Just One More Click

This is a guest post by Lilach Bullock.

I love getting traffic to my blog.

After all without traffic my blog is an empty shop window – and not making any sales!  I’ll be honest, I’m a little addicted to checking my stats and love watching my traffic increase.

In fact if you could ask me at any one moment I will be able to tell you how many visitors I have each day.

Today I checked out my stat’s from Stumble Upon which is currently one of the top referral sites for me.  As you can see I’ve received a massive 4370803 clicks – just from Stumble Upon alone.

In fact in the last month you can see a breakdown of how much traffic Stumble Upon has sent me.

I’ve written before how I love Stumble Upon so much and how with the power of combining it with Twitter it can literally treble (and more) your traffic.

I thought I’d share with you the exact steps I did when I first started using Stumble Upon and Twitter together so without further ado simply follow these simple steps and start watching your traffic increase!

Step 1

Create a bespoke Twitter theme for your Twitter profile that matches the branding of your website.  This is of course optional, but it’s worth remembering how important it is to be consistent with  your branding.  Also take the time to make full use of the bio information – this is often where people try and find like-minded other people so rather than write full sentences use hashtags and keywords.

Step 2

Register your Twitter account details to the following Twitter directories:

1. http://wefollow.com  
2. http://listorious.com/
3. http://twittercounter.com/ 
4. http://twitterholic.com/
5. http://justtweetit.com/
6. http://twellow.com/
7. http://twibs.com/
8. http://www.ibegin.com/twitter/
9. http://twittervision.com/
10. http://www.TweetFind.com 
11. http://www.tweetfind.com/ 
12. http://connect.me/
13. http://legalbirds.justia.com/
14. http://www.localtweeps.com/

Step 3

Create a blog article that you can direct people to adding value. You want people to recommend the article by retweeting it so it it’s important it offers immense value and attracts a lot of interest.  I can’t emphasis this enough – social media traffic is about providing value and the more value you give through your blog the better results you will get – this is how your content can really go viral too.

Step 4

Shorten your blog post URL using Stumble Upon’s shortner – http://su.pr .  This powerful tool is very different from other URL shorteners because the sharing and likes that you get from other networks such as Facebook and Twitter helps your post rankings and exposure within Stumbleupon which has over 10 million members. To get the maximum benefit ensure you take the time to enter the correct key words/tags and description.

Step 5

Increase your Twitter followers by:

• Post your twitter link on signatures in forums, emails, your business card etc.
• Leverage your other social networks to gain followers, for example, promote on your Facebook Fan Pages your twitter account and vice versa
• Post your twitter link on your blog, website, offline marketing material, social networks
• Find people in your niche and follow them
• Try to get on as many lists as possible
• Approach people who are in your targeted area and who have a large amount of followers and ask them to retweet your tweets (try to build a rapport with them before you bluntly just ask them)
• Introduce yourself to like minded people
• Create competitions/contests
• Engage with your existing followers, start conversations, re-tweet others, they will then recommend you to their followers and re-tweet your tweets

Please do leave a comment and let me know what you think and if you’re using these techniques – what results have you had?

*Image credited to Alphamisanthropos 

Twitter Addicts are Good for your SEO

Well it seems that Google isn’t just taking notice of links on it’s own platform when it comes to Social Media signals.

Links In Tweets Count Too

Branded3.com used their award-winning petition website, Twitition, with over 1.4 million Twitter followers, 7.6 million signatures on over 198,000 petitions as a base for their recent study.

Taking a sample size of just over 8,500 petitions they looked at the effect on search rankings when users Tweeted the URL of a specific petition page.

The Key Findings

Average Google search ranking across all page URL’s in the study was 54.17.

Based on the number of Tweets containing the URL they recorded the following results:

1. Page URLs with 500 or more Tweets, average rank 45.81
2. Page URLs with 1000 or more Tweets, average rank 40.76
3. Page URLs with 5000 or more Tweets, average rank 30.51
4. Page URLs with 7500 or more Tweets, average rank 4.96

Where pages that were shared more than 50 times all saw a ranking benefit, those that were shared more than 7500 times almost always appeared on page one of the search results!

Rankings were checked by using the page titles, removing any special characters and using the first four words of the title as the search phrase in Google. For example, a Twitition with the title ‘We want Justin Bieber in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil!’ became ‘We want Justin Bieber’.

Download the full Tweets v Ranking report here.

Make Your Content More Shareable

Whilst there are many factors at play when it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), what this and the previous study clearly show is that the more your content is shared the higher it is likely to rank in the search results.

