Traditionally QR Codes are just scannable versions of lengthy URLs that would be impractical to try and market in the real world. As a result many marketers don’t see the need to place QR Codes on the Internet when they already have clickable URLs available for online users.

Although, this does not mean that QR Codes can’t have an impact online. In fact they’ve actually began to converge with Internet video in an exceptionally strong way. With this bond only getting stronger and more popular on the web, this article aims to find out precisely how best to use QR Codes to market Internet video.

Using QR Codes Within Internet Video
There are two key uses of QR Codes with Internet video; using QR Codes within Internet video and Using QR Codes to market Internet video.

There’s much debate over the inclusion of QR codes within Internet videos due to that fact that QR Codes can be easily swapped for URLs to achieve the exact same result. However, QR Codes are for a Smart Phone market, and Smart Phones are yet to become universal. That means that there’s still users out there getting a new Smart Phone who will excitedly want to use the features it provides, such as QR Code scanning.

Never underestimate the power of novelty value that’s surrounding the tools of Smart Phones. It’s a concept that will stay with the device until it reaches worldwide saturation, which it’s further away from doing then some might think.

By playing on this unique nature of QR Codes, marketers can ensure that users scanning their codes within Internet videos will pay close attention to the material that generates as a result of the scan.

The guys and gals at Mighty Wallet used this unique power of QR Codes in the Internet video marketing campaigns of their wallets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPjq8qdpgeI&feature=player_embedded

Now the downside to this Mighty Wallet ad is that it’s a repurposed Television ad rather than a specific online ad. The repurposed ad was made to reach a wider online audience, not just regional TV viewership. The concept to note is the clever call to action for the QR Code, which means that users will be even more inclined to scan the code than perhaps they would were it just a typical QR Code placement.

Hyundai also take this approach in a far more creative QR Code creation, whilst promoting the codes placement in the local newspaper. Unfortunately the indication of where to look out for the code is severely stunted by showing the code already in the video. Regardless of that slip up the viral potential this video has with its creation of the code, will certainly have boosted the awareness of the campaign and generated a substantial amount of QR Code scans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U53YWmleTGs&feature=player_embedded

Eventually the novelty of QR Code scanning may wear off, which will make its placement within Internet videos very rare. Unique ways of using the codes within videos will perhaps still be able to create a large amount of scans, but in time the relationship between QR Codes and Internet video will shift towards the second key use of QR Codes – marketing Internet video using QR Codes.
Using QR Codes To Market Internet Video
QR Codes are used to market just about anything, from events and special offers to websites and of course videos. The use of the QR Code differs here because the code is being used on and offline to promote certain media. Although the essence of using QR Codes because they are new, exciting and quirky ways to get users to check out online media is still the same. In time this quirkiness may fade, but for now QR Codes are marketing Internet videos in some very innovative ways:

Musician Jessica Lea Mayfield uses QR Codes on concert posters to ensure audiences come and check out her performances by linking the code to her music video. By using the popularity of Internet video and the effortless nature of the QR Code scan, the performer has helped to strengthen the power of her print-based campaign:

http://tommartin.typepad.com/positive_disruption/2011/05/how-to-use-qr-codes-in-marketing.html

It’s not just DIY performers who are utilising the powerful convergence of QR Codes and Internet video, so too are Calvin Klein Jeans:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_N559yMLZc

Three similar QR Code billboards were created to get users to check out the ‘uncensored’ version of their Jeans advertisement on the web. A large placement of a QR Code like this will certainly boost brand awareness and maximise the amount of scans, which will in turn optimise the amount of views for their Internet video ad.

The majority of Smart Phones that scan a link directly for a YouTube video will instantly bring up the video on screen allowing the user to go from scan to view extremely quickly. This speed allows users to see a brand and pick up its message easily and effectively. This will make the connection between the brand and the viewer much stronger as a result of the quick, user-friendly interface.

With Internet video being one of the most popular forms of media on the web, linking QR Codes to videos is quite possibly the most powerful combination of QR Code and media out there. Websites and text based media could potentially be far too daunting to digest on a small Smart Phone screen, whereas a video is a perfect fit for the Smart Phone platform.

Summary
The powerful convergence between QR Codes and Internet video essentially comes down to the popularity of the video media, videos ability to fit perfectly onto a Smart Phone screen, the ease of use to go from QR Code scan to video content, and the curiosity both QR Codes and video play buttons provide to a viewer. Utilising this connection both inside Internet videos and in order to market Internet videos will be an exceptional marketing benefit for any blog, brand or business in any niche.

