Tell A Friend goes Free and Mainstream

I've just stumbled across (and no… I did not actually find this on StumbleUpon.com) a new Tell-A-Friend service that I feel has the potential to take the marketing world by storm. 

This is not the standard TAF system like you see on many sites.  You know the ones:

• Enter your name and email address
• Enter The names and email addresses of up to 5 friends
• Customize the note (if you like)
• Hit send and the page if shared.

 There are a few systems out there that add a few more bells and whistles to this basic concept.

Paul Galloway offers a fantastic application called Tell-A-Friend-Pro, otherwise known as TAFPro, that has a little advertised "Advanced" version.  This special version of his software adds a number of contest features that can be used to further entice prospects to share your product or service with their friends.  There are also some nice data passing aspects of this version that bring it up another notch in functionality.  We've used TAFPro (Advanced) for a number of clients in the fashion industry and enjoyed excellent results, growing their lists very rapidly.

Now, things have come a step even further as the coding wizards and the creative marketers have joined forces to create a whole new generation of the tell-a-friend concept.

If you've been involved in any of the major social media sites (i.e. FaceBook or LinkedIn) then you've seen this new technology in action. 

If you aren't sure what I'm talking about all it takes is popping into your FaceBook account and looking into adding more friends.  One of the options you are given is to log into one of a number of free email accounts and invite friends.

Once that is done, the system will pull in all of the contacts in your address book, identify which of them are already on FaceBook and ask you which you want to befriend, and then ask if you want to invite all contacts NOT yet members of FaceBook.

I don't know about you, but I have a VERY large list of people in my address book.

Hmmmm, could a system like this be a contributing factor to how rapidly FaceBook's membership has grown?

My friend, earlier this year this same TAF technology came out in the form of a number of software products that give anyone with a website the same Tell-a-friend capabilities.  OK, so that is great, but here is the downside… if you want to take advantage of this new technology to build your own lists, you're going to have to cough up $147 to get your hands on it.  This one is called ViralInviter and is the current king of the hill in terms of features.

Ah, but my headline said FREE didn't it?

Yes it did and the reason is that I have found a new product that does most of what these other more expensive products will do… and it's free!

This is an awesome, free, viral, list-building tool created and distributed by Social Twist.

The interface is super easy to use, has some level of choices and customization and is also about as easy to install on a website or blog as it possibly could be.

I configured and installed it on this blog as a plugin, designed for Wordpress.  Take a look around through my posts here and you'll notice that there is a cool looking tell-a-friend button at the end of every post.  If you want to see how it works, feel free to go ahead and share any of my posts that you feel others would want to know about.

That button you see there is not the only option either.  You get a variety of design and color choices as you see below.

I could go on and on here as you do get even more customization, including the look of the TAF form (which comes up in a very cool light-box), the email messages, which channels you want to offer, and more.  There is even a great stats reporting area.

On a final note, there are 4-5 different paid versions you can get if you have some specific commercial applications for this tool.  These different versions add some additional customization and abilities.  At present, the only way to get the pricing info is to email them and then have a phone call with one of their reps.  I'll be on the phone with them tomorrow.

I recommend you give Social Twist's Te!!-a-Friend a try and see what it can do to expand your business.

Now before you leave, I would like to ask you to do two things:

1. Leave a comment below and share your opinions on this post, TAF products, the evolution of TAF, etc.

2. Go ahead and click on the TAF button at the end of this post (just down below) and share this information with your friends.  They'll thank you for it.

That's all for now.

Onward & Upward!

Sam Knoll

(Here's that button)