Viral marketing

Today, I would like to address the matter of social media marketing that has went viral.

So how did viral marketing come about? How does it start?

Most viral issues start off with word of mouth. Word of mouth is considered content marketing and not direct marketing.

Why is word of mouth so successful? Very simple, people tend to trust the ones around them. It becomes more convincing this way. For example,

Vanish. No one actually believed this commercial until reviews started showing up online. From there, people got to hear about others trying this product and suddenly everyone was like

Looking back at what I’ve just covered, it’s pretty amazing how much marketing has transitioned over the years. We now very rarely hear those jingles that are repeated over and over again on television. I still can hear that Myojo and London choco roll jingle in my head till this very day.

With the evolution of marketing, I find it very creepy. Whenever I search for something on google like for example cheapest air tickets to Kanchanaburi, Thailand and not long after a list of hotels pop out on your page. The creepiest part is not hotels of Thailand but the hotels of Kanchanaburi.

Moving on…..

I believe that firms will be more successful connecting with their customers instead of spending money to constantly entice new ones. Loyal customers are far more valuable. They are people who will stick to your brand and chances of them changing to another is high unlikely. They are the ones that will be the first to defend the brand as well as spread great things and awareness about your brand.

So back to the issue of viral marketing.

There are 9 steps to creating the best viral marketing techniques.

1. Target the appropriate audience and channels.
   
   The very first step to developing a viral marketing campaign is to know your target audience and where they reside online.
   
2. Create videos
   This is an alternative way. A video can make viewers engage. The best platform to post videos right now is of course, Youtube.
   
3. Offer valuable product or service for free
   Who doesn’t like something for free? Most viral campaigns offer valuable product or service for free to attract attention.
   
   Wilson’s Second Law of Web Marketing is “The Law of Giving and Selling”. (WILSON, 2012)It means once you give away something, you sell something.
4. Create an emotional appeal
   Viral marketing doesn’t make much of an impact unless it has an emotional appeal. Be it negative or positive emotions.
   
   Like this BMW advertisement.

5. Enable sharing, embedding and downloading
If you want your message to spread, your content must be easy to share, also allowing people to embed it on their own sites and also allow people to download the contents.

6. Do something unpredicted
The title is pretty self explanatory.
People wouldn’t take much notice to it if it has been done before.

7. DO NOT focus on traditional marketing
Traditional marketing is all about promoting your product/service. Instead of doing that, companies can try to give insights on how good it is and how it will benefit you if you purchase it.

8. Social outreach
This means using influencers. By approaching the influencers in the relevant fields, for example, MAC cosmetics approaching Jeffree Star to do a review on their products.

9. Reinforcement
One might think that the job is over once you have achieved social outreach.

WRONG

Because you already grabbed the attention of people, you now need to act. And the easiest way to do that is to give them more.

A good example will be insurance advertisements.

To recap, viral marketing techniques are always evolving as they are closely tied to trends. By implementing the viral marketing techniques stated above, you will be able to make your marketing campaign or content viral.

If you have any other ways you would like to share, please feel free to do so in the comment section below.

Have a good weekend!