Agile Development Practices in Social Marketing

As Software Developer I personal use the agile development process
when writing software applications for clients.
While cleaning up I came on my old agile development book So I started flipping through several books and pages it came to me why wont I apply the same practices to social marketing.


So lets first define what Agile is and this is what it means to me.


“The agile approach combines responsive, collaborative people with a focus on demonstrable, concrete goals.”


The goal here with Social marketing is to get people to follow, comment and if your in business of selling stuff is to buy what you are selling.


So the Question is how to use Agile principles to market your blog or website?
that is what I'm going to discuss over the next few weeks in several different articles with so many ways to build and drive traffic what you want them to see such as Pay To Click ,search engines marketing, adwords & of course word of mouth.
So is there a way to build a agile way of internet marketing I think so. Id love to hear peoples thoughts are on the subject please feel free to leave a comment.

Market Your Website Using Keyword Marketing

Choosing the right keywords to market you website is what keyword marketing do. Keywords play an important role in internet marketing. It is what leads search engine users to your site. Keyword marketing is a technique or strategy that can improve your search engine rankings. In putting up a new website, you sometimes take for granted the use of keywords, especially by newbies to the marketing world. You don't realize that the right keywords on your website will improve your search engine rank-ability. You may not understand fully how important the use of right keywords for your website but your goal is to have those keywords and other related keywords within your site. Keywords are words or phrases you type in search engines like Google when you want information on something.

Suppose you understand the importance of keywords, you think all the possible keywords that would relate to your product or service and put that in your website.

Example your website is about dresses. You can place keywords like, "sport dresses ", "school dresses", "cheap Dresses" and any other variety. But the problem is people don't use these keywords when they search for dresses. It is a good idea to simply think of the possible keywords but you're actually risk loosing many potential customers.

So better do a keyword research for your website. Keyword marketing helps you define keywords and phrases bringing many visitors to your site. It helps you determine which keywords and phrases are most often typed in search engines.

When you're in internet marketing, the challenge is how to put your website in front of people who are searching using particular keywords and phrases. Through keyword marketing, you target your customers by keywords. The goal is to achieve top rankings of your website in the actual search results. The advantage of keyword marketing is the potential to reach all the right people at the right time. For searchers, they enter keywords or phrases into a search engine to find information they need while for website owners, they use keywords to put their website on top for those keywords. The basis of all search engine rankings is keywords. So your keywords should have an impact on a websites position within the search engine results pages. When search engine first started determining the relevancy of a site they place a larger emphasis on these tags.

So avoid using the wrong keywords for your website, always check the relevance of those keywords and avoid long lists of keywords. Search engines may just find your website irrelevant to the typed keywords by researchers, no matter how good its content. You might be loosing a lot of money investing in online business because your website is rarely seen by searchers and gaining nothing from it.

So Vital Viral Says they can prove to me I'm wrong !!!!

So i got contacted by Troy the owner of Vital Viral I guess he doesn't like the results of my post. So This is what im going to do Im going to give his software one last Chance. I'm going to run 3 or 4 autosurf TE cause i dont want to waste my actual time on any manual TE i may use.

I'm going to focus on keyword marketing and let them run for 24 to 36 hours straight and then let then let 24 hours and see if my next 2 days stats match what he claims.. This should Be exciting.. I think i might even post a video about this one So here we go..

The Truth Of VitalViral ( the Traffic exchange Stats )

In my quest for ways to drive traffic I was checking out traffic exchanges to see they had any worth to there weight to there worth I cam e across VitalViral They claimed to be a website tool for watch and tracking your stats live so you has a traffic exchange user can easly see which TE worked for you and which one didn't.. So I decided to join up for the last 24 hours and give it a test run.. changed all my traffic to go through there page filter link they provide claiming it will track your TE.. Now first out of the box i started getting really high numbers That made me instanly think that something up..

Below is a snapshot of my actual Vital Viral Stats at end of a 24 hour hour period of promoting heavily through the traffic exchanges



The second snap shot is what my Stats for the last 24 hour according to VitalViral exchange sites at 11:30am today..after 24 hours of promoting






Now here is what google analytics say my stats are for a 24hour Period this snapshot was taken at 11:30 this morning also





Has you will see there is a huge diffrents in the 2 numbers




Vital Viral says : 1311

Google Analytics says: 619

Thats a diffrents of 629 Vistors that never made it my site..

even if all my traffic came from Vital Viral TE which they didn't they don't even come close the numbers that vital viral claimed..

So I took a closer look at my stats and noticed that vital viral took my traffic away from some of my well known TE that do Provide real Google stats which mean Google and my ads never saw the incoming traffic..

