Have you ever wondered why certain online digital marketing campaigns go viral? As part of our MSc Marketing course at Salford Business School we created a video and tested how Jonathan Berger’s STEPS concept works in real life projects.

We were introduced to Jonathan Berger’s idea of STEPS during our Search and Social Media Marketing module guest speaker’s Denise Brooks presentation.  Berger suggested that going viral is not just luck, its science based on psychology of talk.

Jonathan Berger’s STEPS concept

The key 6 STEPS in creating a viral video using Jonathan Berger’s idea of STEPS are:

Are you new to digital marketing and interested in launching a viral campaign? Then you could learn something from our experience in running a viral campaign as part of our Search and Social Media Marketing module. This module is shared by MSc Marketing and Salford MBA postgraduate students at Salford Business School.

Launching a viral campaign is a great cost-effective way to connect with a wide and otherwise unreachable audience. The only real barrier to entry in this context is being able to construct an engaging idea.

As we all want a piece of that Google pie on the run up to Christmas time, I have put together a short guide to help you design and build an optimised ecommerce website design, just in time for Christmas.

On the First day of optimised ecommerce website build, my web master said to me, decide what you want your site to be:

The single biggest decision when starting out in ecommerce website design is deciding exactly what you want your site to achieve, your route to market and the specific products you wish to sell. These decisions will form the basis and will define the complete structure of your ecommerce website.

So that’s it then. Ten weeks have literally flown by (as they so often do) and it’s time to look back on what I’ve learned from the course. I’ve learned a lot in the last ten weeks, though admittedly many of the technical things like Google Analytics, click-through-rates and metatags are less relevant to me and have been difficult to fully understand. However, I’ve found the course to be unbelievably helpful in other respects – networking for one.

Digital Media Social Enterprise

Lets Go Global, currently celebrating our 10th anniversary, is about to become the first Trafford Council service to transition out of the local authority following the Cabinet Office supported Mutual Support Programme (MSP) and is setting up as an independent Social Enterprise. We combine art, education, film-making and digital development and training.

We’re going to be working with Make it Happen consultancy to develop our business and services so that we can create a sustainable future for our team and the work we do.

The internet is everywhere; we have it on our laptops, tablets and phones. We use it watch a film on the train, to shop for groceries from our living rooms and even to check our Facebook profiles before we get out of bed in the morning. So, for anyone looking to sell a product, advertise a service or simply tell the world your thoughts with a blog like this one, knowing how to get people to see what you are about is key to the success of your endeavours.

Hi Everyone!

As part of the SSMM course, I have decided to carry out a brief diagnosis of Salford University’s current online brand management from an international recruitment perspective and with a focus on social media engagement.

I am an experienced international marketer with a strong interest in search and social media marketing within an international context, more precisely within the field of Higher education. I started the course hoping that my academic background in intercultural business communication and current work experience would provide me with some foundation and inspiration for the implementation of SSMM to my current field.

I’ve seen the practise of SEO described as both an art and as a science, and indeed one of my primary considerations when enrolling on the SSMM course at the University of Salford was to ensure I received an authoritative, impartial, and academically applied grounding in the subject rather than a purely commercial one.

Tackling a new art or science project can seem very daunting though, and as the weeks rolled by and multiple layers of influence in the online marketing sphere were revealed, it dawned on me how search engine marketing has many parallels with the world of sport – the concepts of which I can understand much more easily. My sport is football (soccer, if you must), but I think the principles can be extended to virtually any sport you follow – let me know if I’m wrong!

The benefits of social learning

My name’s Zoe Breen and I’m producer of the WebWise a BBC* website which promotes adult digital literacy.

I’m also a blogger for Manchester Girl Geeks a group which aims to engage women and girls with science and technology.

Having produced websites for the BBC for 12 years I felt it was time I had a look at how my counterparts in the third sector and commercial worlds use search and social media marketing techniques.

A major perk of attending the Search and Social Media Marketing professional course at the University of Salford was the opportunity to network with people from a wide range of backgrounds.

I’m coming to the end of my time on the Search and Social Media Marketing course at the Universtiy of Salford and it’s time to look back and analyse what I’ve learned and how I can best put it to use at work.

Let me start off by introducing myself . I‘m Rachael and I currently work in a full mix marketing role for international student recruitment at the University of Salford. My role involves all elements of the marketing mix from marketing and advertising strategy to marketing communications to writing for the web to finally….social media!