Here are the questions that I received this week: (the ones related to viral marketing or social media)

1.  What exactly is Twitter, and do you use it for viral marketing? Twitter is a micro-blogging service that connects people in a way I have never seen online. You are limited to 140 characters of space per post, but you can post as much as you like and share pretty much anything you like. When I was explaining Twitter to a neighbor of mine the other day I desribed it as LinkedIn without all the fat (because he is familiar with LinkedIn). I say that because I have been able to meet some of the most amazing professionals in my area and in my field (like LinkedIn), and Twitter made it super easy. Just click on the follow – I don’t have to confirm anything, I don’t have to write a recommendation, all I have to do is just connect with them an start to check out their posts. (Check out how easy it is to follow someone by following me on Twitter). If I don’t like what they have to say I can simply not follow them anymore, and only follow the individuals I want. Now don’t get me wrong, I love LinkedIn and fully recommend it for professionals (and I still use it a lot), but that was just my way of describing what Twitter was (to a neighbor who had never heard ot it – or micro-blogging). Those of you who like to argue for arguing sake, I know Twitter is nothing like LinkedIn, but I was using it for helping give someone the vision who had never heard of it.

2.  How do you come up with so many viral marketing ideas? It is either a blessing or a curse thinking like a social media marketer. I can’t do anything, go anywhere, take a picture of anything or do anything like that without thinking of how I could turn this into a viral marketing post? It has gotten so bad that I even got a neighbor doing it, and we will be out somewhere and something will happen and he will say; “Now that would be a great viral post”, even if it wouldn’t be, he still is catching on. The best answer for this is that I feel I have a pretty good understanding of what each social media site is looking for, and I have been using them long enough to see the kind of content that goes hot, and the kind that goes away. It goes way beyond that though, I feel I have a pretty good idea of how the site has to be set up in order for it to do well. Quick example: if there is any (even little) hint of prices (or pushing/marketing) on a story you want to do well on Digg (even if its worthy) it will probably get buried quicker then I can finish this sentence. You need to do your research and see what kind of content is going hot, and really understand what the users of the specific networks are looking for. I see some stories that have made the front page of Digg and think to myself – that’s a great idea and I have a story/idea that are along those same lines (but different enough) and I start to create content!

3.  Which social media sites do you like the best for viral marketing? It depends on what the post/article/story is about, but in general I really like Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Propeller and Twitter (in the order) – all of which contribute either traffic, links back, SERPs, or are useful for just getting the word out. Yahoo Buzz had potential, but like with anything Yahoo touches, they break it. This question alone deserves at least 5 or 6 posts by itself, but this is my quick answer for now, and I will get to the longer answered posts at a later day!

4.  Do you use Facebook for viral marketing? While I think Facebook is a great place for sharing your content, and getting more of the word out to your friends and people you have connected with, I do not think its a great “viral marketing” tool – a great marketing tool, but not a great viral marketing tool. You have other amazing options to pushing massive amounts of traffic to your site via Facebook, like the Facebook Ads where you can geo-target and gender target the specific folks you want. That is the route I would suggest for anyone wanting to get massive amounts of really good (targeted) traffic from Facebook. Feel free to friend me on Facebook.

Those are 4 of (what I felt were) the best questions that were asked to me last week regarding viral marketing. I want to answer as many questions as you guys may have, so please feel free to ask away. Submit your questions via comments here, via Twitter, or by emailing me mat (at) dreamsystemsmedia (dot) com.

I was looking back to when I first got on Twitter, and it is hard to believe but I have been on Twitter for almost two years.  I have to admit for the first several months I really didn’t get it, but as time went on and other social media networks lost their “luster” for me to want to keep using, my passion for Twitter kept growing.

What Is Twitter?

Follow Me On Twitter

I was describing what Twitter is to a neighbor of mine the other day, and believe it or not IMO, its not very easy to try and describe what micro-blogging is to a person thats never heard of it.  So I summed it up by asking if he was familiar with LinkedIn, and of course he said yes.  I said take away all the fat, and you are left with amazing connections, and an easy way to communicate with them.  The light went on for him, and I created another Twitter fan instantly!

I have discovered the power (and fun) of Twitter, and these reasons are my own.  I know there are several other reasons that people may love Twitter, or use it for business and I would love to hear about them in the comments, but thse are the top 11 reasons I love Twitter!

My Top 11 Reasons I Love Twitter:

1. It’s addicting – I know that sounds crazy, but I like to get addicted to things, and most of the time they are bad for me like Coca Cola, or Dr. Pepper.  I know its probably so wrong but I check Twitter before I even log into my email.
2. I get the news I want – There is a reason I don’t watch CNN or Fox News anymore, and its because I don’t want to get depressed with all the doom and gloom bad news.  With Twitter, I get amazing updates and cool new information on gadgets, and industry news from people who are in my industry and have the same passions I do.  I actually learned from Twitter that Obama had won.  I read a tweet from (I think, I am not going to take the time to find it now) @rustybrick that Fox News had called it.  So I wasn’t even watching the news on election night.  I was watching my DVRed shows and checking out election updates on Twitter.
3. Easy to use on my iPhone – I do not want my phone buzzing all the time so I am glad they have a mobile version that makes it easy to Twitter away on my iPhone just like if I were on a computer.  I know its silly, but it makes me smile and these are my top 10 – not yours!
4. I like watching conversations on Twitter -  I love to see how certain individuals act on Twitter, and I wonder if they act the same way in real life.  How they speak, the language the use etc. or I wonder if Twitter gives them the same power people feel when sending an email or instant message (and they are not face to face).  Either way I have fun watching some peoples conversations back and forth – @graywolf is probably the most fun to watch IMO.
5. Easy way to share stuff I am doing – If people are following me, they are following me because of something I shared, said, followed them or they are just following me for reasons only known to them.  For whatever reasons though I am able to share the stuff I like, am promoting, people I like or what I am doing with them without feeling like I am sending a bunch of un-wanted stuff around.
6. Easy to get the word out, and get it passed around – If I am offering a sale, or coupon code on a website I own, or if I found a cool deal on something and I want to “pass” it around, or maybe share some cool promotional items from a client, I can post it on Twitter and know that it will get passed around and shared.  I may only have 313 followers (at the time of this post) but I know that my followers have lots of followers and there is a pretty good chance someone is going to see what I am passing around.  There have been several occations where I have shared coupon codes and promotional items only with Twitter users, and have seen direct sales as a result from Twitter traffic.
7. Traffic - Granted Twitter does not bring insaine amounts of traffic like Digg or Stumble Upon, but it brings consistant traffic every month.  I get several hundred unique visitors to all the sites that I am promoting on Twitter every month, and this helps in the overall trust-worthiness of my sites.  The number of visitors just keep going up every month too.
8. Ability to ask questions and get a response (People) – Being able to chat with some of the most amazing people in this industry, and ask them questions and have them answered back almost instantly is some amazing gratification.  Even saw a tweet that @Shoemoney said humbled him, and that was that Seth Godin gave him a reference in a post he did.  No matter how big or small you are, you like to be noticed, and I think its pretty cool how the community of Twitter (for the most part) is open and every one is very easy to communicate with.
9. Connections to big names in the industry – I have made some of the most amazing connections, and have met some of the coolest people (even in my local area) that have been very beneficial in my business, and personal life.  The key to social networking in this case would be the networking and if done right it can bring huge rewards with it.
10. I feel like I am not missing things anymore – I gave up on trying to go through my subsriptions, and readers everyday and hoping to not miss any cool blog post etc. but with Twitter, I feel like I am really not missing a thing.  I feel like the most important things that people I follow and admire, are putting on Twitter and letting me know – “Hey, this stuff here is the most important stuff I am sharing for the day”
11. Protecting Your Reputation – This is a great platform to set the record straight, and let people know who you are and really build up a name for yourself.

Finally In Conclusion:

There you have it!  These are my top 11 reasons why I personally love Twitter and use it, and will continue to use it.  I know other people may have different reasons, but I wanted to write this list out because I have so many people every day asking my why I love Twitter so much, so there you have it.  I would appreciate some comments though and why other people love and use Twitter.

6 Twitter tools I use and recommend: thanks to @mollermarketing for sharing some of these with me too!

1. Twitterfeed – publishing feeds automatically from different blogs. Wow – what a time saver!
2. Twitip.com – stay up to date with all the latest Twitter add ons, hints, tricks, tips and basically everything you need to know to use Twitter correctly!
3. Twitpic – not only is this one incredibly valuable for taking pictures and easily posting them to Twitter, but its fun to watch – come on – admit it, you have wasted hours there too just watching too!!
4. Twitterfox – TwitterFox is a Firefox extension that notifies you of your friends’ status on Twitter.
5. Tweetdeck – Keep track of your Twitter threads much easier (I am still testing this one out)
6. Facebook Twitter App – Auto-”magically” posts all of your updates and tweets to your facebook wall.  One of my most favorite Facebook Apps.

Something else that is cool, but pretty much useless is the TwitterGrader – Here is my Twitter Grade:

I would not be able to call myself a real Twitter user if I did not ask you to follow me, so -  Follow Matt Siltala on Twitter -

They had a bet going with a girl who is also a part of the show that John Jay, (one of the DJs) could not memorize a Jay Z song and perform it perfectly. If he did then this girl had to strip down naked, take pictures and post them to the web. Well he did, and she got naked, and the pictures were posted to the web; with one twist. You had to click through over 1100 pictures before you got to the pictures where she was naked. So if you really wanted to see this girl naked you had to click through 1100 other pictures first, and its not set up so you can just change the URL and get to the end. You had to click your way through – no way around it.

What did this do for them? They were getting so much traffic it was taking their server down. I am not sure if this was true, but at one point Rich (the other DJ) said that there was currently 1.8 million on the site. It was making me laugh cause they had no clue about hosting, bandwidth etc and all they kept doing is complaining how slow it was, or how the server kept going down. Even people were calling in telling them the server kept going down. They made comments like, Perez Hilton gets this much all the time and his site never goes down etc. These guys need to be taught about hosting, dedicated servers and a bunch of other stuff.

That kind of traffic, the clicking on website (clicking all the pictures), and time spent on website is all going to help the over all health of the site (so long as they can keep it up) on Google. When something like this goes viral online, it helps out the “trust” factor in getting your rankings improved, and overall traffic from that point forward will just increase. You will probably start to rank for keywords you never even were going after. Also, all the people like me, talking about them, giving them links is the most important thing to consider when launching a viral campaign like this one. One other important factor is the Alexa ranking will get better, and so will their results on the other major search engines as a result of it.

The point here – is to make sure that your viral campaigns are sticky, and that your website in general, is sticky and gives people reasons to keep staying on and looking more and more. Give them reasons to click and click and click and stay as long as they possibly can. You figure out how to launch a viral campaign as successful as these two DJs did, you will see huge results.