Is it really possible to create a viral marketing effect?
Sure, it’s possible to create a viral marketing strategy. And it’s certainly possible to know what viral marketing is and, theoretically, how to use it.
But can you just simply create a viral response in some formulated or calculated way? Or is viral marketing something that happens as a result of a little solid word-of-mouth marketing and a little luck?
Well, according to Ze Frank, we don’t just go get ourselves a viral marketing experience. Rather it’s something that sort of organically happens based on, first, word-of-mouth marketing and then, second, by way of having chosen the right thing at the right time with the right audience. In other words, viral is not something we can just go get.
And if anyone would know, it would be Ze Frank. He distributed video that went massively viral – making him an overnight star on the web. Subsequently, he went on to create ‘The Show‘ where he used video to experiment with all types of ways to get a message out over the web.
Here, my friend and word-of-mouth marketing guru Andy Sernovitz interviews Ze Frank at a conference a couple of years ago. In this short, 3 minute video, you can get a glimpse into the ideas of someone who has been fortunate enough to have had a true viral marketing effect – over and over again. And if you want more, Ze Frank’s talk at TED, What’s so funny about the web, a few years ago is almost legendary.
from the video: Ze Frank: “…I would say viral is not (even) a tool. Viral just defines a particular way that traffic builds. And I think that if you do have something that goes viral it’s really great to understand that that’s happening and respond to it in a very, very particular way. But I really think looking at the growth as it happens is an important thing. “
Andy: “…so viral’s an adjective that describes what happens. It’s not a noun that you want to get you some of.”
Ze Frank: “Yeah, I want me a viral.”
I keep wondering if viral isn’t something that we see and measure while it’s happening and then evaluate and learn from when it’s passed rather than planning for and making happen. If so, would that make it more a result and less a strategy?
from the caption in the photo above:
24% of marketers have run a viral marketing campaign, but many struggle to get the expected buzz.
So what do you think? Is it possible to set out specifically to create a viral marketing effect or is it something that happens from luck?
And if you’ve ever had a viral push, how did it begin, how did it build and what was the result. More importantly, did it go the way you planned it?
Let’s talk about it.
(note: image from Will Lion on Flickr, 
some rights reserved)
Dawud–
It’s funny how people clamor to “do” viral marketing, but you’re right. It just sort of happens.
Kind of like a top hit on the radio. It has certain elements that make it popular, but you can’t necessarily project its future. With the exception being: top hits are popular to a small niche of the public (13-22 year olds) whereas a good viral campaign will extend beyond that with its quirkiness.
I actually just wrote about a marketing campaign I’m projecting will go viral here:
http://www.sparkplugging.com/marketing/viral-marketing-quickbooks-gets-a-piece/
Dawud –
Nice post! Actually, Ze and I talked just a few months ago at the BazaarVoice event in May.
Viral is the effect – what happens after it spreads. You can create a great video, promote it, send it to a bunch of people … and it might go viral. Saying your going to make a viral video is like saying you’re going to make a Top 40 song. You can only make a great song and hope it goes Top 40.
Cheers,
Andy
Excellent article. Excellent comment by Andy. While every marketing professional wants viral growth, that being the effect and not the starting design point, the preferred marketing success is the anti-viral growth. I will be writing an article about this sometime soon in my article directory that I recently started. In other words, when anything in nature exponentially grows, its lifetime is narrowed significantly. For example the pet rock craze several decades ago in the US or the sudden craze behind an overnight rock star’s success are all linked to viral growth. As a marketer, you need to figure out if it is instant success that you are after or long term sustained growth. Personnally, I prefer the latter. I prefer slow and steady growth rather than exponential sudden growth similar to the one-hit wonders in the music world. And sustained growth provides long term success. As in the video, if I were to give a check to someone to either (a) “viral” market my product or to (b) steadily grow my product market, I would prefer the latter. But then again, I have patience. Many dont. Thank you for an excellent article, Sir.
A viral marketing campaign depends on other people’s emotions. These can be very fickle, that’s why you can always try.. but never “count on” a campaign to work.
