Viral, Word of Mouth & Social Network Marketing
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One of the best forms of marketing,
albeit one of the hardest to successfully carry out, is viral, or word
of mouth, marketing. Viral marketing works by individuals passing along
the marketing
message to their friends and family, who then pass it on to their social
networks, and so forth. One reason this works so well is because there
is a trust factor built into the marketing strategy—the person
who passes on the marketing
message is not trying to “sell” for profit but, rather,
are trying to pass along something they see as having value to the people
they care for.
The term viral is usually taken to mean web
marketing. Hotmail is considered the first electronic example of
successful viral marketing, Google is another example, as are social
networks such as Facebook, Youtube, My Space, etc. They all use the
same basic steps; they provide a free product, it is easy to pass along
to friends, it has plans and financing in place to provide a seamless
transition from the small to the large scale, the marketing uses basic
human drives and behaviours, it capitalizes on existing social networks,
and it piggybacks onto technology already in common use.
