Facebook is the currently the darling of all social media sites. Now that MySpace has been branded “low-class,” Facebook has surged in popularity, and the member status updates help the site function like one big conversation. But Facebook is not a tool to be used lightly. The status updates you post are little insights into your day and your mind, and posting the wrong one is just…wrong.  So here’s a helpful guide to assist you in avoiding annoying me…er…committing a Facebook faux pas.

Credit: brokenarts, everystockphoto.com

1. Never post about what you are eating for breakfast, snack, lunch, dinner, dessert or any other meal. Remember when your teacher caught you sneaking food during school and asked you if you had enough to share with the rest of the class? Well, she (or he) did that because it is rude to flaunt your tasty cookies, soups, meats, cheeses and other divine edibles in front of people who don’t have access to them. Some of you like to really rub our noses in your happy palate and upload a picture of your food—that is really taking it too far. I don’t know about you but, because of these updates, I spend about 90% of my day hungry for crap I can’t even get.

Credit: nemo5576, everystockphoto.com

2. Never post about the games you are playing. The other day, I was struck and saddened by a friend of mine who I assumed had been laid off. I assumed this because she posted a status update asking for laundry supplies. Fearing the worst, I was about to start a relief fund for her when a few hours later I saw she had updated her status to say, “Thanks” to all the members who had given her supplies and that now she needed help fighting the Russian Mafia. It took me a while to try and understand how my friend, who is an accountant, could have gone from reconciling columns of numbers to fighting the Russian mafia. As I reassessed my life, wondering how there could be so much I didn’t know about her, she posted another update that begged for help with, “a bunch of illegal transaction records” in New York. This was it. Now she’d gone too far. Over the course of 8 hours my friend had progressed from law-abiding accountant, to pauper, to Russian crime fighter, to New York crime-committer. It turns out she was actually posting these updates as part of some online Mafia game she was playing. Unbeknownst to her, I went on a massive emotional roller coaster over her game. Not cool. Not cool at all. If you are using Facebook for professional contacts, this type of update is even worse.

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3. Stop making everyone feel guilty. Just about everyone has some cause that really means something to them. Whether it’s prostate cancer, diabetes or curing Alzheimer’s there is probably a pre-written status update that you can paste into your page to show everyone how much you care. The problem with this pre-written message is that it always includes this manipulative, guilt-inducing clause to try and get your friends to post the same message — “93% won’t Copy and Paste this, will YOU make this your status for at least ……one hour?” Way to make them hate your cause, manipulator.

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4. Don’t talk about the underwear you are wearing… no matter what. One day this week, I was confused as I read my friends’ seemingly cryptic updates about colors. I spent the day reading updates like, “Purple with leather straps,” and “White with lace.” I thought everyone was just posting nonsensical color and material combinations until I found that some genius told women to post the color of their bra for breast cancer awareness. While this helped me better understand my mother’s brazen, “None! Let the puppies breath!” update, it did little to help me understand WHY people were doing it. After all, is there anyone who isn’t aware of breast cancer? And since there was no donation accompanying these updates, who exactly did they help?

Remember, your Facebook updates are supposed to be insights into your day that either friends or other professionals will enjoy reading. Talk about what’s going on in your life, what you are excited about, what you are concerned about, and what you are working on. They can be fun, funny and clever, deep and meaningful, or run-of-the-mill. Oh, and if your kids are on Facebook, never, ever, ever, ever talk about your underwear.

Credit: Sean Dreilinger via Flickr

Linkbait. You’ve probably heard of it. You probably know people who love it. You probably know people who hate it. Maybe you’ve even used it. Linkbait gets a bad rep, put on the same level as spam by some. Others see it a bit differently though. We understand that there is good linkbait as well as “bad” linkbait, just as email isn’t inherently evil just because it’s a tool used by spammers. Where do you fall? How do you feel about it?

