Video Summary: Google’s Universal Search is changing search engine results and the way you get traffic. Here’s how you can benefit from Google’s Universal Search and New Media Marketing to get more visitors and traffic to your site. Download the full PDF Guide New Media Marketing Hot-To Guide #02: Boosting Traffic with Google Universal Search.

Sometimes we can feel like getting good rankings in Google search results is like climbing a huge un-scalable, insurmountable mountain. Google is always changing rules. It always seems like their out to get us; de-ranking sites, moving other people up, trying to figure it out.

And there’s something new that Google’s doing that means BIG changes and BIG opportunities when you market with New Media.

In today’s video and downloadable guide we’re going to take a look at:

• What Universal Search is and why it’s changing the way your site gets ranked in Google
• Who has an advantage in using Universal Search
• And what actions you can take right now to start getting better rankings with Universal Search.

Download the full PDF Guide here: New Media Marketing Hot-To Guide #02: Boosting Traffic with Google Universal Search.

What do you think?

Did you get some new ideas that will help you get more traffic to your site? Maybe even some foot traffic right into your physical office or store? Share your ideas and insights in a comment at the Universal Search post at Tribal Seduction.

Got some other ideas on how to use Google Universal Search to boost traffic and exposure? Share in a comment too.

Something has been bothering me for quite a while now. I’ve quietly watched entrepreneurs fall prey to the BS advice from off-line marketing “pros” and Internet Marketing “gurus.” But now, the same type of garbage is being pushed by New Media proselytizers too. I may not have all the answers. But I know that here and now, you and I can put a stop to it all.

Look, let’s face it. If you’re looking to use New Media to market it can feel like you’re Dorothy sucked up in a twister and dropped in Oz. And once you land in this majestic world of New Media Oz, how do you make heads or tails out of this fantasy land of reported fame and fortune? And what’s your yellow brick road?

Witches, flying monkeys, a yellow brick road… we’ve got it all

On the outskirts of Oz, the self-appointed elite of the mainstream media and Madison Avenue thumb their noses at New Media. Tucked away in their cold castles of incestuous iniquity they gaze into their crystal balls of packaged propaganda and pronounce New Media a fantasy land populated by “horny teenagers and political pundits.”

We know the New Media marketplace is much more than that. But it does have its share of pitfalls and traps.

For instance, when we were completing research for our book ‘Secrets of Online Persuasion’ we found many well-meaning fans of New Media misleading entrepreneurs who wanted to market with New Media.

Much of that misinformation comes from two camps within New Media itself. I like to think of them as the Wicked Witches of the East and West.

The Wicked Witches of the East

The Wicked Witches from the East should be easy for you to crush as an entrepreneur. These are the people who think “fame” equals profit. And just like in the movie Wizard of Oz Dorothy’s house crushes the Wicked Witch of the East; your house should crush these witches as you land in New Media Oz.

As a matter of fact, this group is so laughable that South Park did a full episode poking fun at the new breed of “Internet Stars” who think by getting hundreds of thousands of views they’ll get rich. Sadly this is a rabbit trail that many entrepreneurs get lured down.

This quick 3-minute mashup shows their skit that’s spot-on with the dollar value of what many people consider “New Media stars.” They spoof on many of the “stars” that have gone viral or gotten media accolades. (Warning: as usual for South Park, this is NOT kid friendly.)

Fact #1: fame does NOT equal profit (especially when marketing with New Media.

OK… we all know the movie storyline. “Ding dong, the witch is dead.” But just when you think things are fine, along comes another witch. And we’ve got the same thing here in New Media Oz.

Enter - the Wicked Witches of the West

This group is much more dangerous for business owners, especially start-ups. This group of witches is made up of Social Media evangelists who think they run a business just because they use a communication channel.

Like the winged monkeys from the Land of Oz these

Read the rest of this entry »

OK, I finally got two minutes to breathe here, and a question came to mind. How are you using New Media to grow your subscriber list, get more clients, or make more money?

