Success in viral marketing is best exemplified by the massive hit Angry Birds. What started out as a mobile application about poultry and pigs is now one of the most viral games throughout the globe!
Rovio released the Angry Birds app to be played in different social mobile platforms. It turned out to be a flop at first but when Apple featured it as a game of the week in UK, it started a viral social media campaign. The Angry Birds franchise is now worth about £760 million thanks to successful viral marketing and social media. Achieving such a feat as that of Angry Birds is not impossible. Here are just 3 steps to harness the power of social media:
1. See it to believe it
When Apple agreed to feature Angry Birds, Rovio came up with a YouTube video trailer of the mobile app with the goal of attracting interest. From being in the 600th in the game apps chart, Angry Birds jumped to 1st.
Remember the cliché “picture paints a thousand words”? Well, it operates on the premise that humans are very visual creatures. If one still photograph paints a thousand words, imagine the many messages a single video can send! YouTube is truly one viral media source!
Putting up a high quality video on YouTube or Tweeting a very interesting (read: catchy) photo are just two guerilla marketing ideas you can try. It’s all about out of the box ideas that are so unbelievable, people would want to learn more!
Click on the PLAY button to watch the video
2. The gift of sharing
Success in viral marketing happens when people share things without actually getting paid to do it. How useful are those tiny Facebook share and like buttons and that retweet button, right? Never underestimate the power of word of mouth marketing. As long as your output for step #1 is creative enough, it has every possibility to emerge as viral advertising.
You may want to take advantage of sending viral emails with promos too! After all, who wouldn’t want to share freebies and discounts to friends and family?
3. Put it all together
Integrating social media is probably the best marketing strategy. Viral campaigns exist when they are visible in all forms of media. It is simply not enough to make use of just one social networking site or single form of viral promotion. Make full-blown invasion of social media your goal. Angry Birds rose to such fame because it was found on YouTube, talked about in all social networking sites and available in mobile phones.
Success in viral marketing may not be something that happens overnight but it is clearly achievable.
Next, if you are planning to start a viral marketing campaign and looking for tools to speed things up a little, you want to look at this.
its useful for the small business marketing persons…………
Thanks for this list! We know how amazing social media marketing is and that it is a must for the business but exactly what do we do to get it working for us! Build relationships through social media, interact with clients and the market, learn from the customers. That is what in my opinion why social media is a must for any business.