A virus in the computer world, as defined by the American Heritage Science Dictionary, is a program that duplicates itself in a manner that is harmful to normal computer use. Most viruses work by attaching themselves to another program. The amount of damage varies; viruses may erase all data or do nothing but reproduce themselves. In the marketing world, the virus is viewed much differently. It is our little sentinel, carrying our sales message all over the global market. The anatomy of an internet marketing virus, and what makes it 'viral', is also completely different than a computer virus.
First, a computer virus relies on interaction between a defined set of variables. There is no gray area, just 1s and 0s. A marketing virus relies on triggering an emotional response from a human who interacts with the media. The level of favorable emotion triggered is directly related to the likelihood that the virus will spread. The more people that have a strong favorable emotion, the more quickly the virus will propagate through the social network.
One of my favorite viral marketing campaigns was Burger Kings "Subordinate Chicken". It created a wildly entertaining experience for visitors and was laced with a bit of controvers, creating the perfect recipe for rapid awareness. If we inspect the success factors of viral marketing campaigns, they can be broken into four key ingredients.
1. Access - The internet is the perfect medium for a viral marketing campaign. Things travel at the speed of light, cost per impression is essentially zero and the opportunity to provide a free experience for the user is possible. The campaign can be designed to have no barrier to entry.
2. Ease of transfer - Through email, communication and transfer of the virus is simple and rapid. Blogs and social networking sights increase the distribution points for the media.
3. Universal bait - The value of the content is measured by the perception of the people subjected to the virus. If the bait being used to lure a user to interact with the media is of high value, the more proud the user will be to pass it along to others in their network.
4. Favorable emotional response - A negative response can also create a viral effect, however, as learned by the Subordinate Chicken site, enough negative responses can stop the spread.
By including these key ingredients into the design of a viral marketing campaign, a very low cost sales message can be spread all over the world.
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What is the average response rate of quality ...
By: william01smart | 06-08-2008
what is the average response rate of quality targeted traffic, meaning traffic that is actual real visitors, not just page hits that make your hit counter move without making any sales.
Looking for online shops to list my Folk arts ........
By: nelson | 04-08-2008
Looking for online shops to list my Folk arts other than eBay, Any suggestions?
What can we do to save the planet that will really make a difference?
By: Shop To Earn | 01-08-2008
What can we do to save the planet that will really make a difference?
We can all join Shop To Earn / Shop To Earth
How: Shop To Earth is a new company that launched their website in March 2008. In four months it has grown to over 15,000 members. (5,000 in the last three weeks).At this rate there will be roughly 200,000 to 300,000 members by September 2008. The business model of this company states that as a requirement of your membership, starting in September 2008, you and your group must spend $100 a month on green products. That's approx. $20,000,000 overall per month, that all these current members will be spending on green products.
The structure of the company is based on MLM marketing. Thousands are joining and will continue to join, and all of them must purchase green products every month. When you join, you are buying your own website shopping portal. On one side of your business are approx. 500 online retailers like Target, Walmart, Sears, Overstock etc. On the other side of your business are approx. 100 green companies.
It took $4.00 a gallon gas to convince American consumers to sell gas guzzlers and buy fuel efficient vehicles because they were forced to change. If the Shop To Earn / Shop To Earth membership grows to a million people in one year as predicted and they must buy $100 a month in green products, that's $100,000,000 a month spent on green products that would normally have been spent on products more harmful to the environment. You can help make a significant positive impact in saving the planet and make a great income while doing it.
If you are committed to a greener planet, you can play a part by owning your own website.
Join Shop To Earn / Shop To Earth now.To learn more go to my website at http://www.shoptoearn.net/brianboy , click on my picture in the lower left corner, then click on "overviews".
To join, click on the "join now" button.
Stop talking about going green....act.
How does MySpace and other Social networking sites help with SEO
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How does having a MySpace profile page with thousands of friends help a websites SEO?
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Is that why the adsense stuff disappered suddenly from the right hand side of my gmail? Were there privacy issues or did that play a part?
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