I’ve been dedicating every spare minute to managing our terrific programming team and prepping for the latest upgrade to the BLOGi360 system. And Deb has been managing the production team for the Tribal Seduction course. Deb’s been Twittering and doing some postings at our other blogs, but I’ve chosen to use what little free time I have to Kite Board and go to the gym. (Yeah, yeah… that’s right - priorites.:) )

As I just got ready to sign off and head out to 24-Hour Fitness for a workout, I caught this commercial on my office TV.

And it hit me. We’ve been spending most of our time helping create tools that help others leverage the power of New Media. And systems that make it easy for the average small business owner and entrepreneur to build a business from the inside out, focusing on what they do best.

You know, the things that make them money, instead of the techie-geek stuff or “trial-and-error” strategies for growing a profitable business.

And yes, these New Media tools are making us money by helping other business owners save time, focus on their strengths, and make more money. Pretty obvious, straight forward stuff.

But then I thought about it. How many people out there are leveraging the power of New Media to make more money? I didn’t know the answer. I have no idea how many people are “innovating” and how many are making real gains in their business.

So here’s the big question:

How are you using blogs, podcasts, online video, social networks, or social filters to:

- save time?
- grow your subscriber list?
- get more clients?
- leverage your passions and strengths for more profits?

And if you’re not putting New Media to work, what’s holding you back?

What’s your story? I’d love to read them. More importantly, what you share may inspire another business owner to keep moving forward.

Whether it’s wins or struggles… it’ll help us all.

So let’s hear your stories!

Fans can’t get enough of Fox’s hit show “American Idol.” And now Fox is turning to New Media to meet the demand and make millions more in profits. Good for them… and good for you!

Deb and I are still in San Antonio visiting with our friends Armando and Veronica Montelongo. Yesterday as Armando and I were developing his podcast strategy to leverage the popularity of their hit show on A&E “Flip This House” I came across this interesting tidbit of info.

This past Monday (02/18/08) Fox began their partnership with iTunes where American Idol fans can now purchase top 24 semifinalist performances exclusively on iTunes for 99¢ per song.

Why this is so cool is, just like Armando, YOU will be able to get a free boost to your New Media Marketing.

How?

Well… Fox is driving hundreds of thousands of people to iTunes who might never have heard of the service. That’s a lot of visitors. And even the people who are already familiar with iTunes will be returning there a lot more times than they would have without Fox’s push of American Idol.

It’s just like when a shopping mall has a great restaurant or high-end anchor store. That one larger store is usually marketing more aggressively. Many of the shoppers they attract explore the other stores in the mall while they’re there. They get the opportunity to get customers for free.

The same is true with American Idol promoting iTunes. You get the chance to attract more prospects and customers to your podcast as they “browse” around iTunes.

Just one more reason to get your New Media Marketing in full swing, and get your podcast going!

John Paul Micek is a co-founder of the international business coaching company RPM Success Group ® Inc. He and his partner Deborah are authors of the hit book Secrets Of Online Persuasion. They are creators of the ONLY Web site system to put New Media to work marketing FOR you — BLOG i360™. For media contacts or speaking requests & partnering inquires, contact J.P. at [krazycapitalist@gmail.com]. Or, share your thoughts & comments below.

How to Stop Copyright Violators

When you’re out there in the New Media marketplace, working hard to grow your Tribe, you’re sharing a lot of valuable information. In some cases it’s free content you want passed along. In other cases it’s digital products that people have to pay to access.

In either case, there are morons out there who will try to steal your content. Some of these mental midgets will pass along part (or all) of your work and take full credit for it. Then there are thieves who will try to steal your product by repackaging and selling YOUR digital products.

The first is copyright infringement, intellectual theft. The second is online burgularly. It’s no different than stealing money out of your wallet.

Today we’re going to look at some very simple, very effective actions you can take to protect yourself against copyright infringement and online theft.

