Fostering Virality
Making distribution organic
An object, even a non-material object, is considered to be viral when it has the ability to spread copies of itself…
…being viral came into vogue just after the Internet became widely popular in the mid-to-late 1990s.
Wikipedia on Virality
Virality & Viral Marketing
The buzzwords viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness…
Viral Marketing uses the power of virality to increase brand awareness…
Virality & Distribution
• When a product uses the power of virality to distribute itself it is called Viral Distribution…
Making your product viral
Maximize viral touch
points
Maximize reach
Minimize the Virality
funnelMaximise Viral
worth
Maximizing touch points
Taking advantage of viral opportunities
Viral opportunities
Where all within the product would the user feel the ‘Wow’ factor that makes him want to share?
Content
Feature
News
It’s a bit like picking nits
The more touch points your application has, the bigger the opportunity to go viral
Tips
• Do not be intrusive – it shouldn’t be present everywhere like an ad
• Try and catch the user after the usage instead of while it is being used
• Let the wow factor sink in.
Maximizing reach
Reach out as far and as wide as you can
Decoding reach
With whom would the user like to share ?
Social networks
Word of mouth
Mobile
Search engine optimization
The new old frontier
Supporting virality
• Supports word of mouth virality
• Goes a long way in making your app more discoverable…
Give the user every opportunity
@
In the mobile context
• Reach out to mobiles where your presence is not there
• Use all platforms you can.
• SI’s are good, SMSs with URLs embedded. MMS is not.
Minimizing the funnel
Cut down the effort needed
The funnel
Each and every activity has a funnel
At every stage, you'll lose some customers. That's inevitable….
Steep decline in the conversion funnel
Boundary function
Factors that affect the numbers
• The number of steps in the process
• The number of fields on each screen
• Content and potential distractions
Maximizing viral worth
Support quality content
Quality content travels fast!
Tips on viral worth
• The fact that YOU think its worth sharing IS NOT IMPORTANT
• What does the user find worth sharing?
People often share articles about cosmology or quantum
Physics….because such articles open the mind to vast and often unconsidered possibilities, they expand thought and cause people to look beyond themselves (Keltner and Haidt, 2003).
Emotional content more generally may also be particularly viral (Heath, Bell andSternberg 2001, Heath 1996)
http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/marketing/pdfs_docs/2009%20Marketing%20Camp/BergerViralityTheScienceofSharing.pdf
Awe-inspiring and emotionally rich content is more viral.