Viral Marketing 101

Created by The Brand Shopwww.thebrandshop.com.au Prepared by Peter BrayDirector of Digital at The Brand Shop

Viral Marketing 101What it is, and examples of best practice

What is Viral Marketing?

• Viral is NOT a noun

• Content becomes viral. A content creator can try to create content that they hope becomes viral in effect, but until content starts to be passed on through word of mouth, it is not viral.

• This basic insight is why 95% of “viral” campaigns do not work – the viral effect is very difficult to manipulate

• Everyone want their campaigns to become viral, but often this is more by accident than design

• The internet is great for viral marketing, or word of mouth marketing, because it utilizes the power of networks.

Now for some maths (bear with me!)• For every person that is added to a network,

the power of that network increases by a factor of 1

• Intrinsic power of social circle = content to the power of n, where where n = number of members

• For example, if we have a network that has a content worth of 5, if this network has 2 members, the intrinsic content power value of network is 5 x 5 = 25

• Three members, is 5 x 5 x 5 = 125. Four members its 625!

• Each additional member makes the social circle so much more powerful, no wonder social networking is so important!.

• How do we measure the worth of content? No one has any idea!

For a concept to go viral . . .

• It needs to have a high chance of passed on.

• What most brands don’t understand is that consumers really care about your brand as much as you do, and over branding is usually the kiss of death for any potential viral effect

• But there are ways to maximize the likelihood of people not only liking the content, but letting others know about it too.

• Information is currency for everyone. For some the currency is social status, others it is being liked, but the act of passing on is usually feeding our own egos, even if we think we do it for altruistic reasons.

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So what are the commonalities for content that people want to share?

Elicit emotion

• Make people feel something, the stronger the better.

• Lover or hate, laughter or sorrow, people want to share emotional experience with others.

• Don’t try and make everybody happy

• Know your target market, as long as they feel emotion that is all that matters. Trying to engender feelings in everyone will result in a vanilla outcome – be bold!

Be different

• Everyone says that their product is great, and everyone is trying to be cool.

People remember quirky for a lot longer than they remember cool. That’s why we dress people up in chicken suits.

Stand out by doing something unexpected – be bold

HIDE THE BRAND – IT IS NOT ADVERTISING

• Overt branding kills most virals, with a few very notable exceptions.

• Understand most people don’t care about your product.

• Your story or idea should take centre stage, not the product.

BE ALOOF BUT NOT CONCEITED• Don’t in any way try to lead people’s opinions

• Treat it is as fun – great content that becomes viral is rarely based on logic

Be wary of being too smart with extending an idea. Great content that goes viral is usually founded on one simple idea. No one cares about how smart the brand or ad agency is.

NEVER RESTRICT ACCESS

• No registration specifically to view your content or take part

• No unlock codes unlock codes or special software

EVERY EXTRA STEP REQUIRED TO TAKE PART WILL REDUCE THE VIRAL EFFECT GREATLY. MAKE THE IDEA BRILLIANT, THE EXECUTION SIMPLE.

CONTENT FORMS

Creating great content that goes viral takes a number of forms. The most common ones are . . .

CONTENT FORMS

Videos. These can be multimillion dollar productions, or handy-cam videos. Production values tend to be irrelevant. They can also be interactive videos

Check the rope first

Bob Dylan's Album Announcement

CONTENT FORMS

Images. A great viral can be something as simple as a surprising image, or something humorous. Images however do not measure highly in the engagement scale unless user comments are invited.

CONTENT FORMS

Tutorials. People like to learn how to do something new, especially if it aligns with their own interests or gives them social currency among their peers. Think about how people feel when they have a “MacGyver Moment”

How to Kiss with Passion (10 million views)

CONTENT FORMS

Quizzes. People turn to quizzes when they can’t think of anything better, since they rarely fail but are also rarely spectacular. Facebook and other social networks make distribution simpler.

Which Transformer are you?

CONTENT FORMS

Micro Games. A simple game can have users in the millions, provided the mechanic is sound and the idea is engaging.

A famous example is the penguin game (Google it!)

CONTENT FORMS

Blogs and weird microsites. Blogs are always a slow burn, however they an have an astounding viral effect, and in some cases change industrys.

A case in point is the perezhilton.com website, that is transforming the way music is popularized.

Another example is the One Red Paperclip blog, where a person traded up from a paperclip through to a house, and also the Million Dollar Homepage

Some of Peter’s Favorites

The Escalator – cheap production, simple concept, 100% effective

Dynamite Surfing – over 10 million views, all fake surfers, did more for their brand than all other advertising combined.

Stolen Nascar – Over 1 Million dollars in free media exposure in a few days, completely staged

Threshers 40% off voucher – Threshers pretended to be worried that the voucher had leaked, but in fact it was planned and massive exposure

Dramatic Chipmunk – 16 million views, became remixed