In this video report you’ll learn:

• What you can do to protect yourself against copyright infringement?
• Who is responsible for tracking it?
• How you can find if your material is being stolen?
• What to do if you find somebody stealing your material?

So that’s how you protect yourself against online theft and copyright infringement. It’s something that we all deal with, in new media marketing with blogs, podcasts, and online video. And you have to be especially diligent if you have digital products.

Protect yourself, take the basic steps covered in the video and “How To Stop Online Content Thieves” PDF Transcript. Put them into action today. Or at least have your assistant doing the monitoring on a daily or weekly basis, and you’ll be protected at least at a base level.

If you have additional resources to recommend, or a story about online content theft, share it in a comment below.

Resources mentioned in the video

DOWNLOAD
“How To Stop Online Content Thieves” PDF Transcript

DOWNLOAD
Word Template for Copyright Infringement letter to ISP:
http://tribalseduction.com/copyrightletter.php

ISP look-up service:
http://centralops.net/

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998:
http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

Service to help you search for copies of your page on the Web:
http://copyscape.com

Info on Ebay’s VeRO program:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/tp/programs-vero-ov.html

Google Alerts:
http://www.google.com/alerts

Madison Avenue advertising firms do it. Mainstream marketers do it. Political campaigns do it. They all piggy-back on the emotional anchors established by famous singers, actors, and sports figures. It’s a marketing play that’s run over and over again off-line because it works. People bond emotionally to people, personal brands, and your Primal Key.

But what about online you when you’re marketing with New Media? How can you piggy-back off of words, quotes, images, or sounds that people are already familiar with.

People buy what they like, and they like what they know. Familiarity and established emotional bonding is why this type of marketing works so well. It’s automatic, subconscious, and it feels “right.”

You may not be able to afford to pay Beyonce to appear for you, like Dish Networks in their current TV campaign. But you CAN leverage established emotional bonding along with visual and auditory anchors. And you can do it in much easier, and much more cost effective way!

Here’s an example to get those little Tribal Seduction wheels whirring around in your head.

“A Few Good Ideas”

One of the most often quoted movie lines is “You can’t handle the truth!” from the movie “A Few Good Men.” On the outside chance someone hasn’t actually seen the movie, they certainly know what movie it came from and the context in which it was said. It’s familiar and it’s comfortable because it’s known.

The line was used in the climax of the movie. In what also was the most emotionally charged scene of the movie.

So where does New Media come in on this?
And how does this help you with your marketing?

Well, lets take a look at a couple examples of how this famous movie quote was used in online videos. A few notes on what was done right. What could be done better. And what creative ideas you can come up with after looking at this mini-case study.

First the original clip

Let’s put things in context with the actual unedited clip from the movie.

OK, pretty powerful scene right? One of the most memorable in recent movie history.

So what can be done with this in New Media?

Follow along with me for a few minutes and find out.

Two ideas — the good, the bad, and the “could be better”

#1: First; here’s funny adaptation that you’ll get a kick out of… especially if you’ve ever been attacked for being a good creative marketer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Seeing that this week was kicked off with Veterans Day here in the U.S., I thought it would be timely to share a quick New Media Marketing example where over $4.2 million dollars was raised for military families in 7-days! It is a good example of how New Media combined with Tribal Seduction strategies work with any size Tribe.

Rush Limbaugh was the catalyst for this big charity drive for the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. (An organization dedicated to helping the children of Marines or Federal law enforcement personnel who lost their lives while serving our country.)

Now… love him or hate him — no one can deny that a loyal Tribe of 22-million weekly listeners is pretty solid evidence that Rush is a master at playing the Tribal Seduction game.

I’m a big proponent of modeling success to cut the learning curve. I’m impatient and I don’t like to work any harder than I have to. So I’m always looking for real-life examples to get where I want faster and with fewer mistakes. I don’t care what side of the political isle, industry, business, or obscure niche I find an example.