About The Author
Andy Havard is a Marketing Executive at Skeleton Productions, a UK based Internet video production company.

The user can edit the already uploaded videos and the videos will retain the same video IDs so that the counts and comments are not lost. All the links remain the same as well. The user has to click on the “Edit Video” button on his video’s page or the My Videos page. This feature enables the user to edit the videos in a shorter time frame.

YouTube wants that the users be given the ability to polish their videos and the edit feature is part of that initiative. A majority of the YouTube videos are rough amateur footage and this will give the amateur enthusiasts to add a touch of professionalism to their work.

The Edit option enables the user to stabilize hand-held footage, rotate the videos and enhance the colors and contrast. There is an “I’m Feeling Lucky” feature as well that enables one click colour correction.

The team has worked with the Picnik (the online image editing tool) team which Google acquired last year to add artistic effects that enable the user to add filters such as black and white and cartoon effects to the videos. The user can even swap the audio and can chose from a selection of available tracks. The user has the option of trimming the video as well if it is too lengthy ay the beginning or the end.

Once the editing is complete, the user can click on the save button and the processing will start. If you are not happy with the results, you can go back to the original version. There is an option to of saving multiple versions as well.  But videos that have more than 1000 views or third party content, can only be saved in the new version.

Make sure you give him some props on his amazing job!

Image Credit

In the olden days we could count on Google to update the PageRank around four times a year but for the past year or so now Google hasn’t seemed as keen with this latest June update being just the second of this year. This alone almost proves that even Google is down playing the important of PageRank.

Let’s start at the beginning, what is PageRank?

PageRank is effectively Google giving your site a score out of ten. Google claims they use over 200 different factors in determining PageRank and as with all things Google when it comes to specifics; they keep those factors pretty close to their chest. It’s also worth pointing out that the actual PageRank and the Toolbar PageRank are two different metrics. PageRank does not equal popularity and it does not have a direct effect on rankings.

So why update the PageRank?

Google have made a few drastic changes to their algorithm over the last couple of months with the most notable being the panda update. Google makes hundreds of small tweaks to it’s algorithm over the course of the year and for the most part they’ll go largely unnoticed. Due to the fact the panda update received so much attention it stands to reason they’d update the PageRank to coincide with updates and amends websites have made as a result of this latest round of updates.

The main focus of the panda update was to weed out some of the less useful content floating around the web and sites with duplicate content, or content available from other sources around the web found themselves heavily hit by this update. Sites like article depositaries and review sites saw a lot of their positions drop overnight.

Another thing that’s always been a big no no in Google’s eyes is buying and selling links. Although this can be technically hard to prove if you have a site with a collection of links placed off to the side of a page and one link is for ice cream, the next is for IT solutions and then you’ve got a couple of Viagra links and one for prescription drugs they’re going to look paid for and dodgy whether they were or not.

Why has your PageRank dropped?

If you’re PageRank has dropped by one or two this doesn’t mean you’ve got to panic (which I appreciate is easier said than done if you’ve just gone from a PR 5 to a PR2 overnight). Unless you’ve done something dramatically dodgy the chances are you’re not going to suddenly start seeing all your positions plummet.

The most logical reason for a drop in PR is because the sites that are linking to you have seen a drop in their PR so they’re not passing as much link juice through to you any more. Look back over your linking campaign; have you been participating in paid linking of any kind? Do you use paid review sites? Do you still do article spinning or article marketing of any kind? Do any of your previously most powerful sites that were linking to you use these methods?

What next?

Unfortunately dropped page rank is not like receiving a penalty from Google, you can’t post a submission request asking Google to re-evaluate your PageRank, you simply have to wait for the next update. That gives you plenty of time to work on your site. If you have just been plodding along with the same SEO tactics you’ve been using for years now would be a really good time to evaluate these methods, what worked five years ago or even one year ago isn’t necessarily going to produce the same results today.

Go back to basics; look at your site as if it were a brand new project. Fix all the things you’ve been ignoring on your to do list and be really critical of those niggly little things you think probably wont make that much difference. Once you’re sure you’ve got the on site as spot on as possible start evaluating your link building tactics. If you’ve been taking short cuts and indulging in paid linking now is the time to stop. Take the time and put the effort in; go out and find those good quality website that are reputable in Google’s eyes and figure out a way to get a link from them. Offer them a guest post for their blog, run a sensible survey and offer them the results, send them one of your products or a sample of your services and ask them to review them. Look at doing some online PR or think of a really good competition or special offer, come up with a gimmick that no one else in your industry is doing to generate some natural links. You won’t get something for nothing, if you want those links you have to have something credible to offer in return.