Let’s take a look at the good sides of linkbait today, and how it can benefit your business website. But first, let’s cover some basics for those less familiar with it.

Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

What is linkbait?

Linkbait (or link bait if you prefer) is just what it sounds like — something you release online in order to get people to link to you.

Why does linkbait get a bad rep?

The very word “bait” makes us think of traps, so it’s probably the misleading moniker that plays the biggest role in linkbait being dubbed the big bad wolf of the SEO world in the minds of some. That’s not fair though.

Yes, it can be misused. Think of a ridiculously hyped-up blog post title designed solely to suck you in, but followed by a post that doesn’t deliver the promised goods. That’s linkbait at its worst — sensationalist garbage. It doesn’t represent the full spectrum of linkbait however, so don’t judge based on association. Hey, would you want people to judge you based on what they know about your crazy Uncle George? Probably not.

Linkbait is good for you — Here’s why:

Linkbait needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis, just as you would judge the people who create it. What are their motives? Obviously they want to attract links, but there’s more to it than that when people create “good” linkbait.

It’s not just about benefiting you and your website. It’s about benefiting your visitors. Great linkbait does that. You’ll provide amazing content. You might offer a free tool. Whatever kind of linkbait ideas you release, great linkbait involves natural linking. You don’t have to beg and plead and try to con people out of their links.

You simply offer something that’s really worth linking to! There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s called offering value. When you provide real value to your visitors, they’ll happily spread the word about your content, your business, or your website.

What are some examples of linkbait ideas?

There is no single correct formula for successful linkbait. It comes in many forms. Here are some linkbait ideas to get you started on the path to creating more rewarding content, both for your site and your visitors.

1. Write a comprehensive (and illustrated) tutorial.
2. 

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   Release a free tool or calculator.
3. Release free software (or a free trial).
4. Write and offer a free e-book or report.
5. Write a controversial post, tackling an industry issue from a new perspective.
6. Attack someone else’s controversial material.
7. Write a list post (100 resources for your niche audience for example).
8. Launch a contest with great prizes that people can get excited about.
9. Create and post an entertaining video.
10. Line up an interview with a major player in your niche or industry.

There are countless linkbait ideas available, and some of the best became linkbait naturally rather than by design (great content has a way of doing that). If you’re struggling to come up with ideas of your own, take a look around the Web. What’s on the front page of Digg today? What are people tweeting about? What struck you as so awesome recently that you had to spread the word about it?

Don’t be afraid to use linkbait. It’s not unethical in any way, especially if your visitors are a top concern when creating it. So don’t buy into the naysayers. They just don’t have the full picture.

Finding the right WordPress theme for your blog can take hours. After all, there are thousands upon thousands of free WordPress themes all across the internet, and browsing through all of them to find something you enjoy can be like searching for a needle in a haystack.

To make things a little easier for you, I’ve come up with a list of 7 free WordPress themes that I really enjoy. If you have any other free themes you prefer, share them with us in the replies.

Cutline

The Cutline WordPress theme is available in a few different versions and with either 2 columns and 3 columns. I find the design to be clean and neatly organized, giving your blog a more professional appearance. In the words of the designer, Cutline is “future-proof” and “easy to customize.”

Beyond the actual design of the theme, another thing that sets Cutline apart is the designer’s commitment to interacting with his users. Most WordPress themes are nothing more than a screenshot and a download. Cutline, on the other hand, has an entire community around it, ready to help you should you run into any issues with the theme.

Gridlock

A clean, grid-based design, Gridlock is versatile as it can easily be used for anything from an online magazine to a company website. To me, Gridlock does a perfect job of maintaining simplicity without being boring. With Gridlock, you can separate content on a page based on its category, allowing you to display different types of content on a single page.

Copyblogger

There really isn’t a whole lot I can say about this theme that hasn’t been said before due to its popularity. In addition to being very flexible and customizable, the Copyblogger theme is also built with SEO in mind, helping you maximize your search engine presence with each post you make.

