Fostering Virality

Making distribution organic

An object, even a non-material object, is considered to be viral when it has the ability to spread copies of itself…

…being viral came into vogue just after the Internet became widely popular in the mid-to-late 1990s.

Wikipedia on Virality

Virality & Viral Marketing

The buzzwords viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness…

Viral Marketing uses the power of virality to increase brand awareness…

Virality & Distribution

• When a product uses the power of virality to distribute itself it is called Viral Distribution…

Making your product viral

Maximize viral touch

points

Maximize reach

Minimize the Virality

funnelMaximise Viral

worth

Maximizing touch points

Taking advantage of viral opportunities

Viral opportunities

Where all within the product would the user feel the ‘Wow’ factor that makes him want to share?

Content

Feature

News

It’s a bit like picking nits

The more touch points your application has, the bigger the opportunity to go viral

Tips

• Do not be intrusive – it shouldn’t be present everywhere like an ad

• Try and catch the user after the usage instead of while it is being used

• Let the wow factor sink in.

Maximizing reach

Reach out as far and as wide as you can

Email

Decoding reach

With whom would the user like to share ?

Social networks

Word of mouth

Mobile

Search engine optimization

The new old frontier

Supporting virality

• Supports word of mouth virality

• Goes a long way in making your app more discoverable…

Give the user every opportunity

@

In the mobile context

• Reach out to mobiles where your presence is not there

• Use all platforms you can.

• SI’s are good, SMSs with URLs embedded. MMS is not.

Minimizing the funnel

Cut down the effort needed

The funnel

Each and every activity has a funnel

At every stage, you'll lose some customers. That's inevitable….

Steep decline in the conversion funnel

Boundary function

Factors that affect the numbers

• The number of steps in the process

• The number of fields on each screen

• Content and potential distractions

Maximizing viral worth

Support quality content

Quality content travels fast!

Tips on viral worth

• The fact that YOU think its worth sharing IS NOT IMPORTANT

• What does the user find worth sharing?

People often share articles about cosmology or quantum

Physics….because such articles open the mind to vast and often unconsidered possibilities, they expand thought and cause people to look beyond themselves (Keltner and Haidt, 2003).

Emotional content more generally may also be particularly viral (Heath, Bell andSternberg 2001, Heath 1996)

http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/marketing/pdfs_docs/2009%20Marketing%20Camp/BergerViralityTheScienceofSharing.pdf

Awe-inspiring and emotionally rich content is more viral.