Achieving Viral Campaign Success

As viral marketing has become the go to online marketing solution we’ve neglected the fact that to be truly viral you must start with a small number of seeded individuals and rely on that group to spread your message. However, the downfall of this model is the high rate of viral burnout – where your reproduction rate (R) is smaller that the number of people originally seeded.
To combat the burn out that often accompanies purely viral campaigns, rendering them failures, Duncan Watts, a Colombia University sociology professor recommends several things to give your viral efforts a fighting chance.

1. Don’t focus on just the viral aspect of the campaign- make sure to mesh in traditional marketing ideas creating what he calls ‘big-seed marketing’.

2. Provide social sharing tools that are easy to use to reliably increase the reproduction rate of your message.

3. Consider incentives to influence reproduction rates.

Watts concludes with the reminder that the pass along effect of your campaign is largely dependent upon your initial seeded group. Do your research and make sure your getting your message in front of the right people initially.