Scarlett

This just might be the best-looking theme on this list. The Scarlett magazine theme is stylish, and it looks like a premium WordPress theme. The theme has a sliding image panel along the top of the website, and it’s designed to handle AdSense and banner ads.

Freemium

The name says it all. Freemium is a free WordPress theme that gives you the professional look and all the features commonly found in premium themes you have to pay for. The theme is highly customizable, and it features a lot of spaces for advertising. Other features include 2 widget-ready sidebars, threaded comments support, and social media support.

Elements of SEO

This clean, minimalist theme is designed to be SEO-friendly, and it’s perfect for a corporate blog. The designer uses a wide layout that makes the content easy to scan, which gets a huge thumbs up for sound usability. Add your own custom banner, and you have a blog that commands respect from your visitors.

Yoghourt

This simple, 2-column WordPress theme has a calm, professional color scheme that doesn’t overwhelm the visitor. It’s the perfect theme for the blogger who wants something they can quickly get up without having to spend a lot of time tweaking and customizing the look.

Which free WordPress themes do you prefer? Share your favorites in the replies.

Are you thinking of becoming one of the hundreds of millions of bloggers online today? If you’re new to the blogging game, you might not know where to start. You’ve probably heard that WordPress is the leading blogging platform, so you’re leaning toward using it. But that’s not the only decision you’ll have to make. You next need to decide whether you want to host your blog on WordPress.com or self-host it on your own domain.

Below, I’m going to detail exactly why you should NOT host your blog on WordPress.com.

• You can’t control the blog’s design—When hosting your blog on WordPress.com, you have very little control over the blog’s design. You can typically change perhaps the look of the header and maybe choose from a select few basic themes, but that’s about it. On the other hand, if you self-host your WordPress blog, you have access to thousands of WordPress themes online. Or, you can even design and upload your own blog theme. This keeps your blog looking fresh and professional.

• The back links don’t help your main domain—One of the top benefits of blogging regularly is that you can earn a surplus of high quality back links from other bloggers who link to your posts. Back links help you earn trust with Google, increasing your website’s search engine rankings. However, if your blog is hosted on WordPress.com and not attached to your main domain, these links will not benefit your main website.

• The search engine rankings don’t help your main domain—It’s a well-known fact that Google loves blogs. Blogs provide the search engine with fresh, up to date content, allowing Google’s search results to be as relevant as possible. Of course, a high ranking WordPress.com blog will be of little use to your main company website.

• It looks unprofessional—If you’re blogging for anything more than a passing hobby, self-hosting is the only way you will look professional and gain respect from your readers. Whether you like it or not, a generic WordPress.com blog just screams “unprofessional.” The truth is people do judge a book (or your blog) by its cover. A self-hosted blog with its own domain and a great design elicit respect.

• You can’t monitor your blog stats—Self-hosting your blog gives you unfettered access to all of the stats about your blog that you can handle. From which keywords attract visitors to how long readers stay on your blog, the stats you get when self-hosting simply can’t be had if you place your blog on WordPress.com

• Monetizing your blog isn’t allowed—If you’re serious about blogging, you’ve probably thought about how to generate income from your efforts. From paid advertising to affiliate marketing, the opportunities for monetizing your blog are limitless. That is, if you self-host your blog. When you host a blog on WordPress.com, monetization isn’t allowed. No paid ads. No AdSense. No money in your pockets. Doesn’t sound too good, does it?
The list of reasons to self-host your WordPress blog could go on forever, but I hope by now you’ve seen the light. What are your thoughts on the subject?

As iPhone’s, Blackberries, Palm Pre’s and other smart phones become more widespread should site owners and publishers start to offer mobile versions, and from an SEO perspective what should you be concerned about?