So Today I stopped all my Vital Viral and Ran everything personal Myself manual by hand for the same amount of time which was 8 hrs of solid promoting..

And I belive we will see a huge difference in my stats so in short DON'T USE VITAL VIRAL IF YOU ARE GOING TO USE TRAFFIC EXCHANGES !!! The numbers just dont add UP you will be losing time a possiable useful vistors..

Click for a Click The Race to 100 AD Clicks

I have started click for a click campaign Race to 100 clicks AD clicks

How long does it take you to get to 100 clicks on your ads ?

I like to here your feed back and post your results!! Has always you click my AD
I will click yours back just leave a url at my blog inside this Article Posting...

New Social Experiment now in Progress !!!

After running my last experiment and sharing the results i got several emails from people saying they couldn't see my ads
to click on cause they are in text format.. They told me I should make them stand out if i wanted better results.. They also told me that
my social experiment directions were a little fuzzy and they weren't sure what they should have done and i should make it simple instructions.

So here is the Simple steps ! ! !

1. Follow !

2. Click on the AD !

3. Leave your blog URL in the comments section of this POST !

This experiment will run For 7 days instead of 3 days like the last one.
has always I will post the results of this experiment. So take a minute and join in to this experiment..

Seth Godin "All Marketers are Liers"

Hello Everyone,

I Just finished watching this video the other night And I learned a lot from it. One of the key points is Selling the story.. I Really thought that Seth Godin Real shares alot of useful information and a took several notes from this video and will try to put them into Practice..



As Always I like to hear people thoughts and views on what is being shared here..

Results of the First Social Experiment now In...

The 3 day social experiment on doing a click for a click on ads is finally over and i have to say
for the amount of people that viewed and followed was a little better than expected but the concept of a click
for a click i have to say Failed even with the number of people that claimed to have clicked on a ad to the number that
actually did was a huge differences in 3 days I Received a total of # ad Clicks and with the poll saying.. these results
alone along with the total comments posted for this Social experiment the numbers don't add up at all..






1. Even though people had the chance to have there blog viewed get new followers ( aka possible return visitor ) and even make a few cents in ad revenue. They choose to to take advantage of this opportunity. which means 55% of you didn't take a free opportunity to Socialize and grow your own Interests..


So here is a visual Layout of how it should have worked...







The Facts of how it actually turned out

The totals are for the 3 day experiment

Visitors = 316
New followers = 27
Ad Clicks total equaled = 4 amount made total Made= $0.56

So my conclusion is this Social Marketing still has along way to go compared to good old fashion advertising and marketing
you can have all the twitter and other types of followers you want but if they don't do anything or even do what they offer do you really need them or should you look for ways to find the better ways to get your sites and blog information in the view of though that will really participate and interact?

Now I would like to say this side note that several people that followed one of blogs did start and follow some of my others and i did get followers through some of the more popular blogging sites to..

I like the hear people reaction to these results.. if Participated in this i like to hear if people clicked on your ads Cause i clicked on all yours and maybe it the Advertising companies we need to look at...

Thanks More Social experiments coming Soon...

What I learned about Ad Placement Today..

Today I was reading around about ad Placement and i came across a overhelming theme or concept

"How prominently you display ads on your site will have a big impact on your earning!"

Reach your visitors wherever you think they’re most engaged on your site. For text and banner ads, The five most common IAB-standard graphical ad dimensions are: Banner (468x60), Leaderboard (728x90), Medium rectangle (300x250), Skyscraper (120x600), Wide skyscraper (160x600).

Location is Everything they say when it comes to banners below in a chart of what industry standards concider hot spots and cold spots when it comes to ad placement.




So My experiment is this I use to have a Banner at the bottom of my page and i did get a few clicks total of 11 in a single month

And advertiser claim this statement " We often see top-of-page ad placements earn 10 times more than ads on the bottom of the same page."
So by putting ads high up on your page gives your ads prominent placement and will in return boost revenue.

For the Next month I'm going promote my blogs as usual and see if i really get 10 Times more clicks to Ratio of what i have now. Than having the ad on the bottom of the page.

Only Time will Tell..

I came across this Pdf..

I just finished reading this Book "Google Analytic 2.0" and then came across it in PDF format. Like I've stated before
I fan of Checking out and reading about Marketing schemes and seeing what really works and what doesn't and then expose the results

Though personally Im not a fan of Google AdSense and choose to use a different online Ad Company and i don't use there
Adwords.
I do have to say i love Google analytic after reading this book i started to see it as the tool it is and not some cool little
graphs. Though i do feel that the book could of gone into deeper details on customizing features it did give me a good overview what it capable of doing.. I now look at google analytic like a game and tracking multi-able blogs at the same time. its kinda of like your own personal Blog stock market.


