#6.05: The "Something to Share, Part 2" Issue

Do you want people to share your viral content? Here are tips to make it go faster and farther.

 1> The "fill out a form" trade-off 
 2> Use the power of networks 
 3> Unhide the good stuff
 4> Check it out: Slideshare

1> The "fill out a form" trade-off

So you've created a great white paper or report that you want all your new prospects to see. Do you just let them download it, or do you make them fill out a form first? It can go either way. 

Here's the trade-off: Leads vs. Velocity. If readers have to fill out a form, you get their contact info for sales purposes. But ... it's a lot harder for people to share the document, and many people won't fill out the form. So you'll get a lot fewer leads. 

Either choice is OK, but I recommend skipping the form. A truly live lead is going to contact you if they like what the paper says. A bad lead will just put fake info in the form.  I'd rather get 10x more people seeing the paper, which gets 10x more leads, blog posts, and referrals -- than a list of mildly interested names that reluctantly filled out a form.

The Lesson:  Don't kill the viral power of a free download with a low-return login process.

2> Use the power of networks 

Here's how to get 100x more people seeing your free downloadable content. Use sharing tools built into sites like YouTube. When you put a video on your own site, it's stuck there. When you put the same video on YouTube, it is surrounded by text and links encouraging viewers to share it.  Viewers can add it to favorites, send it to their contact lists, add it to blogs ... and a dozen other kinds of sharing you'll never get from your own site. Think of these social network sites as distribution services, with pre-existing technology to promote you to pre-existing networks of interested leads. 

The Lesson:  You made the video to be seen, so put it where it's going to be seen.

 

3>  Unhide the good stuff

I recently met an eBay seller who sells cell phones (I lost your name ... email me!). They struggle with a lot of returns and complaints from people who just don't know how to use the phones. So they put little demo videos on their site in the tech support section.

Advice: Put those videos on YouTube, MySpace, and anywhere else you can. Turn them from a tech support expense to fantastic viral advertising. People love to share videos, and helpful how-to content is very popular. Surround the video with links to your site and products. You'll get far more advertising, for free, than you could ever pay for. And in a category with generic products that you can buy anywhere, you'll stand out as a highly helpful, service-oriented company. 

The Lesson: Turn your tech support costs into a viral marketing asset.

 

4> Check it out: SlideShare

SlideShare is like YouTube for PowerPoint. Upload a presentation, share it, forward it. For us dorky executives who aren't cool enough to be #1 on YouTube or MySpace -- this is the place for us!

Download my instructional presentation:

 How to Use SlideShare for Shameless Word of Mouth Self-Promotion

 http://www.slideshare.net/sernovitz