Now that smart phones are common, displays are getting larger, and mobile browsers are able to handle more complex displays, are mobile bare bones text version even needed … for many sites the answer remains yes. First let’s look at the two extremes, if you have a rich media site such as Disney.com in most cases mobile browsers aren’t going to have the technical ability to display that complex or that much information. If that’s the case then you absolutely need a mobile version. This is a strategy that Disney has embraced as you can see from the web based and mobile screen shots below.

At the other end of the spectrum are sites which are have no rich media, or complex displays, sites such as craigslist.org which are primarily text based. For sites like this there’s no need to offer a separate mobile version, as the sites render nearly identical on on both platforms

However as is usually the case most sites, aren’t at either extremes, they lie somewhere in the middle, and the answer as to whether they should offer a separate mobile version is, it depends. Many business owners will make this decision based on whether they do business on;line or offline. However if you are a doctor, dentist, or hairdresser your customers may still look for you on their mobile phone, to get an address or phone number in case they need directions, to cancel, an appointment, let you know they are running late, or schedule a new appointment.

Once you’ve established if you need a mobile website the challenge becomes how you do it, many websites offer a mobile version under a subdomain such as m.example.com, however a more sophisticated implementation uses user agents, and serves out the content conditionally. This approach is not without risks, if you serve content conditionally based on user agent you don’t want to cross the line into black hat territory and cloaking. You want to offer the same content to users as you do to search engine spiders. This is a topic Matt Cutts recently discussed in a Webmaster Central Video:

The one bit of good news is more and more CMS systems are starting to offer mobile modules and plugins, for example wordpress users can take advantage of this plugin, Joomla offers several choices, as does Drupal .

Whether your website is providing entertainment or information, selling a product or a service, you can fully expect to have competition. Who are these competitors though? And what makes their online presence so strong? More importantly, which ones are constantly raising the marketing bar?

If you’re serious about the success of your online business, you should find out as much as you can about your industry and the top business within that industry. This is called Competitive Research and is anything from examining search results for competitor’s pages and backlinks, to researching possible keywords that you’ll use in your web copy. Luckily there are many free tools and resources available that can help you collect the information you need.

Here are just a few.

Identifying the Competition

You can’t know what you’re up against until you properly identify your direct competition. Depending on your industry, this may be as easy as plugging your best search term into Google (assuming you’ve at least done some basic keyword research).

Search Engines – They not only provide valuable information about your competition, but search engines such as Google, Yahoo & Bing also help you determine who your competitors are. In many cases, your direct competitors are the sites that appear in the top 10 listing for the terms you’re aiming to rank for.

Directories – Authority directories, such as BOTW and DMOZ, can also help you identify your competitors. These directories are often human-edited and therefore careful attention is paid to which sites are chosen for inclusion. Simply locate the most suitable category for your site and then take note of the sites that are already listed there.

Get Technical – If you’re really interested in knowing precisely whom your competitor is, you can also use tools such as DNSStuff and DomainTools. For example, you might find out the actual name of your competitor by viewing the domain registrar information, which is particularly handy if you plan to contact them directly. Having their name is also useful for finding their social media or forum profiles (which can give you a clue into their marketing efforts and knowledge level).

Evaluating the Competition

After you’ve identified your competition, you’ll need to rate them according to how strong they are so you can determine the steps you’ll need to take in order to compete with them. Use some of the following tools will help give you an idea of why your rival is doing so well and what kinds of payoffs they’re reaping as a result.

Competitive Data – Have you ever wondered how much traffic a certain site was receiving? Although it’s not possible to find out exactly, you can use tools such as Alexa and Compete to find general info about traffic, such as visitor estimates, which keywords may be bringing traffic to your competitors’ site and even which other sites might be sending traffic to your competitor.

Ranking and Page Strength – How did your adversaries get such good rankings? The Firefox addon; SEOQuake, can help you answer this questions and more by showing you the age of a domain, how many links it has (from which types of sites) and even which popular directories it may be listed in. With Trifecta you can evaluate things such as an individual page or an entire domain’s strength or the reach of a brand (i.e. it’s ability to draw traffic). The only downfall of this tool is that, as a non-paying member, you can only generate 1 report per day.