In the case of this charity fund raiser case, Rush developed a New Media Marketing strategy that you can learn from and model, no matter what the size of your Tribe.

Extensive details leading up to this 7-day campaign aren’t necessary, but I’ll add some of the most surprising to the story as we go along.

So let’s get rolling. You with me?

Record breaking charity event — New Media powered…

Five channels were used to make this game plan work. One “traditional” channel, and four New Media channels.

The traditional:

• Radio

The New Media channels:

• Podcasts
• Online Video (YouTube)
• eBay
• Blogs

What’s encouraging for small business owners and entrepreneurs about this example? It’s that mainstream, traditional media outlets had nothing to do with the success of the effort.

Getting the word out was a grassroots effort. It spread virally when the Tribe (and those sympathetic to the Tribe’s cause,) began using New Media channels like blogs along with additional podcasts and online videos.

The result — 201,000 pages created in one week around a unique keyword developed for this campaign. You can see this awesome display of the power of New Media power in the actual search results on Google.

Yes, yes. I know. You might be thinking, “Yeah, but Rush has a Tribe of 22-million people. That won’t work for me.”

Am I telling you that you can go out and make millions of dollars in 7-days? No way! That would be a load of BS. ;-P

What I am saying though, is these New Media channels work in proportion to the size of your Tribe. They work every time you use them. Yet, you do need to be using them in a strategic way.

Here’s what I mean…

Tribal Seduction in action

Technology only goes so far. It’s the publicity and marketing strategy of this 7-day campaign that really yielded the results. Makes sense, right?

There were a number of Tribal Seduction principles employed to get the word out, raise awareness and raise the record-shattering money in 7-days. But three really jump to the forefront.

Follow along with me here for three minutes and you’ll see all three principles in action:

Read the rest of this entry »

Do you remember hearing in part one of this article why old-school interruption style marketing is dead? It’s true, especially online. We looked at one cause, the “Delusional Coma”. Then we showed how you can reverse that common online marketer disease and use it to your advantage with the Tribal Seduction Formula; CHARM (Captivate - Hook - Advance - Reinforce - Motivate).

As you read through part two here, you’ll quickly see how to turn the challenges of marketing and selling online into big advantages for you.

Let’s get right to the second major cause for the death of interruption style marketing…

Reversal #2: The waves and the weather

In the regular off-line world, weather is simply a set of meteorological conditions we experience in any geographic area. The marketplace is no different.

If you were to assume the conditions of the online marketplace are the same as last year, that would be just as silly as crossing the Rocky Mountains in January without checking the weather forecast. Don’t try this at home kids… either one will lead to injury or death!

Today’s online marketplace is a new world thanks to the influence of New Media and Web 2.0. And this is a big problem for many marketers.

Old school marketers resistant to marketplace changes are like Eskimos building igloos in Hawaii. They can be the best at what they do, but continue to rebuild what won’t work in this new online environment.

Three years ago a shift in the mainstream marketplace began like tiny waves lapping away at the shoreline. Today, those changes have become a tsunami of change sweeping across the business landscape.

That tidal wave of transformation is powered not so much by New Media itself. But by the illusion of control that New Media gives to the “man or woman on the street.” (Yes, it is an illusion, and we’ll be discussing in detail how you can covertly harness and benefit from this sociological fact as time goes on.)

The reality of the marketplace is this; the “average Joe and Jane” have grabbed their surf boards and are freely riding the waves of the New Media marketplace. They “get it.” The ones sitting on the shoreline watching in fear are small business owners, marketers, and sales professionals.

Some eager marketers do dive in. They doggie-paddle furiously, trying to peddle their wares using New Media channels with old-school marketing tactics. But as they flail about in the fast moving waters, they’re caught up in hidden rip-tides and swept away very quickly. Their videos, posts, podcasts, and entire web presence flounders as the marketplace pummels them like a 40-foot wave on a black-flag beach day.