If you concentrate on genuinely good SEO you’ll not only see your PageRank increase in the next update but in the mean time you’ll see better positions and more traffic too.

For more information on digital marketing or internet statistics check out eConsultancy

I wanted to make a quick announcement that I will be hosting a free webinar with Daniel Lew (creator of Keyword Winner and GSEO.net)

Webinar Details

Title: Search Engine Rankings Followed by Sustainable Quality Traffic for Automated Income

Date: Wednesday, June 1st, 2011 at 9:00pm EST

Daniel: will explain the in’s and out’s on how to get killer traffic through blog posting, creating niche sites, being an authority and building trust to potential buyers and how he makes a living from the internet which results in financial freedom. (Daniel Lew is the founder of GSEO.net, Creator of Keyword Winner)

Mark: will cover various techniques he uses from niche site creation and blogging and building email lists and how he too makes a living from the internet in the comfort of his own home.

Special: Make sure you hang around near the end of the Webinar for some bonus goodies!

Register Now!

Register: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/720417398

This is only available for the first 1,000 registrants, so hurry and register and save your seat!

If you may have missed the sneak peak post about List Eruption, let me introduce the new WordPress plugin that will help to rapidly grow your email marketing list!  This plugin and functionality is the main reason how I was able to build a list of over 2,000 subscribers in under 1 month!

What List Eruption Can Do?

List Eruption is a WordPress plugin that allows you to grow your email marketing list on basically auto-pilot.  It leverages each of your subscribers to help grow your list FOR YOU.  The plugin is a combination of a referral management system and social media promotion tool, to allow each subscriber to WANT to promote whatever you are offering.

>> Get List Eruption Now [Time-Sensitive Discount]

How It Works [Simplified]:

1. Opt-In: A visitor Opts-In to your list
2. Thank You Page: The subscriber goes to a Thank You Page, where they are provided a unique referral URL, along with various sharing options to promote whatever they just signed up for.
3. Bonus Rewards: The subscriber is presented with bonus rewards they can receive for referring their network of friends to join your list.
4. Multiply Effect: Each subscriber is enticed to tell their friends in order to receive bonuses, which in turn gains new referred subscribers who will be presented with the same reward offer.

The great thing about this system is you have FULL control over what the reward bonuses are and how many reward levels you want to create.

For example, this could be a sample of the referral system you setup within List Eruption:

• REWARD LEVEL 1: After 5 Referrals = Receive “Top 50 Tweeter Secrets Revealed” [PDF]
• REWARD LEVEL 2: After 20 Referrals = Receive Free Invitation to “5 Internet Marketers Share Success Secrets” [Webinar]
• REWARD LEVEL 3: After 50 Referrals = Receive “Premium SEO WordPress Theme” [Product]

As you can see, you have full flexibility over how many referrals they need for each reward level and what you offer your subscribers.  Each reward is sent to them automatically by email once they reach their reward level.

This referral system has been proven to leverage each subscriber and turn every Opt-In into 5, 10, 50, 100 new subscribers!!

>> Get List Eruption Now [Time-Sensitive Discount]

Features Galore!

Now that you understand how the system works, let me show you all the features and functionality that are built into List Eruption.  Each of the features that we added to this plugin were added to make this plugin extremely user-friendly and to INCREASE CONVERSIONS.

• Email Provider Integration: Works with Aweber, MailChimp, Get Response, iContact and Constant Contact
• Pre-Designed Landing Pages: Feel free to use one of our pre-designed landing pages that have been proven to convert OR use your own WordPress theme
• Opt-In Widget: Add a Opt-In widget to your blog sidebar for additional conversions
• Set Multiple Reward Levels: Set as many reward levels as you would like
• Automated Email Reminders: A email reminder system that reminds each subscribe to continue to refer more people to receive their next reward level.
• Social Sharing: Each subscriber can share their referral URL and pre-populated message on Twitter and Facebook with the push of a button
• Monitoring: Monitor your subscribers, referrals by each subscriber and reward levels each has reached all within WordPress

Best part about it is there is no technical knowledge required!

Fact-Action Special Discount

For the first 7 days ONLY, I am giving everyone a special discount on List Eruption.  After the 7 day launch period is up, I will be increasing the price.

