Viral Marketing and Communications, Buzz Marketing, and Word of Mouth
Means of communications are available everywhere where users do interact and communications is a top engagement at the online world. Beside email and messaging there is a whole range of established and new arising platforms. Typical established platforms are chats, forums and newsgroups and the already evolved worlds of newsfeeds and weblogs, which have integrated content syndication features. Another rather new but arising platform is tagging, which still has reached popularity by several services.
Acting in such a space needs some ethical contemplations as users there are engaged by own interests and furthermore private. Numerous and uncontrolled postings are unwelcome and could harm a platform by bothering users. Such activities may become mentioned in public, which on the other side may harm a campaign or even the whole acting enterprise.
It is the trick of viral marketing to get users engaged by their interests. This may happen by a targeted message or entertaining applications. At email and homepages typical and simple tools to engage users is the allowance or request to give information of an email to others and 'refer' or 'tell' something tools. Those do allow to pass on messages and information.
Viral Marketing Tools, Advergames, and Podcasting
Viral Marketing using applications is an up to date trend, which now seems to be stimulated by the availibility of broadband. Beside the interest of users entertaining elements, advertainment, are a way to enforce distribution. Adgames or advergames are free and often sponsored games, which e.g. are available at specialized portals. A good game or joke will become recommended from there or could be sent by permission directly to users. Furthermore, advergames beside a marketing message are able to transport product information and to explain more complicated products. Edutainment is suitable for other target groups beside consumers, too.
Audio and video are further forms of media distributed by viral messages. At the entertainment industry the distribution of media files by users picked up from a portal has become most popular. By the ongoing popularity of podcasting now also niches are reachable by Audio and by video at videoblogs. After podcasting now videoblogs or vlogs become popular with an estonishing speed.
Interactive Media, Convergence, and Viral Marketing
Viral Marketing now has reached converging media. At mobile communications Multimedia Messaging, MMS, do allow the distribution of advergames, Audio and video to and between mobile phones. The same development depending on the infrastucture is happening or expected to happen at other media like interactive television.
Viral Marketing Campaigns and Campaign Measurement
Viral Marketing Campaigns do require planning like all marketing measures. Depending on the form used the design of media is necessary. Similar to common campaigns there are platforms to choose. Adgames may become spreaded at specialized communities, Audio and video at entertainment portals or videoblogs and podcasts at Audioblogs and weblogs.
Most complicated is the evaluation of a communications based campaign. For the key seeding one need to define multiplicators, which may consist of early adoptors, influencers and keysurfers. Those may pass on the marketing message to other platforms and users. There are specialized agencies engaged in the identification of target groups or persons. Beside this there are some online communities with volunteers. A further way to evaluate platforms, forums and weblogs is to use charts.
Similar to the chaotic dismission of the messages an exact measurement of the campaign success is difficult. Campaign measurement in general is an up to date topic led by user acceptance of cookies. Usually campaign measurements in this reach can be done by link tracking and logs of ad or grapic impressions. Whereas measurements may advance the amount of yearly bought computers may show examplarily that measurements can not be exact. Happenings in a viral world are even more complicated as at communications and podcasting the distributed messages have become completely disconnected from the delivery system. On planning and campaign measurement agencies using data mining technologies may become engaged.
One may find all topics and tools mentioned at this article at the FOLDEN eMarketing and iMedia Directory
http://www.folden.info/
Related FOLDEN Rubrics
http://www.folden.info/podcasting.shtml
http://www.folden.info/publicrelationsonline.shtml
http://www.folden.info/rss-content-tools.shtml
http://www.folden.info/tagging-wikimedia.shtml
http://www.folden.info/viralmarketing.shtml
http://www.folden.info/weblogsandblogs.shtml
Copyright, Impressum and Terms of Use
This article may become passed on at a whole, with all links or at least one to the FOLDEN Homepage including the copyright hint naming the author and the following statement. The author of this articles makes no warranties on the usefullness or the correctness of any kind of this article, readers do use this information on their own responsibility.
Frank Brauer, Consultant
Frank Brauer, Consultant
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