Therefore it is critical that you make your content as interesting as possible to increase the likelihood of it being shared, and that you actively encourage sharing by your audience.

Testing Social Signals

What makes for good SEO?

With Google maturing and adapting its algorithm on a regular basis it can be difficult to be sure what really does have an impact when it comes to search engine optimisation.

There are some factors we know for certain. Content is a critical component of effective SEO, and not just any content; it must be original, regularly updated and well written.

Some of this is for Google’s direct benefit and some, like well written content, because it attracts links which Google then uses as an indicator of importance in its algorithm.

A good headline title containing key phrases are almost certainly a factor and formatting text with the correct html heading, bold and italics tags can assist.

Keywords A Thing Of The Past

We also know that meta-keywords, hangovers from SEO in the early years, play no discernible role in modern search engine optimisation. The meta-description may be used to display in the search results, and in fact Google is using good meta-descriptions more now than it has in the past. Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, confirms these facts in the short video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK7IPbnmvVU

There is also lots of discussion around the impact of Social Media on search engine rankings. With Google+ developing rapidly it would only make sense that activity on this platform, related to your website, would have an effect on your rankings. In a bid to determine whether Social Media was impacting rankings TastyPlacement Inc. conducted the following experiment.

Social Media, The Future Of SEO

Setting up 6 similar websites based in 6 US cities they left them to settle in for 10 months then began their experiment. Promoting 5 of the websites with a different social platform, using the 6th as a control site, they measured the results.

Probably no surprise, but the website promoted using Google+ saw the biggest increase in organic search rankings.

Does your SEO strategy embrace Social Media and Google+ in particular?

The full results are shown in the infographic below:

Infographic authored by TastyPlacement, a web design and SEO company, To view the original post, see the original Social Media Infographic.

Customer Acquisition

This is a guest post by Lilach Bullock.

Internet marketing and internet marketers have many issues, but this is the most common one – cost of customer acquisition. In this post we are going to explore costs and how as an internet marketer you can use your list to give you better results including better customer retention.

We are going to start with a little  maths. $C is the cost of acquiring a customer and $R is the revenue generated from that customer.

In order to acquire a customer you have to spend money and/or time: advertising, blogging, social media, sales copy, affiliate commissions, customer support, and so on.

If $R is greater than $C then you have a successful online business. As part of this series I will be sharing with you multiple ways in which you can cheaply advertise your offer AND how you can capitalise on the traffic you do bring to your website.

You could jump in and start pumping prospective customers towards your website and offer, but what happens if that prospect checks out what you’re offering and decides to leave? You would have just spent hundreds (possibly more) of dollars getting that prospect to come and check out your offer only to have them leave — for good.

What if you were able to keep that prospect around for a while? What if you could make the most out of every single prospect that visits your website? What if you could increase the efficiency of your marketing? You can do just that!

Not every prospect that you bring to your website will buy from you today, but many that do not buy today will eventually buy from you one day in the near future. So, why not try and make the most out of the money you have already spent to get those prospects to your website…? Why not try and capture them as future (and highly targeted) leads?

This is where a “list” comes into the picture. In marketing, a list is a collection of prospect (or customer) names and contact information. The offline world has been utilizing the list for decades upon decades! And you can tap into the same power online…

When you have a list of prospective customers, then, you can solicit this targeted list of interested people anytime you have something new to offer. Does this mean you should contact them every single day? No. But, having a list of proven prospects is by far cheaper and more reliable than going out and finding new leads (and faster — just click a button).

All you would have to do is send one email out, and you would have the potential of hundreds or thousands of sales. But this is not possible IF you do not prepare yourself in the beginning.

What you need to do is create a sales funnel before you begin sending prospects to your website

“What’s a sales funnel?”, you ask. Well, look at it this way: A sales funnel is no different than an oil funnel. An oil funnel allows you to pour a large continuous stream of oil into a small area…

A sales funnel is no different!

A sales funnel is a marketing process in which you take a multitude of prospects from multiple sources and you funnel them into one small area — your offer.

Sales funnels can get complicated really fast, but the image to the above is a basic and simple sales funnel. In fact, I could talk all day about different sales funnel techniques, but I won’t do that today. Today I just want to introduce you to the concept, and get you rolling with just a basic sales funnel. This way you can prepare yourself and get ready to capture those leads which you will be generating from the techniques on this blog.

The squeeze page captures your prospects. This is where you promise to give the prospect something (usually for free) and in return the prospect gives you their name and contact information so you can send them their free gift.

