EXPERIENCE OF VIRAL MARKETING THROUGH SOCIAL NETWORK (FACEBOOK)

Whoever use Internet will have chances to come across with viral marketing, especially with the connection of social network.

I would like to share with you how I was affected by viral marketing in Facebook through the enclosed link and picture which I extracted from my account (all personal information were covered) ~ Sense the power of viral marketing now?!

It is a trailer from Pixar which named "Up - Trailer for Pixar's New Movie" source from YouTube.

ANOTHER SIMPLE VIRAL MARKETING RELATED INFORMATION (HONG KONG)

While search engines are common and simple tools for searching information, the numbers of links found can result differently even the searching words are slight varied only, like using abbreviations instead of full terms, for example, ‘Viral Marketing in Hong Kong’ vs ‘Viral Marketing in HK’

Below are the numbers of results found in different search engines by using the above-mentioned example:

Yahoo
Viral Marketing in Hong Kong – 1,240,000
Viral Marketing in HK – 174,000

Google
Viral Marketing in Hong Kong – 161,000
Viral Marketing in HK – 134,000

MSN
Viral Marketing in Hong Kong – 436,000

Viral Marketing in HK – 577,000

SIMPLE VIRAL MARKETING RELATED INFORMATION (WORLDWIDE)

When people are trying to look general information through Internet, search engines maybe the immediate tools they need.

What can we get when we search for viral marketing information through some popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN?

Below are the numbers of results they show when we key in the words ‘Viral Marketing’ in their search bars through service provided by Hong Kong ISP providers:

Yahoo – 54,400,000
Google – 5,770,000
MSN – 4,460,000

Even though there are big different in terms of the number of results, but they have one common area, i.e. they all keep Wikipedia as their 1st result.

WHY VIRAL MARKETING CANNOT WORK BETTER THAN TRADITIONAL WORD OF MOUTH STRATEGY IN HONG KONG?

Base on the definition that viral marketing is a strategy to amplify word of mouth in the digital channels (for example through email or social network), it seems that this strategy may be more useful in cities which fulfil 5 criteria,

1) They are well developed cities,
2) The cities have mature Internet infrastructure,
3) The local telephone charge are costly,
4) The citizens live far away from each other and
5) The citizens are frequent Internet users.

The basic requirement to achieve viral marketing is the existing of mature Internet infrastructure that most likely can be found in all well developed cities like Hong Kong, London, New York, etc. But in order to make viral marketing effective, the rest 4 criteria must also need to meet.

Should the citizens live close to each other, for example in Hong Kong, they may meet frequently easily without the need to communicate through Internet; if the telephone charge were low, for example in Hong Kong again, it would be more convenience for them to communicate through voice than typing; after all, if they are not frequent users of Internet which can be affected by population ageing issue directly, viral marketing will not able to work.

It is easy to understand why viral marketing cannot work better than real life word of mouth in Hong Kong, especially when the population ageing goes serious and major high Internet users are youngsters whose aims to use Internet are mainly playing online games or downloading different programs instead of for real communications or information search.

WHY USE VIRAL MARKETING?

While people are flooded by tones of marketing messages every day or even every seconds in their life through different media channels like billboards, signage, TV ads, interruptive online ads, etc, they have learned how to absorb or skip them.

Consumers are more involved than ever before in controlling communications and message delivery at a global level. Many brands are finally realizing that the most powerful of selling is not through marketer-to-consumer but consumer-to-consumer, it enters to viral marketing.

Unlike traditional ‘top-down’ marketer-to-consumer techniques, viral marketing focuses on personal experience of the brand and taps into the new power of the consumer. One of the reasons consumers find viral marketing campaigns appealing is because the campaigns tend to be non-interruptive and enable them to choose to interact proactively with a communication or not, rather than be passively dictated to. This ‘bottom-up’ approach respects that the consumer is in control; viral marketing campaigns are ultimately driven by consumers themselves.

The result of this user-driven process is ultimately very valuable exponential brand endorsement by influencers and consumers – if the campaign is successful. No business can afford to maintain constant mainstream media brand awareness. So less expensive online media routes and the possibility of peer-to-peer-driven spread whereby the audience effectively becomes another free media channel is very attractive to brands.

WHAT IS VIRAL MARKETING?

Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence.

Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions. Some people maintain that viral marketing is any marketing activity that accelerates and amplifies word of mouth in the digital domain.

The two main forms of online viral marketing are through passalong-emails or discussions within social networks.

Passalong has worked well for video clips, either where they are attached to the email or where the email contains a link to download the chip.

Social networks play an importance role in influencing perceptions about brands, products and suppliers. Large differences in gender and age on the types of products discussed, but recommendations on restaurants, computers, movies and vehicles are popular in all categories.

When planning integrated campaigns, it is important to note that the online viral affect can be amplified through offline media mentions or advertising either on TV and radio or in print.

Below are some useful video related to Viral Marketing:

What’s Viral Marketing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jygF35PJlyY&feature=related



Secrets of Viral Marketing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABo4JUIBxXs&feature=related