Viral marketing

SUMMARY: When your audience plateaus in a social network, sometimes you need more than good content and a chatty demeanor to grow it further. Sometimes, you need a good campaign.

This trade association got thousands of people to join its Facebook, Twitter and email audiences during a 90-day sweepstakes targeting U.S. moms. You'll see the campaign's viral tactics and learn why you should never forget the "sweepers." read the complete case study

SUMMARY: More companies realized in 2011 that content marketing, SEO, social media and website optimization can be combined to create a powerful strategy. One year into our Inbound newsletter, we're looking back at the best examples we found.

Inside, you'll find links to more than nine case studies and how-to articles highlighting the Inbound Marketing newsletter's most-tweeted articles of the year. We comment on trends and point to resources to help you measure Facebook campaigns, avoid Google penalties, and improve your content marketing. read the complete article

SUMMARY: Potential customers want to hear how you can solve their problems in simple, understandable language -- not empty marketing clichés. Social media can help teach you that language.

Read why marketing strategist David Meerman Scott thinks phrases such as “robust” and “mission critical” can do more harm than good to your marketing, and how you can use social media to move past them. read the complete interview

SUMMARY: This week we look back on one year of consumer-marketing newsletters to highlight three key trends from 2010 -- complete with 10 links to the year's best articles.

Take a look to find social marketing advice from Kodak, a Twitter contest that helped boost sales 150%, and a mobile-page test that cut bounces 22%. read the complete article

By Anne Holland, President

This week, MarketingSherpa published the results from our third annual reader study on viral marketing. Viral is the art of creating a message so engaging and compelling that people can't help but tell other people about it.

Given the number of calls our own research department has been fielding recently from reporters at places, such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, it seems viral marketing itself is going viral.... read the complete blog post