Google Analytics 2.0 PDF

In fact the more I play with i'll start posting tips and tricks I've figured out and share with others and why think these tips are helpful.

First 24 hours of experiment Over !!

Hello Everyone this was the first 24 hours of my experiment now are over. now Im Going to share some basic
stats I personal started following total of 55 blogs and and i clicked on everyones ads that had them 43 blogs to be exact.

I respond to several post at Blog communities that had people asking for views and clicks and responded to them to see if they re read there posts and reply and return the favor as they requested and offered in the first place..

I will not give out the number of clicks i received until the 3 days are up and amount.
So i can give people the chance to see i responded to them. I can tell you though its not a click for a click!

I added a Poll to gather more stats for the results:


at the end of this is Experiment which will end Tuesday Night at midnight I will post my actual google stats in PDF
ect.. screen shots to show My actual numbers and the Outcome of this experiment along with all thoughts a views..

Social Marketing Experiment Part 1

This is a Social Marketing Experiment For the last few weeks I have been exploring ways of get visitors to a website in my case My Music Blog.. Now unlike other I offer all my music and art for free
thats just the artist and Musician in me I do cause I find it fun to create music and art and audio software. ON the other hand I like the concept of marketing and driving traffic. I don't plan on ever making any real money from it but I find it funny sometimes to read all though's get Rich now Ads. So has of last week I tried out the traffic exchange marketing world to see what would happen. ( Read post below to see my views! )
Now we all have some kind ad system in place to try to make a little money. ( cause we all need it to surive! ) even though I did get a huge boost in traffic it was a waste of traffic casue out of 500+ views in two days which I know is not huge number for some of you but with a small music blog usally only getting 50 or so at the most 250 in a day is a big jump. Like I said though it was junk visits and Im not a professional marketer. Anyways back to the 500 views I got 0 clicks on my ads and lets face it the money is in ad revenue not impressions.

Facts !!!
Impression = Almost Nothing!! for a 1000 impressions = 0.10

Like a said being in the treches of though traffic exchanges a overhelming theme was a stupid ad like this MAKE $75 hr with are Stupid Ass System it seems these system are a dime a dozen but id did get me thinking. I'm not a greedy person hell if I could make just $75 bucks a day I'd be amazed I personal could live off that no problem but could you do it with a blog? ( I Still don't think thats possible ) because after playing around with numbers that I was getting with the traffic exchange just driving faceless impressions the number you have to send is Huge.

Meaning to make $75 off Impressions alone you have to have 75,000 visits a day and for a tiny experimental artist no way in a million years is that going to happen. Even with this blog being on something more main stream and what seems to be a popular topic or tag..75,000 visits just wont happen on a daily bases.

So thats not a option but then I was reading about interaction with other bloggers to drive traffic and real followers which I have been doing then a came across a section of blog promoting groups and I saw people posting ads or forum post saying leave a comment or visit my blog and I will do the same.
So I started looking into this a little more and saw that there was almost a subculture of these kinds of posts. I even say a few post that said click on my ad and follow and will do the same.. So beening interested in different marketing ideas I decided Ive al ready wasted 3 days doing traffic exchanges but this seemed more on a personal level..

My first thoughts on this:

1.If you going to click on ads all day you might as well be supporting other bloggers
2.The content is a million times more interesting than though stupid get rich Ads
3.They have a far better Return on there investment

4.Example after reading a few of them I went read a few post and started to follow and clicked on there ads like they asked. I did this for 10 or so blogs with a small comment saying I checked out your blog and started followed I also supported you by clicking on one of your ads please return the favor..
the next day I went to check my ad revenue to see if anyone returned the favor and saw that a few people did I actually what they said they do 50% didnt but still earned $1.35 just off that simple 15 minutes it took I made more than 3 weeks of aggressive marketing.

Now for my Experiment
After getting the results that I did I have decided I'm going to try a social experiment in marketing I'm going to invest the same amount of time I did in traffic exchange experiment which is 3 days and all Im going to do is respond to people that agree to do the following which I have found several blog community that claim to have people asking for the same thing in return.

1.start following the blogs ( shows that you where actually There )
2.leave a shout out or comment ( many of the social blogs let you post a quick comment after visiting a blog
3.Of course click on there one of there Ads

4.HAVE A REAL BLOG OR SITE ( NOT GET RICH CRAP ) no one whats to read that stuff share something that actually interests you cause thats what blog are about.