Note: SEOQuake comes with a sort of a warning not to overuse it and why. Make sure to read it.

Detailed Backlink Analysis – Since backlinks are a main part of online competition, I recommend that you pay special attention to just how many backlinks your top competitors have. Conducting a detailed analysis will not only give you insight into how many links you’ll need to compete, but it also allows you to locate link opportunities for your own site. Use the Yahoo Site Explorer and the “linkdomain” command (i.e. linkdomain:competitorsite.com) and take note of not only the amount of their links, but also the type of sites their links are coming from. Don’t forget to use tools such as LinkVendor to check the number of social bookmarks and their backlink anchor text too.

Monitoring the Competition

Now that you know who your main competition is and you have an idea of what they’re doing right, you can do things such as monitor mentions of their brand or domain name, keep up to date on any press releases they’re doing or media attention they’re getting or even find out certain information about how much they might be spending on ads. Simply set up some Google Alerts (for their domain or brand name) and with regular use of tools such as SpyFu and WhosTalkin you’ll be able to keep up to date on practically any mentions regarding your competitor.

Although I’m definitely not suggesting that you outright stalk your competitors, I am suggesting that you identify who they are though, and strive to improve upon whatever they do, marketing wise. Doing so can give you the edge you need to compete, and maybe even beat, the competition.

A few things have been ingrained into the minds’ of business owners over the past 18 months. Things like:

• You have to engage in social media.
• You have to listen to your customers.
• Always protect your brand.

But sometimes before you can even act, your customers are out there beating you to the punch. They’re engaging and protecting your brand for you. And as this whole social media thing has developed, we’ve been able to see both the positives and negatives that occur when a company leaves their brand to chance. Is it possible that all you have to do to be successful in social media is to sit back and let your customers do your work for you?

Let’s take a look at some of the Pros and Cons involved with leaving your social media efforts up your customers.

The Pros

1. Your customers are better at social media than you are.

Don’t get all defensive, it’s true. Your customers are social media pros because they’re ringers. Social media was designed with them in mind. It’s about empowering them, letting them get loud and giving them a platform (and soapbox) to stand on. When they create your account for you, it can explode.

Dusty Sorg and Michael Jedrzejewski love Coca-Cola. They love it so much that they created the official Coke Facebook Fan page where more than 3.6 MILLION fans come to comment and engage every day. That’s right. 3.6 million fans and Coke had absolutely nothing to do with it. Dusty and Michael wanted a place to talk about their favorite carbonated beverage so they got their hands dirty and created one themselves. And though Coke didn’t create it, they have embraced it. And the result has been one of the most well known social media love stories on the Web.

2. It’s more authentic.

When you create a site dedicated to your greatness, it’s “marketing”, it’s self-serving and it’s a little dirty. When a fan does it for you, its gospel, it’s real, and it’s authentic. Your customers have an easier time relating to it. They want to get involved and become part of the “cool kids” helping to sing your praises across the Internet. And really, is there anything cooler on the Internet than Chuck Norris? Of course not. America isn’t a democracy, it’s a Chucktatorship.

The Chuck Norris Facts Web site was created in 2005 and contains satirical facts about actor, martial artist and legend Chuck Norris. It’s entirely run, maintained, and promoted by fans. The result? It’s become a cult phenomenon, transforming Mr. Norris into one of the biggest celebrities on the Web. It’s earned mentions on all the nighttime talk shows, has been spoofed in songs and was even turned into a Facebook application. It has empowered the Chuck Norris brand so much that Chuck Norris himself has begun contributing to the site, picking his favorites and sharing in the fun. Had Chuck Norris tried to create a site dedicated to faux facts about himself it would have been mocked. But because his fans did it and he supported it, It’s beloved.

