My husband Brian, who knows firsthand how much I eat, drink, and sleep social media, pointed me to an interesting critique by ExpertCruiser on a 2007 social media marketing campaign by Royal Caribbean. That year, the cruise line launched a brand ambassador program. Using market intelligence, Royal Caribbean identified supporters of the cruise line via social networking sites and took the opportunity to give fifty of the most ardent supporters, called Royal Champions, special privileges, including free paid cruises and invitations to special events with company executives.
In my upcoming book, The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web (Amazon link), which is slated to be released in late Spring, I talk about the importance of brand evangelism as part of an effective community management strategy. Individuals who are passionate and who have never been previously incentivized to promote your product are already talking positively about you on the web. If they’re already raving about your awesome product and promoting your service for free, why not show them that you appreciate all they are doing and offer them additional perks? Why not encourage the spread of goodwill?
Today is my birthday, and I decided to give you all a gift that few of you have been highly anticipating for a few months now. My most popular post on this site — probably by far — was last year’s Best Internet Marketing Posts of 2007 compilation. I spent about 3 days (and nights) on it (without sleep) and I was quite happy with the turnout. This year, I began starting to write this compilation in the first week of December. The collection begins with posts that start in January of 2008 and have been collected and shared in the last 12 months. Like last year, I’ve grouped them into different categories and written short descriptions on each post. There’s no order to the posts; I’ve used my bookmarks and a variety of social sites and peer recommendations to create this list. I hope this year’s list surpasses last year’s. Let me know how I did in the comments.
Here’s how this works: In the Internet Marketing Best Posts “series,” I take posts that are typically timeless — they’re not confined to a specific event or news occurrence — they’re valuable for the long haul in terms of Internet Marketing and creative strategy. Hopefully, you’ll see that these posts are still relevant in a few years down the road.
If you haven’t yet seen the Language Trainers Accent Game, it has won the “best viral marketing strategy of 2008″ (in my eyes). The idea behind this game is to listen to videos of individuals from all over the world speaking a sentence or reciting the lines of a poem, and you need to guess where the accent is from. You even get bonus points for guessing exactly where (regionally) the individual is from, which gives this game added appeal. Let me put it this way — it’s hard!
I was able to interview Dave, one of the brilliant minds behind the company and the game, and he has given some really great information about the viral marketing piece, including the costs and the execution. Sit back and enjoy, and then play the accent game to see how an excellently-crafted viral marketing campaign can really help get people talking about you and your products.
Tamar: What does your company do? Dave: Basically we’re a language training company. We organise language courses worldwide for businesses, one-to-one students, and small groups. You contact us and tell us what language you want to learn and where you live or work, and we’ll find a qualified native teacher of that language and arrange a customised course for you to take place at your home or workplace. The whole thing is centred on personal tuition and the student’s convenience.
In one of the most brilliant marketing moves of all time from a social media perspective, alternative rock band Weezer created an awesome video for their new single, “Pork and Beans,” using internet superstars from a handful of successful YouTube videos. Here’s a look at their amazing creation:
Thought you had enough of the greatest Internet Marketing posts of 2007? Well, unfortunately, your reading list has just lengthened. Matt McGee over at Small Business SEM has compiled his own list of the “best posts of 2007″ in a site with a brilliantly and cleverly chosen title, the SEMMYS (Search Marketing Emmys). In addition to a bit over overlap from my previous post, Matt covers other categories pertinent to search marketing, including local search, search technology (e.g. robots.txt, IP questions for hosting, etc.), small business, analytics (he dedicates a whole section to this one!), rants, and funny posts about the search marketing industry in general.
I’m pleased to announce that I will be judging the category on Blogs and Blogging along with Michael Gray. Since I love blogs about blogging (really, I do!), this is the perfect match. (Thanks, Matt!)
I’m also pleasantly surprised to see that seven blog posts of mine on three blogs have somehow been nominated in six different categories. Here they are, in no particular order:
Tamar Weinberg is a social media enthusiast with a passion for all things tech and productivity. She provides consulting in internet marketing and blogs for numerous online publications, most notably Real Simple Magazine, Lateral Action, and Mashable. She is also a former Lifehacker and Search Engine Roundtable contributor. Tamar is also the author of The New Community Rules, which is scheduled to be released in June 2009.
My husband Brian, who knows firsthand how much I eat, drink, and sleep social media, pointed me to an interesting critique by ExpertCruiser on a 2007 social media marketing campaign by Royal Caribbean. That year, the cruise line launched a brand ambassador program. Using market intelligence, Royal Caribbean identified supporters of the cruise line via social networking sites and took the opportunity to give fifty of the most ardent supporters, called Royal Champions, special privileges, including free paid cruises and invitations to special events with company executives.
Thought you had enough of the 
Tamar Weinberg is a social media enthusiast with a passion for all things tech and productivity. She provides consulting in internet marketing and blogs for numerous online publications, most notably Real Simple Magazine, Lateral Action, and Mashable. She is also a former Lifehacker and Search Engine Roundtable contributor. Tamar is also the author of 