There are only so many more days they can crawl back up on the beach of constrained thinking and return to poorly veiled versions of their old tactics. Soon the rising tide consumer control will swamp the beach, and their businesses. Trust me — you DO NOT want to join them.

So how can you dive in to the New Media marketplace and not get swamped?

Well, there is the obvious — following along, engaging, and making connections here at Tribal Seduction.

But the most important action you can do is to grasp this simple Tribal Seduction mindset:

People buy WHO you are, NOT what you are selling.

Re-read that and let it sink in for a minute.

No matter how good you are at what you do in life, it’s not as important as who it is you are.

once you grasp that mindset, get out into waters of the New Media Marketplace. there are three ways for you to start applying this new mindset to make a heck of lot more money (and make it easier too.)

1. Find the influence leaders (those who gather Tribes of raving fans in social networks, blogs, podcasts, online video, and even off-line on specialized cable channels. Observe who these people are, what they do, and how their fans respond.

2. Start interacting to establish your online persona and brand.

Scott has a great series filled with lots of tips and strategies for networking in online communities. And Deb has a great video series on how to harness the power of MySpace and its’170-million+ members.

3. If you’re the sharp marketer I know you are, (and yes I know that you’re a savvy person because you’ve read this far,) then building a true “Web presence”, not just a Web site should be tops on your list too.

“Web site” vs. a “Web Presence”

A Web site sits there and you work for it. You drive the traffic, the content is only seen by people who come to it, and it is a one-way channel.

A Web presence on the other hand — it lives and works for you… 24-7-365! Add content to different New Media channels and each channel will work for you, bringing people from targeted Tribe to you. You can use individual channels like blogs, podcasts, online video and social networks combining them on your own with list-building and conversion sites. OR you can use a complete integrated Web presence builder like the BLOG i360 New Media marketing system.

No matter which route you start with, remember the Tribal Seduction mindset of “WHO is more important than WHAT.”

Don’t worry about finding people succeeding in Tribal Seduction in your niche. It’s actually an advantage to model ideas from outside your niche or industry. Just start out with two or three of the most popular shows, sites, or personas for each channel and follow them regularly.

When you do this you’ll begin to see the “Who you are, not what you’re selling” principle at work. And as you learn more secret tells of Tribal Seduction, you’ll be able to put it to work for you.

You can use both the Delusional Coma and the Waves and Weather to your advantage. These two factors are working together, and they’re changing the rules for marketing online.

No longer can you just be a product-pusher or info-pimp.

It’s true both online and off-line, (unless you want to work 4-times as hard for a fraction of the results.) The big bucks and the big fame are being garnered by those who use the Tribal Seduction Formula of CHARM to continuously move people to higher and higher levels of seduction.

If it’s not obvious to you yet, it will become crystal clear as we begin to reveal more of the Tribal Seduction mindset needed to win friends and influence people in today’s marketplace.

As we roll into Tribal Seduction strategies, and various studies or commentaries on online marketing strategies that work with people (instead of using them) — you’ll see how you can win where yesterday’s gurus are faltering.

John Paul Micek is a co-founder of the international business coaching company RPM Success Group ® Inc. He and his partner Deborah are authors of the hit book Secrets Of Online Persuasion. They are creators of the ONLY Web site system to put New Media to work marketing FOR you — BLOG i360™. For media contacts or speaking requests & partnering inquires, contact J.P. at [krazycapitalist@gmail.com]. Or, share your thoughts & comments below.

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Yahoo! Groups and many social networking sites offer the capability to receive email notifications of new messages to the group, as well as of private messages and other events of interests to you from the site. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen say that they were going to turn it off because they were getting too many emails.

Big mistake!

See, here’s a fundamental lesson of replication (and, by the way, one of the basic principles of David Allen’s Getting Things Done):

Consolidate your inboxes.