In “The Tipping Point” the example of “Hush Puppies” is given to illustrate precisely this strategy. Viral marketing is catching a trend at its initial stages and help the trend along to allow for the ‘exponential growth’ that Ze Frank talks about. You can not create a virus in your marketing. You need to be able to catch it when it starts, remove all obstacles in its path to spread, nourish it with other marketing inputs and exploit it for all it is worth. The difficulty is in recognizing it when it starts.
In a non commercial example, if you take the SMS language that has evolved, it is a classic case of viral growth of a completely new, yet intelligible language for a particular end use. It is truly the most amazing thing that has happened in the recent past that can be called a truly viral explosion. If you can translate that kind of growth for a product or service and implement it, you will have a successful viral marketing strategy.
Sometimes I think using the term viral is a way to create hype. I’ve noticed several invitations to learn how to go viral that are an endless cycle. The person teaches people how to solicit others the same way they just did. It is almost like, “Come on over I’m going to teach you the greatest thing” and then you get there to be told to do the same thing to others that was just done to you.
Absolutely nailed it. No one knows why one thing be it article or video or whatever goes viral and the other doesn’t
It’s just one of those things
Good food for thought… I think viral is a combination of good technique, and creative talent. It takes a lot of work to master the techy world to set up the website or blog, integrate all the link building and content writing. That’s the basics that have to be in place before anything viral can happen. Then with a bit of luck after all that, maybe you’ve said something worthwhile that people can actually relate to. If you’ve scratched an itch on top of that, you may be able to hatch somethng viral! I would think that you’ve mastered that, Dawaud, you have a loyal following!
heads off to Ze Frank for his contribution.thanks Dawud Miracle for your informative post.now i believe that creating a viral marketing effect is surely possible.but i should study more on it.
I can only speak from experience but all successful viral marketing I have experienced and have been a part of came about organically – without manipulation or controlled elements.
It is difficult for me to believe you can create viral marketing. Viral marketing just happens. This is something I have recently come to realize.
But I do believe you can create opportunities that will cultivate a viral campaign to grow and spread like the plague – without the repercussions of course.
Good article. I think for viral marketing you need creativity and technique then only you can do a successful viral marketing of your product.
We have tried a couple times to get real viral marketing campaigns off the ground. It is VERY difficult. Even when you have all the right pieces, and the right time! You have to also get lucky.
First and foremost, Great piece. From my experience, I think viral marketing has alot to do with initiative.
Another name for Viral to me is “originality and creativity”. unlike other marketing strategies,it grows with less amount of effort. I saw an ad for a serviced office, awesome video (will try and paste the link) and I received tons of emails to view it,now this is what I call Viral marketing a product.
Thanks.Jerry
Of course some things may be luck, but you can help sculpt this luck, making you strategy more “viral ready”, with the right preparation you can enhance your results and your “buzz”
I think the viral effect of marketing is very much part of the Gladwell Tipping Point philosophy. At some point all of your efforts, if combined and honed to create some buzz in different sectors create a word of mouth tipping point. That is when you go viral.
It is like shooting moisture bombs into the sky. Might take one, might take one million, but if you keep shooting eventually it should rain.
he hits the nail on the head when he says that it is about exponential – only viral can create that rapid spread like a virus!
To be honest, I’ve been read many other articles that related with viral marketing and I found this is the top amongst them!
The Viral marketing is also one of the publication methodology and we all should try to master it if you can…
There is an element of luck to almost anything, but in order for a viral campaign to work you have to offering a product or service that adds so much value to your customers that they cannot help but spread the word.
In my opinion creating things that add so much incremental value of the current offerings is the key to a good viral marketing campaign.
thanks for your info.
Networking is one way to making viral marketing. so, the side effect will grow the new development business
You know, the more I think about it, the more I think he’s right. You can always set out to create an exceptional marketing campaign and HOPE that it catches enough attention to garner that golder term, but whether or not it actually catches fire is an entirely different story.
