What is viral marketing?

Viral marketing as a strategy aims to attract public interest in a brand, product or service through the use of viral messages. The ideal environment to launch a viral marketing campaign is social networks. It is used by individuals, start-ups and large companies, and is becoming increasingly popular as a way of obtaining organic positioning on the networks.

Viral marketing: characteristics

Viral marketing campaigns are based on a simple, compelling message of interest to a wide audience.

The message can be in any convenient format (tweet, post, video, etc.) and has to make the users themselves decide to spread it on the network. It must also contain a viral element, which can be the message itself (e.g. a phrase that invites to action), a product, service, prize, gift or any other hook that triggers the propagation of the message.

Viral marketing: advantages and disadvantages

Viral marketing as an online strategy has advantages and disadvantages that must be taken into account when deploying the campaign. Below, we list some of the main ones.

Advantages of viral marketing

It is cheap

As the user is in charge of spreading the message, there is hardly any need to invest in ads, media space and other resources essential for other forms of digital marketing.

Great potential for dissemination

Once a message is launched, if it is effective, it can go viral among thousands or even millions of people without any effort on our part. It can be said that it spreads by itself.

Facilitates brand building

When a user shares a brand message, they are engaging on a personal level with the brand. The fact that a message has gone viral means that the brand resides in the minds of a large segment of the public.

Respect the will of the users

Since the decision to share is personal, the user does not feel invaded in their space, which helps to establish a good brand image.

Disadvantages of viral marketing

We lose control of the diffusion

From the moment we launch a content, only the users are responsible for its diffusion. Therefore, whether it ends up going viral or not is out of our hands.

It requires a lot of creativity

For a viral marketing campaign to work, the most important thing is the form of the message. The content can be highly relevant, but it will not be successful unless it is expressed in the right way. The information must be brief, simple and effective, which requires a lot of creativity, as there are no recipes that guarantee success.

Results are slow in coming

Experience has shown that, in general, results are slow in coming due to the loss of control over the dissemination of content and the natural dynamics of diffusion among users. However, there are cases of almost immediate propagation and conversions.

Viral marketing examples

Here are two examples of viral marketing that have yielded amazing results in recent years.

Let’s open our world, by Momondo

This well-known travel agency recently launched a promotional video that already has more than 16 million views. It shows an experiment where the DNA of 67 people from different places and ethnic groups is analyzed. At the end, it shows a very effective slogan: “You have more in common with the world than you think. An open world starts with an open mind”.

This is a Phone by Samsung

For the Samsung Unpacked launch, the Korean company uploaded a short video to its Samsung Mobile channel on YouTube. The video, which explains what a smartphone is, lasts about half a minute and uses very creative resources. Users liked it so much that to date it has more than 40 million views.

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