>> Get List Eruption Now [Time-Sensitive Discount]

List Building Essentials – Tip #5

Social Media is a great way to build relationships with like-minded people.  It can also be a GOLDMINE for building a list.  For Twitter in particular, whenever someone starts following you, that is a great opportunity to not only introduce yourself, but to hit them with value.

I have a few different Twitter profiles in the different niches that I am active in and I have an automated message that introduces myself and gives them a link to a free report that is relevant to the industry.  I know some of you are saying well that is not really personable if you are sending out an automated reply to them.  I agree, that is is not as personable, but given my current situation I simply don’t have the time to manually message every new Twitter follower I get.  If you can write a personal tweet to each new follower, go for it…but I feel that 1 automated tweet doesn’t hurt.  Also if you are providing them with a free piece of value, they should have no problem at all.

Here are a few examples of auto-replies I have used that work well.

1. Thanks for the follow!  Odds are you LOVE [niche] like I do, so make sure you download [free content].
2. Nice to meet you!  Check out my [free content]…would love your feedback on how I cam improve it.
3. Followed back : )  Check out my [blog/website] and how I was able to [problem you solved].

Auto-Reply Services

You are going to need a Twitter auto-reply service to handle this for you.  Luckily there are only like 500 services to choose from.  Personally I use TweetAdder, because of all the other features it has, but there are plenty of free services out there you can try.

• Tweeting Machine (free)
• Twitter DMer (free)
• Social Oomph (free – $29.95/month)
• Tweet Adder ($55 – $188)

** Tip:  If you really want to grow your list fast with this method, you can mass auto-follow people based on keywords in their profile (not necessarily recommended) which will help grow your following and subscribers faster.

REMINDER: List Eruption Exclusive Discount [Sign-Up Now]

Make sure if you haven’t already, to sign-up for the List Eruption launch so you get emailed a direct link to the special offer on launch day.

<< Click Here to Get Your Discount on List Eruption >>

List Building Essentials – Tip #4

Facebook Advertising is becoming a primary source of high quality paid traffic.  The biggest different between Adwords and FB Ads is in Google Adwords you are geo-targeting and bigging on specific keywords.  With Facebook Ads your targeting options are based more around peoples likes and dislikes.  Also, with FB, the CPC/CPM prices are MUCH lower than if you were bidding in Adwords.   This is simply because the platform is not as saturated with advertisers.

What does this mean?

As a marketer you can ONLY show ads to people who are interested in what you are trying to sell them.  Let’s do a quick exercise and actually setup a campaign in Facebook and show how you could start driving qualified traffic to your squeeze page for MORE SUBSCRIBERS!.

For this example, we will be promoting the free 10 Week Internet Marketing course that I offer.

Step 1:   Create Your Campaign >> Go to http://www.facebook.com/ads/

Step 2:  Creat Your Ad

This is simply where you are going to add your 3 lines of copy that you will use to entice the user in clicking your ad.  Unlike Adwords, you also will have the benefit of a image next to your copy that can really help improve CTR.  You also have the option of sending people directly to your offer or landing page.

Step 3:  Targeting Options

So probably the most important step in making sure we are driving high quality traffic to our landing page.

With the Facebook Ad Platform, we can target users who “Like” or are Fans of certain Fan Pages.  With that being said you want to try and target fan pages that are similar to yours or what your offer talks about.  For this example, I know that people like “Ryan Deiss” “Jeff Johnson” and “Tim Atkinson” are all big time Internet/Affiliate Marketers that have a large following.  If I tried targeting small time marketers it probably wouldn’t return enough users to drive a good amount of traffic back to my landing page.  This is why I want to target the bigger marketers who have lots of fans.

Under the “Interests” section, I can start typing their names in the box and Facebook will display their Fan Pages (if they have one).  As you can see just from these 3 fan pages alone, I am targeting over 32,000 people.  I could of course expand on this to include a large sample size, but I think you get the point now.

What this now means is that our ads are only going to show to people who are fans of these specific Fan Pages.  We can be pretty sure if they are fans of these pages, that they would be interested in my 10 week marketing course.

Step 4:  Set Your Daily Budget

Now that you have created your ad, set the targeting options, you are ready to set a budget for your campaign.  There are a number of Facebook bidding strategies, but I didn’t want to dive into that for this quick example.  I just wanted to show you how easy it is to setup a ad and target high quality traffic back to your landing page.

If you have the budget, this is an extremely powerful way to grow your list quickly.

