Just recently, I wrote a blogger outreach strategy for a client. My piece was part of a larger "viral marketing" effort. Which got me thinking…..
What’s so Viral about Marketing anyway?
As my readers know, I hate buzzwords. We throw them around as though they mean something Important, mis-use them horribly and in the end they often mean nothing at all. State-of-the-art. Yeah right. Web 2.0. Uh uh. Even our beloved Cluetrain is woefully abused.
Viral Marketing. Hmmm. Seems everybody wants to do Viral Marketing these days. It’s the new black. Or whatever.
But the more I think about this, the more I realize we are once again creating a monstrous buzzword and removing the meaning. Viral Marketing (note, with a cap M) is being equated with the tools we are using, not the messages we are sending. When in fact, it is the message that is viral, not the marketing tools themselves. A good (or bad) story about a good (or bad) product will spread no matter what. It’s just faster, more efficient and sexier when we use social media than the old way. You know, just talking to people in the (real life) community 🙂
MySpace. Second Life. YouTube. Blogs. They are communities, and if we want to market within them, we must learn and play by the rules. Just like in the real world. Or the members kick us out. As they should.
But you are not doing viral marketing simply by having a MySpace page, posting a video on YouTube, starting a blog or creating something in Second Life. It reminds me of the old Mickey Rooney/Andy Hardy movies, where the solution always seems to be "Let’s put on a show." Nowadays, the "cool" solution is to do something "viral."
But guess what, campers? You still need to cover the basics. Is this a good story? Who would be most interested in this story? How and where do we reach them? What do they want to know? How can we help them? Are we willing to give up control of the message?
That’s the deal breaker, isn’t it? Control. If you put the story to the community, you cannot control what it does with it. You can try, but that is just as likely to halt the spread of the message as anything else. People don’t want to be used as corporate mouthpieces. They want add their own value as they pass it on, to feel like spreading the word is helping other members of their community.
So, remember: viral marketing (note the lower case) is all about a compelling story told to the right community. Get that right, and then get out of the way.
That’s viral.
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Other recent posts on this/related topic(s) you might enjoy:
The Dynamics of Viral Marketing (Eric Kintz, HP)
PR Meetup in Second Life (Kami Huyse)
Second Life (Todd Defren)
Text 100 Misses the Second Life Boat (Jeneane Sessum)
Tags: viral marketing