It is comprised of a headline, sub-head, bullet points of benefits, and an email capture form. The headline gets the prospects attention and the bullets sell the benefits of this free giveaway. The email capture form collects the personal information for each prospect AND the free gift can only be received once the prospect enters that data and hits submit.

You can then redirect them to your sales letter, or you can choose to have them check out their free gift first. Either way, the next step to the funnel is the follow-up.

The follow-up is there for those that have signed up for your email list, but have yet to buy from the sales letter. Some people will have to visit the sales letter a couple of times before they buy from you.

The follow-up will continue the sales process of getting the prospect to visit the sales letter.

Once the prospect gets to the sales letter, then, it’s the sales letter’s job to convert them into a buyer. Once this happens and the sale is made the sales funnel has been completed.

Now that buyer will always be on your list, so, the next time you have a similar offer available you can just email your list again, and those that have bought from you in the past will buy from you again. Why is this? Because it’s a proven fact that it’s easier (and cheaper) to retain a paying customer than finding a new one. Customers always feel safer giving their money to people they have already done business with.

Over to you – do you know your cost of customer acquisition and how do you retain your customers? If you are an experienced internet marketer share some words of wisdom here.

Photo Credit: las – initially via Compfight

Kony 2012 Viral Video

From it’s early beginnings YouTube is now one of the most powerful promotional channels on the web. Enabling anyone with a video equipped phone or camera to be the star of their own movie.

And there have been plenty of celebrities born on YouTube with Justin Bieber probably being the most famous.

YouTube isn’t just about home video and music sensations though. It’s a serious business tool too, with many companies and charities hoping to produce the next video sensation that will promote their brand virally around the world.

Recently Kony 2012 took the web by storm, becoming the most rapidly spreading viral video of all time, with more than 100 million views in six days. This has greatly impacted the films producer’s, Invisible Children, mission to stop LRA violence and support the war-affected communities in East and Central Africa.

YouTube In The Marketing Mix

Is it Social Media?

According to Gary Vaynerchuck Social Media doesn’t really exist and in the video below he uses YouTube as an example of how the phrase has been misused.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8Ino97rEfM

I agree with Gary, Social Media is the Internet, they are synonymous with each other.

YouTube is the fuel that feeds it.

With 4 Billion video views per day and 1 hour of video uploads per second it’s hard to ignore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHPfc6whaSk

Read It Later or Pocket as it is now known, an application that allows you to save articles on the web for “reading later”, reports video saves are up 138%, and YouTube is the most-saved domain; The median length of a video saved in Read It Later is nearly 30 minutes.

Create Your Own YouTube Sensation

So if YouTube is the fuel that feeds Social Media you need to produce some of that fuel of your own. Video can be complex to create, but in an effort to help you understand how to do just that Google have set up some YouTube Creators Workshops throughout May.

Free to take part, they will be streamed live on the YouTube Creators Google+ page and will include:

• May 2: Introduction to cinematography
• May 9: Importing & Exporting: Dealing with codecs and compressions
• May 16: Building your audience on YouTube
• May 23: Improving your channel with YouTube Analytics

Whilst you may not become the next Justin Bieber or create a Kony 2012 you will at least gain an understanding of what is required to plan, produce and build a YouTube video to market your brand, big or small.

Want to build authority for you or your business online? Sign up for my new online course “How To Use Twitter To Build Authority In Your Market Sector”.

This is a guest post by Peggy Fitzpatrick

Today I am going to ponder what I am going to call trendspotting. My definition of trendspotting is searching for a current trend or trending topic in social media. This one simple trick can help jumpstart your social media efforts right away.

One of the hardest things to get started in any social media platform is finding people to engage and follow. When you first start on Twitter or Google+, it seems like you are speaking to an empty room or a crowded room where no one is listening to you. Trendspotting can help you gain some traction in your social media activities.

Using these trendspotting tips will help you do the following:

• Increase your engagement per post or tweet
• Make some connections
• Build your following
• Have more FUN! That makes everything more awesome, right?

It is really easy to find trending topics on Twitter and Google+ and here is how. On regular Twitter, go to your profile and on the left you will see trends. You can select Worldwide, United States or by city. Click on one of the trends and it will open up the entire stream of tweets on this topic. Today is Earth Day so #EarthDay is trending and it will be easy to find lots of great tweets on this hashtag.

