Viral marketing is a buzz word by itself. Every marketing client has heard the word and wants their piece of it. Even marketeers that never tried to infuence the masses are venturing into the unknown.
In viral or buzz marketing you try to motivate people to talk about you. But is this form of PR a safe way to promote you brand?
Viral marketing takes insight into the behaviour of groups of people. How they react to certain things dictates how you should try to influence them. There will always be stray sheep that can’t be herded into a flock, but humans show herd behavior and should be treated as such.
How do you start a buzz?
- Good buzz starts at the influencers. People or websites that are known to spread alot of word-of-mouth are good places to start your news. If they pick it up and are motivated enough to pass it on, your news can spread like wildfire. You need only a few influencers to start a good buzz. They will probably reach other influencers.
- Have a story that creates alot of emotion! Not only humorous news is spread by people. If someone is angry or sad about something they will even be more likely to share it with other people. The more emotion, the better.
- Have a story that influences the lives of your audience. If the emotion involves something personal, the emotion will be greater.
- Include a reference to a current event or existing hype. This makes your story more newsworthy. If you can get your story associated with a popular newsitem you could hitch a ride to the top.
- Have content for all media. A good story needs audio, video and text coverage. If you have a website to serve the extra content, people will link to it.
Watch out!
There are alot of tips how to start a good viral campaign, but it is more important to watch out for backfiring buzz. Because you cannot predict how everybody will react to your story, you should secure your reputation and don´t waste it all to launch the story.
- Limit the connections between the story and your commercial activities. If the story backfires you can always walk away and try another day. Create a seperate website to recieve your links on. After the site has outlived its usefullness place a 301 redirect to your normal website.
- Use both the positive and the negative opinions to your advantage. Have an alternative story angle for the negative ones.
- Make sure the story gets picked up including your own message. Make sure the story is useless without it. Editors are always good at removing any commercial messages.
As you can see viral marketing isn´t easy, but I believe everyone can do it. I´ll try to give some examples tomorrow.
My tip of the day is: Viral marketing can backfire. Make sure you benefit whichever way the story goes!