3. It makes you look oh-so-cool when you empower them:

Pulling a Chuck Norris and supporting the people who support you makes you relatable. It makes you appear humble and friendly and like your fans. People like people who like them back. When you support your fans, it makes them want to keep supporting you.

Stephen Colbert. You know him. You love him. And he had nothing to do with the Twitter account that was created in his name (there’s actually a few these days). But he has vocally supported it. He’s empowered the person behind it to keep at it, to keep building the Colbert brand and to continue making people laugh in his name. And with over 350,000 followers, one could say it’s taken off and become pretty successful. Stephen does have a real account at @stephenathome but, frankly, it’s not nearly as entertaining.  And it’s not as powerful as the account created by one his fans. That’s the one people relate to.

The Cons.

1. Even the well-intentioned can do harm.

No good deed goes unpunished and often just because someone meant to give you a hand, doesn’t mean they won’t accidentally torch the place. Do you really want to give a stranger that much power with your brand?

Exxon Mobile had a problem last summer when Janet created the ExxonMobileCorp Twitter account and began fielding questions, talking about how money was being spent and dishing about the Exxon Valdez. Seemed neat enough, until we all learned that “Janet” didn’t actually work for Exxon. She just registered the account and pretended she did. Fail.

Seth Godin had a similar issue when the @SethGodin Twitter account (which once had 5,000+ fans) started getting called out for angering fans.  There were complaints that Seth didn’t value his followers because he refused to follow them back or engage with them. Of course, “Seth Godin” wasn’t actually the real Seth. It was just a fan trying to pay homage. What he did, however, was cause a mess that the real Seth had to clean up.

2. Sometimes “fans” like to exploit you.

Of course, not everyone is well-intentioned. When you fail to get active on social media, you give those with an ax to grind a chance to brandjack your name to embarrass you, vilify you, or most often, simply exploit you.

As you read this, someone is holding the Walt Disney World Twitter account hostage. The resource site Startup Nation had a college student attempt to extort them for $15,000. And these situations are only becoming more prominent and damaging. Brands who were late to get involved are now spending thousands seeking ways to protect their brands and prevent cases of brandjacking and “twitterjacking”. And the bigger the brand, the higher the bounty on your username. By not getting involved in social media, unless you take steps to prevent it, you often leave your brand open to attack.

3. You fracture your community.

People yearn to talk about the brands they love. And if you don’t create a centralized place for them to do that, you leave room for dozens of splinter accounts to sprout up in your name. It may seem like an okay idea, but all it really does is dilute the efforts of your fans. It spreads out conversations. It makes it harder for people to engage. And it severely weakens the accounts they create.

Take Miller Lite. If you’re a fan, do you join @millerliteiowa, @genbev or one of the many other accounts? Likely, you join none. They’re not legitimate looking and the followers are too spread out to be effective. If you want to support the Library of Congress, fans are divided across three Fan pages and more than a handful Facebook groups. Which is legit? Which can people trust? If you don’t tell them, they don’t know and they’re less likely to engage on a regular basis. You fracture the community before you even have one.

It’s possible that your fans will do your social media work while you sit back and do nothing, but it’s just as likely that being passive will come back to haunt you.  Instead, find ways to work with your audience and to empower them to get loud on your behalf. Work together to combine their passion and realness with your goals for your company.  If that doesn’t work. Call Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris is suing MySpace for taking the name of what he calls everything around him. True fact.

Microsites are a tool that is seldom used in many SEO’s toolbox. In this article we’ll take a look at some pro’s and con’s of using a microsite, when is the best time to use a microsite and a few examples of microsites.
First let’s define what a microsite is: a microsite a small website that is on a separate domain from a main domain, has narrowly topic or content, that is different from a companies main website. Generally speaking microsites will be in the 1-10 page range, although they can be more. Microsites usually exist as part of a separate marketing campaign, company project or agenda.