On Google+: Click on the HOME icon at the top left and then you will see Trending on Google+. Again click on one of the topics and the stream will open for you. Google+ is unique in their trend searching because you do not have to use the hashtag to be included in the topic as you do on Twitter but you can use the hashtag.

Tip #1

Find interesting material related to a hashtag and tweet it using the #hashtag and everyone following this stream will see the tweet, even if they are not following you.

Share a photo of your favorite place in the world for #EarthDay tomorrow http://t.co/Qrp8iYoK

April 21, 2012 7:45 pm via The Huffington PostReplyRetweetFavorite

@HuffPostGreen

HuffPost Green

Happy #EarthDay! (Just to clarify: an Earth Day suit is NOT the same thing as a Birthday Suit.)

about 21 hours ago via Target TweetsReplyRetweetFavorite

@Target

Target

Happy #EarthDay. Let’s work today and every day for our Mother Earth. [video - Neil Young @FarmAid] http://t.co/RXYnDR8Z

about 21 hours ago via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@benandjerrys

Ben & Jerry’s

Tip #2

Engage! Don’t just observe but become a part of the trend. Make sure that you are posting items that are relevant to the hashtag that you are using or people will be unhappy with you. Don’t drop unrelated links to your posts either, again not a way to make friends. Share other peoples tweets or posts, give them a like a +1, pin them or send them to StumbleUpon. One thing that new people do is observe without engaging. Taking the step towards following and engaging people in a conversation may seem scary or challenging at first but everyone is on social networks to be social. Makes sense, right? Be friendly and say hello. You will be glad you did.

Tip #3

Follow or circle interesting people who you find in the stream. An easy way to follow a Twitter hashtag stream is by using FollowBlast. You can easily pick interesting and relevant people to follow from this list based on the hashtag.

Tip #4

If someone shares your tweet or post, say hi or thank them. Use this as a welcome to converse.

Tip #5

Some hashtags are used all the time like #bacon or #Caturday and some are just for a certain day. Make sure you are using them appropriately.

Tip #6

Don’t over hashtag! Per Jason Falls, “don’t overstuff your tweets with hashtags when you are promoting something.” One maybe two is acceptable, anything more is spammy content and people who follow the hashtag will not take it as seriously.

There is something trending on social media all the time, hop in the stream…the water is just fine!

I hope these tips will help you find more meaning in your social media and help you to truly become a part of the conversation. Follow @PegFitzpatrick

Resources:
Want Better Twitter Results? Try These Effective Types of Tweets

What You Need to Know About Using Hashtags on Twitter

12 Most Spammy Content on the Web

What Are Hashtags? (“#” Symbols)

Featured image courtesy of misspixels via Creative Commons.

The Seven Dwarfs Protected the Prettiest of them All!

Then came along a mighty software company called Microsoft.

So jealous were they of Netscape’s dominance over online access they created their own web browser and named it Internet Explorer, or IE, as it is now more commonly known.

By 2006 Netscape’s market share had dropped to 1%.

This Fairy-Tale doesn’t end here though, as is so often the case on the web no one company dominates a single market sector forever.

Control Access, Controls Everything!

Microsoft dominated the PC market with its Windows operating system, and integrated IE into it. Within a few of years Netscape was no more. IE now dominated web access as much as it did the PC operating system market with Windows.

But times change and Microsofts grip on browser dominance is now slipping. Known for it’s sluggishness, non-standards compliance and generally bloated coding IE started to lose out to Firefox, which grew ever more popular, especially with developers. Quietly in the background the search giant of the web, Google, stepped into the browser market. Slowly at first, its light weight and speedy browser Chrome took time to get a foothold. The general public not really aware of the advantages it held and developers locked into Firefox because of developer friendly add-ons that assisted with web programming. It didn’t take long for Chrome to become a force to be reckoned with.

The Fallen Champion

In 2008 IE had a 70% share of the browser market and therefore control of the individuals that used it. As of April 2012 Microsoft via IE now only has a 34.8% of the browser market, whilst Google with Chrome has grown rapidly to control nearly 31%. Leaving Firefox with just 25% of the market share. It is expected that in the next 12 months Chrome will become the most popular way for people to access the Internet.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Browser Market Share

What of Facebook?

Whilst the war over access to the web has been going on Facebook has grown the biggest online community that has ever existed. Over 850 million people use the social platform to chat, post photo’s, play games and do business.

But how they get there is Facebook’s achilles tendon.

