Communities Create Viral Marketing
Mar 21, 2007 Michael Brito
I attended a session at the New Communications Forum a few weeks ago called “Viral Marketing – It’s the message, not the Media” facilitated by Susan Getgood and a few others. Susan’s message intrigued me the most as she discussed the 5 C’s of Viral Marketing: community, compelling, comedy, charity, and contest.
Of course, these 5 C’s make total sense to me not only as a marketer, but as a consumer as well. We all know that viral marketing in the social media space is all about communities. In fact, I would argue that communities play a larger role than most people think, both online and offline. They can build a brand, kill a brand, make a career, break a career, influence elections, etc. Think about it; from an offline perspective, life is community driven through PTA organizations, church groups, sports leagues, stay-at-home mommy groups, and various school organizations (sororities, fraternities) to name a few. And of course online, you have Myspace, Facebook, Linkedin, Digg, Stumbledupon and hundreds of other social media sites jumping in the scene daily. Within each of these online/offline communities consumers are talking and having conversations with each other. And, they are sharing opinions, experiences, advice, recommendations and commentary about products, services and companies usually based on real personal experience. This is viral marketing.
The challenge with viral marketing is that it’s not always viral, if that makes any sense. Often, marketers plan for and label their marketing plans as “viral” but 9 times out of 10, it never catches on. It’s the things that just happen by accident that become viral. Remember the Diet Coke and Mentos video? At first, Coca-Cola distanced themselves from the exploding Diet Coke and Mentos viral video phenomenon, fearing it would damage their reputation and brand; however, just recently that have fully embraced the concept and now there are over 7,000 consumer generated videos on Youtube, millions of pageviews, hundreds of comments, and favored by thousands of fans. The community here is not only the millions of Youtube enthusiasts, but also the micro-communities of people and their offline conversations about these videos.
Technorati Tags: newcommforum, social media, viral marketing, diet coke and mentos, susan getgood
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March 21st, 2007 at 10:49 am
I am not sure if I totally agree with you. It takes more than a community to build a brand (i.e capital, a great product, superior customer service).
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:39 am
Mary - I didn't say that communities alone can build a brand. I simply said that communities CAN build a brand.
Thanks for stopping by.
Michael
March 23rd, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Hi Michael, Good post, thanks for sharing. good work.
March 24th, 2007 at 4:50 am
"The community here is not only the millions of Youtube enthusiasts, but also the micro-communities of people and their offline conversations about these videos."
Excellent point. I have never thought of it in these terms. The community element to marketing is vital and I don't think that many marketers understand this. At least, not yet.
March 25th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
I was also at the NewCommForum. Which sessions did you attend? I work in PR so I mostly attended the PR tracks.
April 6th, 2007 at 11:26 am
[...] I was totally agree that the 5 C’s(community, compelling, comedy, charity, and contest. ) of the Viral Marketing really make sense to both the marketer and consumer. No doubt, communities play an important role on build a brand and break a brand by influence to each others! Especially with the advent of the Internet Marketing Blog, You Tube, Digg, Myspace and other online media which allow us to sharing info in around the world. It is important that how the marketer plan and label a brand, a success brand. [...]
April 6th, 2007 at 11:31 am
[...] When I came across this post on viral marketing, I thought it was interesting enough to share, with some good points. The author had attended a session on viral marketing, where the 5 Cs (community, compelling, comedy, charity, and contest) were discussed. [...]
April 6th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
[...] According to Britopian Marketing Blog, Communities create viral marketing:- ..And of course online, you have Myspace, Facebook, Linkedin, Digg, Stumbledupon and hundreds of other social media sites jumping in the scene daily. Within each of these online/offline communities consumers are talking and having conversations with each other. And, they are sharing opinions, experiences, advice, recommendations and commentary about products, services and companies usually based on real personal experience. This is viral marketing. [...]
May 7th, 2007 at 11:37 am
When a good product goes viral it flies, you cannot beat a product that sells itself (compelling), coupled with a bit of humour. The internet has made it possible to share and distribute with ease, the power is now with communities online to share opinions, ideas, products and experience. You can buy, sell, invest, make money, go broke, befriend, make enemies, find love, get your heart broke all online. While the net goes viral with Web 2.0 we wait for Web 3.0 Total Immersion.
September 19th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Viral marketing is similar in nature to a contagious disease, in the way it spreads. However, it's always beneficial to the business conducting the campaign. Because this type of marketing is so cost-effective, you get more for each advertising dollar you expend. Information about your product spreads naturally, so that almost everyone hears about it in a relatively short time frame.
March 23rd, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Has anyone out there heard about WideCircles.com. It seems like a way better service then wasting money on PPC. Apparently they are using refering websites ( forums, blogs, wiki, etc. ) and have a viral word of mouth distributed approach to it. My friend told me he got around 100 visits from single post which cost him $0.40c. I am going to give them a try today . In case you are intrested here is it.
April 20th, 2008 at 11:34 am
I think you nailed right it on the head when you say sometime a successful viral campaign was not originally planned to become a viral product. Per example Hotmail is one of the most successful viral success ever created, just because they thought of adding a simple signature on every outgoing e-mails asking the reader to subscribe to the free service. The real danger as a marketer is overdoing the message, and risk appearing as phony by the community.
June 6th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Interesting, in Guerrilla marketing there are 3 C's, Cover, Concealment, and Camouflage.
June 6th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
love the anchor text..but Google places little value in anchor text in the comment name field. I know of a guy who can rank you well for that and related terms. He's really good. Let me know.
those C's scare me from a transparent perspective; almost like you'd *not you personally* would be trying to decieve the community.
July 9th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
@Michael Brito. Google has over 100 algorithms that determine serps, anchor text is just one. But perhaps I'm not linking for the sake of google.
As for the 3 C's, they are military in nature. But in advertising, war strategies are often employed and Sun Tzu is a well known corporate tool. If all warfare is based on deception, then terms like Guerrilla Marketing in a corporate or small business setting should be no surprise.
Deceptive forms of marketing will always persist. Look at food boxes like cereal for example, you will notice that some brands keep their prices lower and make it a point to advertise this. Yet if you look carefully, you will see that the measure of food in the boxes has decreased. One might argue, that's not deception, just read the information box. Yet, it's not entirely honest either.