Some of the benefits of a microsite are as follows:

• Ability to have a different look, feel, or editorial style from a main company website.
• Ability to step outside of normal production, and approval channels, publish and update content quicker and easier.
• Ability to appear less commercial, and more engaging to social media audiences.
• Ability to saturate SERP’s with additional domains.

However there are also several downsides to using microsite some of them are as follows:

• Starting a brand new domain with no trust and authority, can prove difficult or more time consuming to rank than content on main domain.
• Projects, agendas or marketing campaigns can often have limited lifespan, however the domain must be maintained long term or rolled back into the main domain.
• Controversial or edgy the content that is radically different from existing company expectations, can create negative press.

Next let’s take a look at some examples of microsites. One well known company who makes extensive use of microsites is Burger King. Your results may slightly depending on your location and how close to the time this article was written and you do a search for the term [Burger King] so I’ve included a screen shot from the time I wrote this article. As you can see Burger King has 4 microsites in the first 10 results for its name (BKCareers.com, www.clubbk.com, www.bkscholars.scholarshipamerica.org, www.subservientchicken.com) so you can immediately see the value of controlling multiple positions in the SERP’s. BKCareers is obviously enough about jobs, careers, and franchise owner opportunities with Burger King. ClubBK.com has content that is geared towards children with games and other interactive activities. BKScholars is a scholarship initiative from 2007. What’s interesting about the BKScholars page is it’s a placeholder with a link to where the content has been permanently relocated to, however the placeholder page retains all of its link equity, and still occupies a place in the SERP’s. The last SubsurvientChicken.com is probably a microsite implementation you are most familiar with. The Subservient Chicken website was part of a marketing campaign to introduce a new chicken sandwich in 2004. The page features a person in a chicken costume who tries to do whatever you type in the box.

The chicken does things like sing, dance, swim, roll over and so on. As a side note when the campaign launched Burger King monitored the input, went back and added new actions based on user requests, giving people a reason to come back after their initial visit.

However not all of Burger King’s microsites have been successes. If you visit page 2, you’re likely to see some of their more controversial efforts, like Whopper Sacrifice and Whopper Virgins. The Whopper Virgins campaign centered around the concept of giving people who had never been exposed to any fast food marketing, or tasted a fast food hamburger, a taste test to see which hamburger they preferred. Burger King was criticized for feeding fast food to people who had never experienced it before, and where largely unaware of it’s questionable health and nutritional value. The Whopper Sacrifice centered around a Facebook campaign, getting people to remove (IE sacrifice) friends to receive a coupon for a free whopper. The campaign created a lot of debate and was eventually removed by Facebook citing privacy concerns.

Having looked at few examples when should an SEO decide to use a microsite strategy?

• Are you trying to reach social media audiences, and can you create a microsite that has content that is more engaging than it would be on the main domain or subdomain?
• Will the campaign/website be popular enough to generate enough trust and authority, through link equity to support itself?
• Will you be able to maintain the microsite of the long term, or roll it into the main site easily after the campaign is over?
• Do you need a microsite to secure an additional listing as part of a larger online reputation management (ORM) campaign?

If you answered yes to most of these questions a microsite is something you should consider making part of your overall SEO strategy.

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times: How do you create viral content? The question itself gives the impression that creating viral content is as simple as plugging some information into a formula and voila you’ve gone viral. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple.

See, going viral requires doing all the right things plus catching lightning in a bottle. In other words, it’s an inexact science at best, but there are certainly several things you can do to increase your chances of going viral.

Here are some tips to get you started.

1.    Identify your goals—What’s the purpose of your viral campaign? Are you looking to promote a new product your company is launching? Or are you simply trying to build inbound links for your site? Knowing what it is that you’re trying to accomplish plays a key role in determining the type and format of the content you’ll create.