Almost every time I see someone move to web-only participation, guess what happens? They eventually trickle off to almost no participation. Sure, some stay engaged, but they’re doing so horribly inefficiently.

See, it takes time to switch tasks. If you want to maintain some kind of presence in, say, 100 or more different groups (not sites, groups), you can’t be hopping around between them on the web. Logging into the different sites, going through your list of groups that you’re a member of, entering the group, scanning the topics, trying to determine stuff that’s interesting from stuff that’s a waste of your time — that’s all incredibly time-consuming.

What I’m going to do is show you how to consolidate everything into TWO inboxes: one for email and one for RSS. This week we’ll look at email and next week at RSS.

Step 1 - Turn ON all your email notifications. Yup, you read it right - turn everything on. New messages, friend requests, private messages, etc. - you want it all. You’re going to learn how to process it hyper-efficiently, so don’t sweat it.

Step 2 - Set up ONE folder for all your bulk mail and group notifications. Some people make the mistake of trying to create folders for each site, in the illusion that this somehow makes it more organized. Remember, we’re trying to consolidate inboxes here — creating separate folders isn’t consolidation — it’s just more fragmentation, more inefficiency.

Step 3 - Create an email rule to route all of the mail from your discussion groups and social networking into that folder. Now this may seem to violate the rule about not having more than one inbox, but there’s a difference here. See, you want to break things down into handling buckets, and you are going to process these messages differently than you do the rest of your email. You don’t want all of those discussion messages, most of which you’re going to delete, getting in the way of essential business correspondence. If you don’t know how to set up an email rule, find a tutorial online.

Step 4 - Separate the signal from the noise. Once, maybe twice, a day, you’re going to process these group messages. First, sort the folder by subject. Click on the first message and then scroll down using your scrollbar (not the arrow keys) until you find the first message with a subject line that sounds interesting to you. Press the shift key and click on the message just above the one you want to read, and then press Delete. See, it doesn’t take any longer to delete 100 messages than it does to delete just one or two, and it only takes a fraction of a second longer than it takes to scan through them. Do this all the way down the list. You should delete at least 85% of them on the first pass.

Step 5 - Read and select. Now you’re down to a much more manageable reading list. If there are several messages under the same subject, read the first message. Is it interesting and relevant? If not, then delete ALL the other messages with the same subject. Don’t read them — just delete them. If it’s interesting, now scan through the replies — is there someone you respect who has replied? Read their response. Is it still interesting? Did they thoroughly answer the question, such that no additional information is needed, or has it turned into an open-ended discussion. If you don’t have value to add, delete the rest of the discussion and move on. This process should delete about 80% of what was left after the first pass.

Step 6 - Read and reply. At this point you should only have a handful of discussion threads — maybe a dozen or so per day — that are interesting, relevant and open-ended, i.e., appropriate and valuable for you to reply to. NOW, read the whole thread — read what everybody had to so. There’s no point repeating what someone else has already said, and you want to be able to respond to multiple points in a single post, not make multiple individual replies (see 5 Ways to Act Like an Expert in Online Communities).

Using this approach, you should be able to write 8-10 posts a day in a fairly small amount of time — maybe an hour, tops. And just because of the nature of the system, you will end up spreading your presence around in proportion to the amount of value you have to contribute, i.e., places where your participation isn’t worthwhile won’t make it through the filtering process.

You don’t have to be engaged in a daily basis in a group in order to be thought of as an active member. It’s far more important that when you do participate, you create value, and preferably within the context of your expertise and your business.

Next week we’ll look at how to apply the same techniques using RSS and blogs.

Scott Allen helps people turn virtual relationships into real business. He is coauthor of The Virtual Handshake: Opening Doors and Closing Deals Online, an A-list blogger as the Entrepreneurs Guide for About.com, and a monthly columnist for FastCompany.com. He runs his latest project, Revenue River, on the BLOG i360 New Media Marketing system.

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