Either way, the insight is appreciated. 🙂
It’s funny how people clamor to “do” viral marketing, but you’re right. It just sort of happens&Kind of like a top hit on the radio.Viral is the effect – what happens after it spreads. You can create a great video, promote it, send it to a bunch of people … and it might go viral. Saying your going to make a viral video is like saying you’re going to make a Top 40 song.
I have tried to put out viral videos in the past and failed miserably. i’d probably say unless it’s a lightbulb moment and it’s really well put together, most viral videos are by mistake in a sense. it also depends on puting the video in the right places for the right communities to see.
It is truly the most amazing thing that has happened in the recent past that can be called a truly viral explosion.
you will have a successful viral marketing strategy.
That was a nice post .. !! I am new to this viral marketing !!
Viral marketing campaigns based connectivity graphs have been extremely successful. A connectivity graph in todays socially networked world is somewhat easy to draw and use!
Viral marketing is sort of the holy grail for marketing. Cheap and effective. I don’t think it’s easy to plan for it… Something just “sticks” with people and it gets quickly spread. It’s also a one-time thing. If you did the dancing baby ad now it wouldn’t be effective at all.
It is like shooting moisture bombs into the sky. Might take one, might take one million, but if you keep shooting eventually it should rain.
Viral marketing is not that easy and we all know that.
Its effective but I think that it involves a lot of time and all a lot of patience and I think a little bit of luck.
The best part is that it is cheap.
THANK YOU!
I work in LA, and I keep seeing casting notices for “viral vids”.
“We’re going to shoot a viral video!” Argh!
Just further proof of how few people really get this whole web thing…
Well, my thoughts on viral marketing is it can work differently when your business is online. See, to get “word of mouth” you have to market onlinen first. So with an online business, I think it is the other way around. For example, if I want others to spread the message, I have to go on a social network site to connect to others first before they can spread the word.
Maybe I’m thinking to hard on this, but Youtube and Myspace are good viral marketing methods.
I wish viral marketing was as easy as seo. So many different ways to promote now its crazy
Viral marketing is easy if you have the correct approach and ideas
Thank you for the video, Never thought Viral marketing was so important… lol.
Viral marketing can be done successfully when choosing the right time and smart decision in addition to hard and honest work, a good example of this will be Andy Jakins.
It is very difficult to predict a viral effect. Read a post about how some companies seed viral campaignes and that was an interesting read. I will have to see where I read it.
In holland you see quite some recruitment virals which aren’t launching as viral. It is clear that not every subject is good to market.
The secret is convincing the website visitors to spread your links virally. This is accomplished by rewarding them with additional pictures or other content for sending a certain number of visitors to the site. This is where The Viral Script comes in to play.
When a person visits the site, a unique link is generated just for them. In the case of IHateMisty.com, the pictures are slowly revealed until they send 50 visitors, at which point the “secret video” is revealed.
The concept is simple yet extremely effective
http://theviralscript.com/
Wow, I never knew that Why You Can’t Just Create A Viral Marketing Effect. That’s pretty interesting…
Viral marketing is almost pure luck. The trick is to try to make it happen more often and the probability of it working increases.
Nice post. Viral Marketing is one of the best ways around, but according to me it works great only when there is something cool in the product or the service
For me Viral marketing is effective for local businesses as we local seo and viral marketing is very important to maintain the business reputation in local area.viral marketing is such a beauty of marketing which increase popularity on the basis of quality and services. for an example if a saloon shop offers good pricing and services you will recommend that shop to your friends and other family members to use it – that’s the viral marketing stands for!
I really like this. Everyone wants to hit it big and for their campaign to hit the huge success of viral marketing. It’s cheap, but definitely organic. You can’t really force it.
I am using viral marketing strategy and it pretty woks fine for me. I do recommend this to my friends but I’m not actually forcing them. But I think its worth a try.
Viral marketing is a good strategy indeed to add to your marketing plan…still content is king just like articles..be relavant,fun and even provocative in your virals.
I do recommend this to my friends but I?m not actually forcing them. But I think its worth a try.