28 Secrets For Achieving Viral Collaborative Value (VCV)

Viral Collaborative Value (VCV) is the value your content brings to the social community which it serves. With valuable content focused on a specific social community, you will create a viral instinct for the content to be shared. The money will come through building value for your community. The optimization of web site content for social collaboration is about providing value for a community through good tools, portability and aggregation. In the Web 2.0 world, value is derived from social collaboration by aggregating that content into a social community. To achieve Viral Collaborative Value you need to: *Collect Email Addresses! You need to collect as many as possible. Email your list each week. *Be contactable. Put your contact information on every page of your site. *Be active in your web community. Be active everyday in your social community. *Be a giver. Make sure that you are constantly giving value to others without the hope of receiving. *Stay motivated. Make sure you are at the top of your game in positive energy. *Be in the know. Don’t be just active. Be active with purpose. Are you just going through the motions? Have a pulse on this community. *Create content of value. Make sure that the content you are creating is valuable to others. *Make every interaction a valuable one. Every time you interact with someone through a message board, podcast, or blog post your content should be right on. *Have patience! It takes time. *Get off your high horse! Not everyone is where you are, make sure you can bring them there. *Have Integrity. Don’t offer something you don’t believe in. Don’t recommend something you haven’t used yourself. *Have Wow Factor! Make sure people say Wow! every time they hear from you. *Go above and beyond. If it’s as good as the other guys, it’s a loser. Make sure you are adding value above that of your competition. *Make it easy for people to share with others. Add buttons to your content that allow people to share your content with social sites like Digg, Technorati, Furl to name a few. *Make it fresh! Don’t let your content get stale. Go back and read your own stuff, change it. *Submit yourself! Submit your content to social bookmarking web sites and search engines. Be the first to get your content out there. Make sure every time you post to your blog you are pinging the world. *Reward those that link to you! Drop them a bone by either selectively linking back to them or by doing it in some ever changing short list of top linkers to your content. *Reward users who contribute! Create a community points systems. Sometimes being at the top of a list is all a person needs. *Podcast! You should have a podcast running right now. *Blog! Where is your blog? You need one. *Forums! You need forums on your web site. *Make it portable! Your content needs to be portable to others. If you allow others to share your content in the way of podcasts, video, PDF or similar portable formats you will be able to create a viral type marketing effect for your web site. *Make it useable by others! If you provide some type of syndication so others can use your content. One great way to do this is through the creation of articles that others can post of their web site, as long as your BIO with your link remains in tact in the article. Make it easy for others to include your podcasts or videocasts into their web site. *Help others make money! Affiliate program for your products. *Aggregate to infinity and beyond! Become the aggregation source. Turn part of your site into a message board, wiki or other social aggregation platform where the value is in the aggregation of the content. *Tools! Be an active user in your own tools. Drink your own cool aid. Eat your own dog food. Make sure what you are providing is of real value and if it’s not change it. You are the master of your own tools. *Measure! Measure! Measure! Figure out what is being used and what is not. *Try something new! Don’t be afraid to fail. Make sure you get the basics down and start trying new things.