Whenever we saw a new viral video or news that travels faster than light. The first question that will always be asked. How did it become viral? Is it because of a viral product, viral advertisement, viral campaigns, or purely luck that something becomes so popular at random.
In this blog post, I’ll go into the idea of viral marketing, an effective viral campaign and some examples of it.
What is Viral Marketing?
Viral marketing aims to spread awareness about a product or service from person to person through word of mouth or social media sharing. The aim of viral marketing is to encourage people to spread a marketing campaign with their friends and families, resulting in an exponential increase in the number of people who receive it.
Virality, on the other hand, may be a double-edged sword as audiences have a considerable amount of discretion, and there is a possibility that the message may be misinterpreted. However, an effective viral campaign will work well for the brand’s results.
How to have an effective viral campaign
Since there are no definitive ways to share messages quickly and widely, Jonah Berger believes that viral content’s popularity can be traced to six STEPPS.
Although using all six STEPPS increases the likelihood of virality, not all of them must be used for the campaign to be effective. To stand out, different types of products/services require different concepts.
Examples of Viral Marketing
#ALSICEBUCKETCHALLENGE
Do you remember this challenge? Bill Gates was among those who took part in the challenge, which involved dumping a bucket of ice water over their heads.
This campaign was definitely a success. Awareness on ALS was raised across the whole world with 2.4 million ice bucket challenge videos shared to Facebook and the challenge also managed to raise donation of more than $100 million for the campaign.
Another example….
Dumb Ways To Die
Metro Trains in Australia aimed to find a way to inspire people to be safer around trains in 2012. Rather than going the conventional road with frightening and off-putting advertisements, McCann Australia opted to inject some levity into Metro Train’s commercials, resulting in the instant success in Dumb Ways to Die.
The video had received 30 million views in just two weeks. The video has already been viewed over 206 million times. Most notably, the video’s warning caused people to become more mindful of trains and behave more cautiously around them, resulting in a 20% decline in train incidents.
In conclusion, since there is no guaranteed way to guarantee the campaign’s virality, as a marketer, it is critical to include some values in the campaign in order for it to be applicable and to also spread the message out to the public.
What are your thoughts on viral marketing?
JONES TNG 
Hello Jones, thank you for such an insightful post, I had joy reading it.
Can you tell me what are some advantages and disadvantages of viral marketing?
Looking forward to your reply, thank you!
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Hi Zoe, thank you for taking the time to read my blog post.
Answering to your question, going viral has some advantages such as “Low Cost”, “Reach” and “Credibility”. It doesn’t have to be costly to make content that people want to share as purchasing ads or media space is not mandatory. When viral marketing is done right, your message and your brand spreads much further than you might expect without having to invest a ton of money or make any extra effort.
However, there are also disadvantages on viral marketing. It has the power to dilute your brand, or in the worst-case scenario, create negative buzz for your brand and products. If viral marketing is made badly, it might lead to significant spam issues too.
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