REMINDER: List Eruption Exclusive Discount (Launch May 3rd at 10:00am)

Make sure if you haven’t already, to sign-up for List Eruption updates so you get a emailed a direct link to the special offer on launch day.

<< Click Here to Get Your Discount on List Eruption >>

Let us have a brief look at the Alexa rankings (as on 11th April, 2011) of MySpace.

Global Traffic Ranking: 72
US Traffic Ranking: 39
Time on Site: 4.21
Bounce Rate: 42.90

Now, let us also check the Alexa Rankings (as on 11th April, 2011) of Facebook.

Global Traffic Ranking: 2
US Traffic Ranking: 2
Time on Site: 33.67
Bounce Rate: 15.30

As it is obvious from the above statistics that MySpace has completely lost its stickiness, which is currently just 4.21, as compared to Facebook’s whooping 33.67. Certainly, Facebook has overtaken MySpace by all means in terms of unique number of users per month, pageviews and time on site.

Around January-February last year, MySpace had around 95 million unique users, which plummeted to 63 million around the same time this year. So, the social internet king of its time lost around 32 million users in a year. And News Corporation, MySpace’s parent company must really be worried to see the figures going down repeatedly.

When did matters take a serious turn?
If you remember, MySpace was acquired by News Corp for a sum of $580 million in July of 2005. And this is the time after which situations started to deteriorate, because News Corp’s primary motive was to earn more and more revenue from advertising, rather than focusing on the backend part of the social networking website to continuously improve user experience (which is what Facebook has actually been doing uptil now).

The Revamped MySpace Came to the Rescue!
As things began to get out of control, strategic planning was done to revamp the features of the social networking website. The revamped interface was launched with a view to making MySpace a ‘social entertainment destination’. Many of us thought that the new design of MySpace would give rise to a new direction. With the overhaul, the social networking website announced to engage the generation Y audience with a dosage of entertainment. And the rest is history!

Reasons for Failure
Ask users and they will tell you why they are no more glued to MaySpace. Some of the key reasons behind this social networking website’s failure are as follows.

It did not continuously focus on enhancing user experience.
It was slow to embrace advanced technologies like Ajax, instant messaging, email address import programs etc.
Flashy links and plenty of ads overwhelm people.
The blogging format irritates users.
Marketers have blown it up with ‘spammy marketing’.

So, is News Corp planning to sell off MySpace before it’s too late?

What do you say? Can MySpace rise up to glory once again? Are there any other reasons behind MySpace becoming a failure? Please feel free to share your experiences about using MySpace and why you said goodbye to this social networking platform. Or are you brand loyal (funny, eh)?

Now, about 15 years later….look at how different and more complex the Internet has become.

The evolution of Search Engines, online shopping, communication, and content delivery has changed the way we live our lives.  Now-days whatever you wanted to buy or do in real life, you can do online.  If you want to buy a car go to AutoTrader.com, if you wanted to buy a house just search Trulia.com, if you want to buy a pair of jeans go to Gap.com.

Just take a look at the web technology timeline over just the last 10 years.

Probably the biggest changes over the last 5 years or so is obviously the evolution of Social Media.  Even though Instant Messaging and social networks have been around for probably 10 years now, it has only been in the last 3-5 years, that is has really become mainstream as people’s primary source for connecting with friends, family and co-workers.  The all mighty Facebook will basically tell you anything you would like to know about a person and provide you instant access to millions of people.

The power of social media has transformed the web into something AMAZING!  It gives people the ability to connect with other like-minded people and share their knowledge and experiences instantly!

Where Will the Internet Be in 2025?

I can only imagine what the internet will be like in 5, 10, 20 years from now.  It is growing at such a rapid pace, that it is almost impossible to keep up with.

If I had to guess, I would have to bank on mobile becoming a much bigger part of how people access the internet.  As mobile devices become better and more sophisticated, people will be able to multi-task and do more with them.

I also believe that TV, Internet and Phone will mesh into one super communication tool, where you will be able use any of these platforms through one main interface.  Things like Radio, TV, Movies, Gaming will all be real-time.  No need to buy new games or cds…you can just access these things in real-time through the web.

I see one potential problem being that there will be more spam and ways to saturate the Internet with for lack of a better work “crap”.  With the invention of new types of web sites and technologies, there are always going to be people that want to spam or make a quick buck by leveraging vulnerabilities.

What Do You Think?

Where do you see the Internet in the next decade?  What types of technologies are we going to have?  How will people be communicating with each other?