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I hope it helps you along your way and gives you some good pointers

We know that 95% of businesses fall to reap good results with their digital or social media campaigns because they had no strategy or required a greater knowledge.

You can’t expect to compete with Microsoft, but you can replicate some of their successes on a smaller scale, just by watching what they do:

• Inject an element of fun, fear or controversy into campaigns;
• Offer something unique that you either know or suspect people will find interesting
• If you’re aiming at a younger audience, find out where your audience is and target them on their terms and in their language
• Viral marketing can be videos like the Cadburys advert with the gorilla playing the drums, which did pretty well on YouTube
• Also, things like “linkbait” are controversial or wildly unbelievable stories that are so compelling, news websites want to link to your story, which can massively raise your profile
• A list of something, such as: “Top 10 worst football moments” which people love because they’re instant and often funny
• And lastly, give something away for free! Often, this is in the form of shrewd advice, or insider information

WHAT YOU GAIN FROM ALL OF THIS?

• A huge amount of exposure and brand awareness
• An increase in subscribers to the blog or website
• An increase in the number of contacts, some who became friends
• The added value of “expert status”, which helped to change people’s perceptions
• Thousands of links from websites and blogs, still accounting for a lot of residual visitors to this day. In addition to the visits, links are an indicator to the search engines as to just how important a web page is.