest post and you’re part of STB. Tip my hat to you my freund.
I can see how surveys can help create viriality. But I couldn’t quite see where the virility comes from, does it point to a post or an offer? Also, on the other side of the spectrum. There’s people telling you that you could make money from doing surveys. I used that out of desperation to make money once and we (my wife and myself) didn’t make a dime.
Well thank you! Glad you had some time to hop over here and read this too!
The viral nature of the survey process depends first on how “desirable” the results are. They need to really provide a value that others will find interesting. Then you make it as shareable as possible. I suggested an infographic. The survey I mentioned from Firepole Marketing used a Slideshare presentation for their results. The last step would be to brand the crap out of it 🙂 Put your logo, url, blog name, and anything else you can think of all over the thing so wherever it goes, it’s promoting you. Ideally it would point back to an offer or something of value for you. So that was the general idea!
And as far as doing surveys for money, I understand how that goes! Rarely are there opportunities to make a significant living that way. I’ve experienced the same thing!
Thank you for introducing using surveys for viral marketing to me. This has never occurred to me. Now, I have a new tool for my blogging marketing toolbox.
Glad you liked it. I hope it works well for you when you give it a try! Thanks for commenting.
Survey works because become first come to your blog to fill in the survey. Then you have something exciting to report back (and every-one wants to see the results). Those results can be very valuable, as a basis for guest posts, news releases, special reports – what makes them valuable is that you are THE source of the information, because you conducted the survey.
Exactly, it’s a great way to brand yourself as an expert. Great things will come if people see you in that light! Thanks for the insight!
Well, if you don’t provide anything new, then I would say you’re doing it wrong.
I heard a lot of great things about surveys as a method of viral marketing but haven’t used it for my marketing strategy. Thanks for this piece of information.
Hey, thanks for the post. I’ll soon be opening a small internet business and i’ve been scouting for strategies all over. I haven’t tried surveys so now that you’ve explained how it might work i guess its not bad to give it a try. Hope everything turns out well for everyone.
Hi Brandon:
One word here: “Share” If you want anything to go viral, you have to make it worthy of being shared. And that share button needs to be “right there,” easy to just click. Here’s a big hint for yor readers: Make the survey, or video, or whatever your choice of media is, stir up emotions, and it will go viral!
I never heard of using surveys to get something going viral so thanks for share this “weapon.”
Charlie
Before you step into the business world you need some serious Market Research. But only the research is not going to help you alone it has to be implemented properly with positive frame of mind and a lot of hard work too. Now a day’s Social Media is almost everything in terms of personal and professional aspects. May be you can call it a system or process through which we can get our marketing surveys right on place.
Nice post…I don’t know how you do a guest post before that… Thank you very much for sharing this…
There are some surveys that annoys you sometimes. Some surveys downloads things that you don’t want and then charge you.