Social media are effective in reaching large audiences, based on location, interest and demographics. The most effective campaigns are viral.

How this helps you

Most of the social media channels are easily accessible and relatively cheap to start with. Use them to tell your story, not to sell your product or service.

What is it?

Viral marketing refers to marketing techniques that use existing social networks to try and gain a certain marketing buzz or large increase in awareness around a product or brand. Viral marketing comes in different forms like video clips, interactive games, ebooks, software or images.
While the content often is created and paid for, the distribution of the message isn’t. Like the spread of (computer) viruses it assumes a self-replicating process within networks to generate increasing exposure and impact. In the right environment, it grows exponentially. In case of viral marketing this often goes through word of mouth, publishing on platforms or sharing through email, blogs and social media. Key to a successful viral marketing campaigns is the creative and unexpected nature of the message.

How does it relate?

Marketing helps you to promote your company and solutions. And the ultimate goal of marketing is creating successful viral messages. Certainly when you are able to reach and appeal to influential individuals to spread your message, you can gain a lot of traction in a short period of time. It’s a matter of sending the right message to the right messengers in the right environment. The good news is, if successful, it becomes one of the cheapest and most effective marketing tools you will find.

Your next Waypoint

Think of a product or service you can easily give away and which may scale from small to large. Mention it in your communications and make it easy for your readers to share it through their networks. As an example, check out one of our favourite virals: the Ice Bucket Challenge which generated 80 million for research on ALS.

All Waypoints