Where Google+ has grown quickly, 170 million users according to Google CEO Larry Page, it still has a long way to go before it seriously contends with Facebook in user numbers. Yet we know that Google+ was never intended to be an independent platform. Many of Googles other products already integrate seamlessly with Google+, and Google has not been shy about its use of your Google+ activity to assist with personalised search results. Therefore it is only a matter of time before it leverages its coming browser dominance to deliver users into the Google+ platform.

In this version of the future Google would now control the way people look for things on the web with it’s search engine, and eventually the way people access the web in the first place. It would not be difficult for them to relegate Facebook to the back of the queue when it comes to social networking online. In fact there are currently many Chrome add-ons related to Google+ which may one day just be part of the default browser.

A Glimmer Of Hope

There are two opportunities for Facebook in this battle for access. One is Apps.

For all it’s advances online Google has yet to produce killer mobile applications that work with Google+. Facebook have been slow in coming forward but there is now a usable iPad App and other Apps for all popular smart phones. Yes Google has Android, but where the Android mobile platform is popular, the majority of serious web access is still currently via Apples iOS.

The second chance for Facebook is to develop it’s own browser. One that integrates seamlessly with the social network is likely to appeal to its users. Even if it doesn’t fancy building one itself, Microsoft is highly likely to do a deal over IE to ensure its chances of remaining dominant in the browser wars.

And The Winner Is…

Facebook is not down and out yet, and Microsoft won’t give up without a fight. But if you ever doubted Google+ playing a part in your business’s social media strategy then this at least should get you rethinking.

Google lives off the data it collects, it’s this that it sells to you, allowing your businesses to target potential customers more accurately and efficiently. The more it can do to encourage people to use it’s products, whether through improved usability, Chrome, or better results in Google Search, this is what it will do.

Social Media offers the most valuable dataset of all, this fact alone will drive Google+ to own the social space. Make sure you don’t miss the ride!

If you need help getting up to speed with Google+ or any of the other social platforms call Sean on +44 (0)7850957506.

Look Right

The right image can have a massive impact on getting your content read and shared.

Even choosing the right profile photo for Twitter or Facebook can impact the number of followers you have.

A study by Curata, a content curation agency, shows content that included images saw more frequent clicks from website visitors.

In its research, Curata measured a 47% increase in engagement for those articles with photos on their pages against those without.

This may go some way to explain why Facebook recently paid $1 billion from Instagram. Also the fact that Pinterest is the fastest growing social platform ever.

Images are that important!

Even more and more data is being visualised for easier consumption, which has lead to the meteoric rise in popularity of infographics as shown in the Google Trends graph below.

Google Trends for Infographic

Clearley you can see the importance of imagery, but where do you find the images and what type of images should you use?

Sourcing Images

Firstly you want images that reflect your content. Ideal is an image that is eye catching and supports your headline. Even if someone doesn’t read your content they may well share it via the image on a site like Pinterest.

Next you need to ensure you have the right to use the images you put on you’re website. Accessing the majority of information online maybe free but that doesn’t mean you can just use it without permission.

Your Own Photos

Using your own images is always preferrable if you have the resource to take them or already have them available. If you intend using your own images just ensure they are of a good quality, framed well and in focus. Your holiday snaps might not cut the mustard!

holiday snap

Searching on Google images is best avoided for commercial use, it is often difficult to determine the rights owner, and image quality can vary.

Free Images

Flickr is a great free resource for images, though finding exactly what you want can take some time. Please also remember that not all images on Flickr are available for use.

When searching for images to use on your own website, on Flickr use the advanced search, put in your search term, then scroll to the bottom of the page and tick the box that states: “Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content “.

If it’s for commercial use then tick that box aswell.

Creative Commons licensed content

Ensure you abide by the lisence conditions which are usually to attribute the image owner. You can do this by including a link at the foot of your article or linking the image itself to their Flickr account.

Paid Images

The alternative to free images are stock photos. These can be found on many sites across the web and are often professionally shot photos made available for commercial use, at a fee. Costs will vary dependant on what you want to use the image for.

From as little as £0.80 ($1.30) per image BigStockPhoto is my preferred stock photo option. An enourmous database of over 10 million images, perfect for commercial use.

Finding That Right Image

A word of caution. Hunting for images can take a huge amount of time. Balance the necessity to illustrate your article with the time spent finding that “perfect image”. It’s very easy to spend more time on Flickr than you did writing your article in the first place.

Sometimes time is best spent elsewhere and paying for a stock photo can be more cost effective.

Do you have any other image resources you use?