So The concept works like this do the 3 things above then post your Comment with a link to your Blog if you like to be part of this experiment.

If you do the following 3 steps as above I will return the favor


The Experiment list
To create a on going list say people looking for comments and ad clicks
so the first day I post an link to my blog as I will start this off
say 3 people come and add to the list and do the following I should get 3 clicks if everyone clicks on all the ads above them then add there comment with a link then they are automatically added to the list and the next person comes by a does the same. Now I will opt in personal to get emails when people add them selfs to this post and click a return the favor. ( you as comment poster should have the same option)

After 3 days of doing this I will write a post about my results and like to here what people that optin to this experiment have to say after the days. I will compare it other Marketing ideas I've seen and tested and give my honest opinion and results of this experiment..

Traffic Exchanges "THE TRUTH" and what i Learned..

Ok Everyone I decided last week and this to test the marketing idea of Traffic Exchanges. So I went out a joined a bunch of the the top 20 exchanges sites to give it a whrile. This is what i have learned and in my Opion have come up with.

My List of what you should know first.

1. 90% of the dont work and suck !!! they dont even work well unuff to even want to start surfing with them..

2. Read the exchange Rate you want to work only for views to your website or blog not any thing else.. 1:1 is what you wnat if thats really what they payout.. most you see if you go traffic exchange shopping is 1:3 meaning you have to view 3 sites for every 1 view of yours..

3. 99% of the ADS SUCK!!!! ok just let you know 99% of the ads are i'll make you rich ads. every once in a while you actually get a real blog or website worth looking at ("REALLY WISH THERE MORE REAL SITES").

4. More is Not Better Running Muiltable site is really not that much faster.. OK running 2 or 3 that have proven to be proven performers maybe but in my 3 day experiment the first day i just ran two side by side and got more credits and points than the second day where i was running 5 at a time.. (if you can prove me wrong I have a site you can prove your self on !!!)

out of the 20 or so traffic exchange sites i tested 2 that i have found are even real to what they say and that

easyhits4u.com
trafficg.com

both of these site proved to me that they can deliver what they say..( my Google Analytic shows me..) now the problem is still is that the time involved in promoting at these sites is huge and the traffic came a got a huge spike in vistors but still no where close to worth my time..

I would like to here what people think that have used these methods and if they got real results id like to here how and don't try and sell me you secret make it rich plan cause i'm not selling anything.. just drive traffic

The laws of Big Numbers

This is a great video that explains the laws of big numbers and why you need them in order to get the results you are looking for when it comes to promoting your site

Top 20 Social Bookmarking Sites and how to use them !

Here is a list of some of the most popular Social bookmarking site has of feb-2009
Now the key to use them is to use them just like social networks and users based on keywords of what your trying to share with others all so the big thing is to share every single page you have every post and new thing you do on your site so people will know what is going on with your blog or website .

Top 20 Social Bookmarking Sites

1. Folkd [V] (7)
2. Oneview (German) (7)
3. Spurl (6)
4. Feedmarker (6)
5. LinkaGoGo (5)
6. SpotBack (5)
7. Connectedy (5)
8. Blinklist [V] (5)
9. MyLinkVault (4)
10. A1 Webmarks (4)
11. OYAX (4)
12. Pixelmo [V] (4)
13. TeDigo (2)
14. MyPIP (3)
15. SyncOne (3)
16. Yattle (3)
17. Memfrag (3)
18. Ziki [V] (1)
19. i89 (0)
20. Chipmark (0)

Top 20 Social networks

Id like to first start by sharing what are the top social networking sites I recommend joining every single one because it the resources and visitors from all these site that will give you the traffic you are looking for in later post i will share how to harness this list of sites to get what you want out to them.

A few Simple Tips use the same username if at possible at all these sites on good place to check and makes it easy to join sites

Username.com
This site let you know every site that is using your username and if its not be uses i recommend grab it asap possible so some else doesn't..

Top Social Media Sites (ranked by unique worldwide visitors November, 2008)

1. Blogger (222 million)
2. Facebook (200 million)
3. MySpace (126 million)
4. Wordpress (114 million)
5. Windows Live Spaces (87 million)
6. Yahoo Geocities (69 million)
7. Flickr (64 million)
8. hi5 (58 million)
9. Orkut (46 million)
10. Six Apart (46 million)
11. Baidu Space (40 million)
12. Friendster (31 million)
13. 56.com (29 million)
14. Webs.com (24 million)
15. Bebo (24 million)
16. Scribd (23 million)
17. Lycos Tripod (23 million)
18. Tagged (22 million)
19. imeem (22 million)
20. Netlog (21 million)