Oliver Starr, who has taken over my old blog in the Creative Weblogging portfolio, has been musing on exactly what makes a "viral" campaign.
His argument is that to be truly viral, there must be an incentive
to share and thus spread the virus, over and above the motivation of
simply sharing something of interest with your social network.
IF the sole benefit is making someone else laugh, and the sender does
not increase value for himself, either by getting closer to a prize,
gaining a service or award for sending, earning entries, etc. than the
promotion may be organic since it can grow by virtue of sharing but it
is definitely NOT VIRAL.
I disagree with Oliver on this one. I’d say that a viral campaign is
something that people want to send to their social network for any
reason whatsoever. The motivation of the sender is irrelevant,
providing that the message itself spreads.
In fact, providing an incentive to the sender can backfire and turn
into something little more than P2P Spam. Thus, if I send you something
I genuinely think you might find of interest/funny/useful, my motives
are pure and the chances are that you will be happy to receive it. If
you are happy to receive it, you’re much more likely to pass it on to
your network, in turn.
If, on the other hand, my primary motivation is that I might gain
something (say entry into a competition), my judgement as to how happy
I think you are to receive it, is surely compromised.
I’m not suggesting that it’s wrong to try to influence people to pass
on a viral message, but surely the best viral campaigns don’t need an
incentive to pass them on at all.
Viral marketing’s parent is word-of-mouth, where people spontaneously
spread the news of products or services they liked (or didn’t like).
The Internet and the new buzz word "viral" has simply made this process
more efficient and quicker. But the basic principle is the same.
So here’s my definition of Viral Marketing, for what it’s worth:
A message, product or service that is remarkable enough to encourage
people to spontaneously share it with their social network in a way
that replicates the spread of a virus or epidemic.
"Remarkability" may of course include a promotional incentive, but
it may be remarkable it its own right. For instance, Hotmail, the
Grand-Daddy of viral marketing effectiveness in recent years was
remarkable in that it was the first free email account. This encouraged
people to use it, which spread the Hotmail virus, with no other
incentive provided.
This definition also includes the spread of the virus by blogs, by the
way. Blogs have turbo-charged many Idea Viruses, as bloggers are simply
sharing with a much wider network than most individuals have access to. But
there’s still no obvious motivation, in this instance, to share.
The latest virus to hit blogs is the concept of Vigilante Blogging,
where bloggers threaten to expose poor customer service unless they’re
dealt with - or actually expose it anyway and damn the consequences. Tim
Oren writes up Jeff Jarvis’s recent Dell experiences in this case study, where Dell are adopting the corporate equivalent of sticking its hands over its ears and singing "La, la, la, la, I can’t hear you…"
Russell, first off, I’d like to publicly thank you for making my transition to the blogger for the incredible audience and body of work you’ve created much easier than it could have been. You have been beyond gracious and it is testimony to your class and professionalism that you have been so kind. Secondly, I am sincerely pleased that you are reading your old blog, and really appreciate your comment.
In view of what you’ve said, I’d like to respond, first, by referring to a prior paragraph in my original post and then responding specifically to where our opinions differ.
My intention with this post was primarily to point out that the buzz about viral marketing has somehow eclipsed both the message the campaigns are intended to convey as well as the real nature of what I believe constitutes a true viral promotion
Prior to the paragraph you quoted, I also said “I will say it again; sharing for the sake of sharing is NOT VIRAL. I don’t care how many great clips, funny jokes, or virus warnings one puts out into the world, something truly viral spreads because adoption or utilization results in viral proliferation.”
Perhaps it is due to my background in the biosciences that my feelings on viral marketing are such. In nature viruses are selfish. They exist for their own good. Whatever the means of transmission of the virus is incidental to the virus itself. Because of this, if the content of the message exists only for the purpose of being shared and thus requires the recipient to share the message EXPLICITLY for the purpose of sharing, it seems to me that this is somehow different and contrived versus being genuinely viral.
I think Hotmail is a wonderful example, and actually like very much your term “remarkable”. The thing about the Hotmail “virus” that in my mind distinguishes it as viral is that it was carried along with the “host” anywhere that host went. People using a Hotmail account didn’t do so with the intention to get other people to join, they were simply taking advantage of a service. In so doing, however, they became carriers of the virus, spreading it wherever they sent a message.
While I don’t doubt that you see the sublime distinction between what made Hotmail so unique and many subsequent efforts that were labeled as viral campaigns because they were intended to provoke a word of mouth or proliferation by forwarding response, it is still my contention that only a vanishingly small number of such creations truly merit the “viral” label.
It occurs to me that in my original post I failed to effectively communicate what I really meant. Let me try one last time; I agree that remark ability is an element, certainly. However I believe that a truly viral campaign begets proliferation do to the nature of the campaign. If the viral proliferation requires that the recipient have the intention to forward the message and thus the virus, and that this is the sole purpose of the message, then it is not genuinely viral. Maybe then the best way to differentiate one from the other as far as I am concerned is proliferation via incident versus proliferation via intent. With the former being truly viral and the latter something not entirely so.
In retrospect, I agree with you that campaigns with a purely selfish viral incident (getting entries for example) would be something undesirable and unwelcome, certain selfish viral campaign objects (such as the aforementioned Hotmail message) are neither more nor less welcome for their viral component, and it is this, perhaps more than any other element that makes them unique and difficult to replicate other than by duplication. Thus while the results are highly desirable, the occurrence of such incredible “epidemic” proliferation in my mind validates my point as very few campaigns based upon forwarding for amusement’s sake have even fractionally approached the Hotmail distribution.
-Oliver
Thanks for the lengthy response, Oliver
I think the key proof of a viral campaign (simplistically) is whether it does get passed on, or not.
Everything else is rather academic actually - including the motivation to pass it on.
The reason why so many viral campaigns fail is partly down to luck ie getting to the right virus carriers, as opposed to those who are immune (although good planning and seeding helps this immeasurably). And partly down to a lack of understanding of what makes the target audience tick and poor creativity/execution skills.
What’s discrediting the industry is that lots of opportunists are coming into the market and claiming to have “viral marketing” skills.
However, “skills” based on real experience is the operative word here. And if they don’t have those skills, the likelihood is that the campaign will fail and that client won’t consider viral marketing generally to be a good thing.
By the way, I can’t claim that the word “remarkable” is mine. It’s practically trade-marked by Idea Virus guru, Seth Godin.
Russell