Google Plus Comments

This is a guest post by Dan Cristo

Following in Facebook’s footsteps, Google is poised to release a new commenting system for websites called, Google Comments.

I’m not going to explain the differences between Google Commenting System, Facebook Commenting System, Disqus, LiveFyre or even Triberr Commenting System, although there are some noteworthy differences. What I would like to do is explain “why” Google released yet another commenting system, and I believe the answer lies in a recently submitted patent.

The patent is titled, “AgentRank”, and was submitted by Google on May 11th, 2011. The AgentRank concept isn’t new though. In fact,  I distinctly remember having a conversation in late 2009 with Hugo Guzman about whether or not PageRank would be replaced with AuthorRank (which is what we were calling it at the time).

The concept of AgentRank is that Google wants to know who you are, what you talk about and how credible you are on a topic. Think of it like a Klout score, except with a LOT more signals. To help clarify, I’ll use myself as an example…

If you look at my online footprint, you’ll see I’m most interested in two topics: SEO and Triberr. That can be deduced by looking at my blog, Twitter profile, guest posts, LinkedIn profile and blog comments.

Now if you were Google, you could also look at RSS feeds I’ve subscribed to, videos I’ve watched on YouTube, sites I’ve +1’d, links I’ve shared, pages I’ve visited, keywords I’ve searched on, events I’ve RSVP’d to and a slew of other breadcrumbs I’ve left online. As you might imagine, Google wants to use this data to improve search, but how?

Improving Search

Let’s assume that Google knows that I’m a credible source for info about SEO and Triberr. Now let’s also assume that I’ve recently written a guest blog post about “How to use Triberr for SEO” , but the blog is brand new.

Normally a new blog wouldn’t rank well for competitive terms, because it doesn’t have many backlinks. However, with AgentRank, Google can use the creditability of the author on a particular topic to determine trust, as opposed to only relying on backlinks to the domain the new post sits on.

So why Google Comments?

Like PageRank, AgentRank can be transferred. Let’s say that Rand Fishkin comments on a blog I wrote about SEO. Part of his AgentRank should pass to the author of the blog (meh), improving my AgentRank score. And of course I would use rel=author to tie my post to my Google+ account.

The trouble Google has had with calculating AgentRank is that it can be hard to actually verify if it was the “real” Rand Fishkin who left a comment. Wouldn’t it be much better (for Google) if they could just ask Rand to sign in to Google+ before leaving a comment. In fact, even better, what if Google had their own commenting system? One where they can always crawl the data, verify the commenters identity, track +1 and maybe even gauge sentiment.

There you have it

Google had created a new commenting system to that they can easily verify your identify and attribute that content to you. They attempted to do this with sidewiki back in the day, but that was a big fail. So this time they’re attempting to use Google+ as their ID system and social signal collection system, and website comments is a great way to calculate AgentRank. In that world, comments might be considered the new link, or at very least an important social signal.

One More Thing

Keep in mind that by commenting with Google’s commenting system, you’ve just created an implicit social circle in Google+ with the others who have commented on a particular post. It’s all part of Google’s plan to “help” people use Google+ whether they want to or not.

On Saturday, I was browsing my Facebook news feed when I noticed a post that stopped me in my tracks.

The post (found here) displayed a photo of a boy saluting a coffin, with the post copy reading:

“How many likes can we get for this brave lil Marine saying goodbye to his father”

One of my friends was one of the 400,000+ people to “like” the post (I believe it’s fast approaching 500,000 at this point), causing it to show up in my news feed.

As a percentage of the direct audience, this is one of the more viral posts I’ve ever seen on Facebook. We see this type of thing on Twitter and YouTube consistently – but this is quite an incredible instance considering the user who posted it has about 1,200 friends.

So why did this happen and what can we take away from it?

1. The very best content will be found

Or in this case, the most meaningful. You don’t need a massive audience to spread a message like wildfire – content that stikes a cord with people will often fall into the right hands for distribution. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be strategic, but images that tell a powerful story can often stand by themselves.

2. Content that evokes emotion wins

This post creates extreme emotion in most anyone who has lost someone special to us, especially those who have lost a loved one in war. It brings out sadness, anger, mourning, inspiration, pride, and other emotions based on our frame of reference. It’s hard not to like, share, and comment when we feel this strongly about something.

3. Elaborate tactics aren’t always necessary

Here, we have a photo with one line of simple copy. The photo tells a story and does the talking. No complexity required – just an amazing photo.

Did anyone else see this photo in your news feed? More importantly, don’t you just love this kid?!