Viral Marketing – An Easy Way to Spread the Word
Viral marketing is referred to a marketing technique which uses social networks to expand brand awareness and to achieve other marketing objectives. It can be delivered by a word of mouth or supported by the network effects of the internet. Viral marketing is done in the form of video clips, interactive flash games, averages, eBooks, brand able software, images or text messages.
The aim of marketers who take up viral marketing as a method to increase brand awareness and other objectives is to create messages that appeal to individuals with high social networking potential (SNP) and that have a high probability of being presented and spread by these individuals and their competitors in their communications with others in a short period of time. It is basically a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message.
To make viral marketing work, three basic criteria must be met, i.e., giving the right message to the right messengers in the right environment:
Messenger
To transform an ordinary message into a viral message, three specific types of messengers are required: market mavens, social hubs, and salespeople.
Market mavens are individuals who are information specialists; they are usually among the first to get to know the message and who spread it to their immediate social network.
Social hubs are people with a large number of social networks. They act as a link or bridge between different subcultures as they often know hundreds of different people.
Salespeople are the people who receive the message from the market mavens, enhance it my making it more appealing and moving and then forward it to the social hub for further distribution. Market mavens may not be particularly convincing in transmitting the information.
Message
Only a memorable, appealing and sufficiently interesting message to be passed on others is capable to encourage a successful and healthy viral marketing phenomenon. Minor adjustments can make a great change and bring about an expansion of ones viral marketing sphere.
Environment
Small changes in the environment strongly affect the results, and people are much more sensitive to environment. The timing and context of the campaign launch must be chosen intelligently.
Methods used for viral marketing are:
Customer participation & polling services Industry-specific organization contributions Internet search engines & blogs Mobile smartphone integration Multiple forms of print and direct marketing Outbound/inbound call center services Target marketing Web services Search engine optimization (SEO) web development Social media interconnectivity Television & radio
