7 Essential Tools of Viral Marketing – The Hiten Shah Interview
on Sep 5, 2008 - 5:38 AM PSTThe full program
This is an audio program. Listen and/or download it here:
A few lessons from this program
Imagine having your site spread online like a benevolent virus.
To learn how to do that, I spoke with Hiten Shah, Partner at ACS SEO. His company has helped grow online traffic for big brands like TechCrunch, Guy Kawasaki, HP and Samsung.
Here are some techniques we discussed for making a web tool more viral. (Listen to the full interview to hear more techniques and learn how to make your content spread online.)
Beat me! – Sites that allow their users to challenge each other are naturally viral. We talked about how eduFire.com went viral by allowing its users to play language games and then challenge their friends to score higher.
Can’t talk alone – Communication tools spread virally, because they can’t be used alone. When Skype launched and let people make free phone calls, users who downloaded it needed to get their friends to also download Skype so they could talk.
Everyone’s a show off – When you let people create on your site, you also inspire them to share what they created. They want to show off. That’s why tools like GE’s online whiteboard spread virally.
You must! -Remember back in the early days of the internet how quickly email went from being a strange new tool to one that everyone used? Email is a useless tool unless your co-workers, friends, clients, etc use it. So people had to get others to start using it. Sites and tools that you must use with others can spread faster.
Can I share? – If you want your site to spread, you have to make it easy for users to share and embed your content. (Listen to my inteview with Alex Funk to hear how to do that.)
Everyone has a GIANT ego – If you give people something to boast about, they’ll spread the word. Hiten told me that when Feedburner created a badge that let bloggers show how many readers they have, bloggers everywhere started posting Feedburner badges–and Feedburner’s business grew virally.
You don’t know jack – If you measure your viral growth, you’ll learn what works and know how to stoke your viral fire. If you don’t, you’re lost. (The CEO of BZZ Agents taught me how to measure viral growth in this interview.)
These are just a FEW of the viral tools that Hiten gave me in our interview. Listen to the whole interview to learn how headlines can make content more viral, how to use sites like Digg.com to get more readers, and many other tips.
(Noah Kagan, thanks for suggesting this interview.)
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September 5th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Great tips! I’m downloading the interview and going back to listen to the tips from Alex Funk. Thanks Andrew!
September 5th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Great interview! Viral content is not the magic bullet but can be that spark that your product desperately needs. For inspiration look at Crispin Porter+ Bogusky’s portfolio of work (VW, Burger King, Coke Zero etc)
September 9th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
[...] *DISCLAIMER: This post has been adapted from a blog by Andrew Warner that can be found here [...]
September 17th, 2008 at 7:59 am
[...] learn more powerful viral marketing techniques, click here to listen to the full interview between Andrew and Hiten [...]
March 28th, 2009 at 3:58 am
[...] Hiten Shah (Mixergy) – Mixergy is a new arrival on the scene but an absolutely fantastic source of audio [...]
June 24th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Therefore, PUE can now have a statistical range of operation given the conditions. PUE should be reported as a range of numbers (low to high), and the average calculated over a period of time. For example, Microsoft shows its PUE for one http://www.geonlineservice.com facility in Fig. 2. Looking at the big picture, UPS systems operating with an energy efficiency rating in the mid 90% range while protecting critical loads are expected to become the norm. Data center facility managers monitor UPS efficiency more closely in the months and years to come to drive their PUE number down closer to 1.0.
June 26th, 2009 at 7:02 am
[...] to this Mixergy interview with Hiten Shah where he explains how viral quizzes can [...]
September 24th, 2009 at 9:58 am
thanks downloaded
October 15th, 2009 at 12:34 am
I can see a big improvement in your interview style between this post and the more recent posts. You are still aggressive which is great. You still press your guests for answers to tough questions and try to get information that your audience wants, which is great. But in this interview you were speaking more than the guest and providing more information than the guest. I think you've changed this very much for the better in the interviews since.
October 15th, 2009 at 7:34 am
I can see a big improvement in your interview style between this post and the more recent posts. You are still aggressive which is great. You still press your guests for answers to tough questions and try to get information that your audience wants, which is great. But in this interview you were speaking more than the guest and providing more information than the guest. I think you've changed this very much for the better in the interviews since.
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