Digital Marketing Specialist, Social Media Consultant,
and Tech Geek at Heart

From the category archives:

Viral Marketing

Is Viral Marketing for Everyone? An Interview with Language Trainers, Creators of the Accent Game

July 29, 2008

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!

Language Trainers Accent Game Splash Page

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.

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Viral Marketing: Weezer Gets it Right

May 28, 2008

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:

These are all the original YouTube stars. All Weezer did was bring them together to create a revolutionary video that should change the way you think about your marketing approach. Included in this video is Tay Zonday of Chocolate Rain fame, the Blendtec’s famous “Will it Blend” blender (can you spot it?), Miss Teen South Carolina, the kid behind the famous Romanian Numa Numa video, All Your Base are Belong to Us, Peanut Butter Jelly Time, the “stupid” ninja guy, and a guy who made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for wearing the most t-shirts at any time, among many other internet celebrities. (If you didn’t know about any of these memes, you need to venture out farther and scope out your territory.)

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More Great Internet Marketing Posts for 2007

January 15, 2008

SEMMYS LogoThought 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:

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Best Internet Marketing Blog Posts of 2007

December 26, 2007

BlogLast year, I ended 2006 with a great (and still pertinent) list of blog posts and articles that I felt were really the best in their class in the area of Internet Marketing. This year, I present you my favorite timeless posts of 2007, complete with descriptions about each blog post (which more than quadrupled the workload for me this time around, especially because I tripled the amount of links, but I had fun!) :) (Disclaimer: I’m certain that even with this list in excess of 250 links, I forgot a bunch of posts, so if you have any additional recommendations, please feel free to comment and I’ll add them!)

By the way, I still haven’t fully embraced video yet, so this will only include written articles. Maybe next year, folks!

Social Media Sites: General

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