2.    Do your research—Before you blindly create a piece of content for the sake of going viral, spend a little time studying what it is that makes content go hot. One easy way to do this is to visit a site like Digg or ReddIt. Take a look at the front page to see which stories and videos have been shared the most. Take a look at the headlines, the subject matter, and the tone of the content to identify common themes. Also, pay attention to those annoying email FWDs you get from co-workers and family. Those are viral too, and you need to figure out what it is that makes people pass those along.

3.    Have a network in place—Viral marketing is like the snowball effect. It starts off small, and as it keeps rolling, it gets bigger and bigger and spreads faster and faster. To get that snowball rolling, you need to have a network in place who can help you spread your content. Social media power users and fellow bloggers make for great allies in pushing your content.

4.    Make it easy to understand and to share—Going back to the earlier point about those email FWDs we all know and love, the reasons they go viral so easily is because the content is easy to understand and even easier to share (simply fwd it to your address book). Whether the content you’re trying to make go viral is a blog post or a flash game, make it easy for new users to instantly understand and simple for them to share with their friends (social bookmarking buttons are a good start).

5.    Focus on the headline—One thing you’ll notice when you visit Digg or Reddit is that most of the stories that hit the front page have headlines that instantly make you want to click on them. Copyblogger has a great resource for writing powerful headlines.

6.    Host a contest—A contest with a worthwhile prize is almost always a lock for achieving some level of viralism (okay, I made that word up). Recently, I came across a contest being co-hosted by a prominent web hosting company and a well-known tech blog giving away an iPhone every day for a month. To enter for the day, all participants had to do was send out a ReTweet about the contest. In other words, the only way they could have a chance to win the iPhone was to help further spread the message of the contest, thus making the contest go viral.

7.    Make sure you have a good hosting plan—Speaking of web hosting, before you launch any viral campaign, you’d better be certain you have a good hosting plan in place. Should you be lucky enough to hit the front page of ReddIt or to go hot on Twitter, you’ll have thousands of visitors every hour. Check with your hosting company to make sure your server is capable of handling this surge of traffic.

Have you had any success with viral marketing? Share your stories in the replies.

When designing your marketing material, you’ll notice that creating all the elements of the design can take a lot of time. To save yourself some time on often-used design elements, these free Photoshop brushes should be very useful. These 20 sets are some of the most commonly used design items, all for free!

1. Silhouettes brushes

Want to include people in your marketing material, these should satisfy you.

2. Futuristic abstract brushes

Are you in some high-tech industry? If so you these futuristy brushes will give you the high-tech look that you need.

3. Modern shapes & pictograms

These shapes are exactly what you need if you are looking for an edgy design.

4. Sparkles brushes

The perfect brushes to add just a little shine to your material marketing.

5. High-resolution ornaments

A fine set of brushes to decorate anything: website header, event flyer,…

6. Matrix effect

Give your your marketing material the futuristic look it deserves by emulating the Matrix effect.

7. Hands, feet & fingerprints

Another useful set of commonly used items.

8. Line swirls

Those swirls will definitly add some style to your design.

9. Bubble brushes

Give a light touch to your marketing material.

10. Female dancing

There nothing wrong about making your promotion a little sexier.

11. Snowflakes brushes

Obviously much more useful in the winter.

12. Cute doodles

Those doodle brushes are perfect if you need a cute way to communicate.

13. Halftones brushes

Create some cool retro effects with these halftone brushes.

14. Cityscapes brushes

Cool urban landscapes and elements.

15. Smoke brushes

Ever tried to take a picture of smoke? This will make your life much easier if you want to add some smoke effect.

16. Twisted brushes

A very graphical effect, for cool and futuristic topics.

17. People silhouettes

Even more silhouettes, with more action this time.

18. Little stars

This will allow you to add some magic to your designs.

19. Infinite explosion

Another amazing effects brush set, really cool.

20. Watercolor brushes

If you need your marketing material to look a bit more arty, these are your brushes.

About the author: Mirko Humbert publishes a popular design blog and a CSS gallery, you can also find him on Twitter.