30
Viral Marketing: Getting Your Customers to Promote for You
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get your customers to promote your company for you—for free? That’s what happens with viral marketing. Viral marketing is like old-fashioned word of mouth on steroids. In the old days, word of mouth was limited to the people your customers saw, wrote to, or called on the phone. With the Internet, word of mouth can go around the globe at the speed of light, reaching thousands or millions of people within seconds of the final keystroke. It’s the ultimate in productivity, since others are doing the marketing on your behalf, and it also can have a huge impact on expanding your contacts and helping you grow your business.
Opinions aren’t the only thing that can go viral; content that intrigues or entertains readers/viewers can also suddenly receive millions of hits when users pass it along to their friends. Sometimes this happens by accident, but there are ways you can help your content receive more notice, which just might nudge it into viral status.
Make It Easy to Share
Help your content go viral by making it easy to share. Constant Contact gives you the option to add a “share bar” to your newsletters, so your recipients can easily share the content on their Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. You may want to educate your readers about what the share bar is and how to use it, and include a personal request for them to pass it along via social media. Constant Contact also gives you a one-click ability to share your newsletter to your own Facebook, Twitter, and other sites. Add a line or two to create interest in the link so your friends and followers will have a reason to click through.
You can create the same type of share bar on your other sites with AddThis. AddThis generates a share bar and gives you the HTML code to add to your blog, Website, and other pages to make it easy for readers to pass along content they find interesting. ShareThis and Lockerz Share (http://share.lockerz.com/) are other similar services.
Earlier in the book, I talked about social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Delicious, and StumbleUpon. These are great sites to help get your content noticed (and hopefully shared) by a large readership. YouTube and other photo/video sites also make it easy to share by including a link you can pass along via e-mail or page posts.
The “like” button on Facebook is another way of sharing content, because when one of your readers says they “like” a post, a notification automatically goes to all of their Facebook fans or friends, alerting them and sharing a link.
How do you get readers to share? It’s really a two-fold process. First, educate your readers about why they want to share content. Some readers, especially those who are fairly new to using social media, may not really understand how to share, so you can explain how it works. Let them know what’s in it for them when they share: they provide interesting, humorous or informative content to their readers without having to create that content themselves, and they enhance their reputation of being the person with the news. Then, let them know you would appreciate them sharing your content and helping you reach more people.
The second part of the process lies in creating content interesting enough for people to want to share it. Take a hard look at the majority of your posts. Are they helpful, funny, provocative, unusual, or intriguing? Does your voice, personality, or sense of humor come through in a way that makes even mundane information sparkle? Do you share a unique perspective or have a different way of coming at a topic? These are all reasons people would want to share your content.
Make Sharing a Game
People like to have fun, even those who go online primarily for business. That’s one reason why humorous content is shared so often; it provides a few moments’ distraction from more serious concerns. So in addition to making sharing easy, why not make it fun?
Because people like to see information about themselves, many online promotions have invited customers to upload photos of themselves using the product, carrying their product to exotic locations, or doing something seasonal with their product. Kodak, for example, has invited people to upload photos of their pets in Christmas costumes. Heinz ketchup invited ketchup lovers to upload videos telling the world about their favorite ways to eat ketchup. Summit Coffee, a local North Carolina coffee shop, invites its customers to photograph themselves holding a Summit logo in exotic and remote vacation spots. Often, just being able to have bragging rights about being posted on a famous company’s Website is reward enough. Just think: every person whose photo is posted during one of these promotions is likely to share the link with hundreds of their online friends, driving traffic and visibility for the company hosting the promotion—and it’s all free.
Creating this type of promotion is simple and fun. You’ll have to create the landing page on your blog, social media pages, and Website, and assure that photos or videos get posted quickly. Make sure that everyone sending an entry completes a simple release form giving you permission to add their content, and while you’re at it, capture their contact information so you have permission to stay in touch. And you’ll need to publicize the promotion through PR and your own content, perhaps even adding some online marketing. But think about the potential return as participants pass along links to their friends to show them where you’ve posted their photos or video. To take full advantage of the traffic, make sure you have a clear offer of a free trial, no-cost download, or other incentive to encourage newcomers to opt in to your mailing list. Celebrate the promotion’s success by sending out a release at the end mentioning how many entries were posted. You might even want to send a thank-you e-mail with a link to free bonus downloadable content (or a coupon or tip sheet) to all those who opted in. Or, do random drawings with small downloadable prizes or discount coupons, picking from those who post content and comment on the postings to keep interest high.
As with anything that might appear to be a contest, avoid requiring a purchase to participate, and check the laws in your area, as they vary by state or province.
Facebook has tightened its rules regarding contests. Before doing anything contest-oriented on Facebook, make sure you check the site’s rules so your page doesn’t get shut down. Or, create your contest through a service such as PinpointSocial or Constant Contact, which provide Facebook-compliant, template-driven contests that make it easy for users to create and post their own social media contests. You can create promotions to offer free downloadable content (such as an article) to encourage people to “like” your page and increase traffic. You also receive reports to let you know just how well your contest is doing.
Another way to go viral is to create a really useful mobile app related to your business. First, decide what kind of app might appeal to prospects and customers. For some companies, such as those in the news or entertainment business, an app that streams recent posts to the company blog or social media site (things such as dinner specials or live music, for example), might be as sophisticated as you need to get. If that’s all you need, you might even try creating the app with a do-it-yourself service such as App.co (http://app.co/).
The next easiest way to create an app is to brand a utilitarian app that is related to the product you serve. This is the mobile app equivalent of handing out imprinted advertising specialty items, such as calculators, pens, or mugs with your logo on them. Except in this case, your logo and branding are on a mobile app instead of a tangible item.
Do you help people lose weight? Why not offer a branded calorie counter app to help them track their eating habits, or an app that lets people calculate calories in popular grocery items? Yes, these types of apps already exist, but not yet with your logo on them. Are you hosting an event? How about providing an app that provides the updated schedule and enables users to create their own customized agenda of presentations they want to attend. These are just a few examples of what is possible with branded apps. Or, create an app that makes it easy to place an online order, request items for takeout, or schedule an appointment. The important thing is that your app be seen as useful and possibly even fun by your target audience. Create a particularly useful app, and it just might go viral—with your branding all over it.
As of the time of this writing, there aren’t a lot of template-driven app creation sites—yet. As mobile apps grow as a marketing and branding tool, I think we’ll see template programs to make it easier and less expensive for people to create branded apps. For now, you’ll need to work with an app design firm. Don’t let that scare you. Branding a common utility app (such as a calculator, flashlight, or note pad) is less involved than creating a game app or other customized content. Just make sure you understand what is involved to keep the app running smoothly so users remain satisfied.
The secret to creating viral content is to know what appeals to your customer base and then giving it to them, and if possible, creating some fun or excitement in the process. You’ve really become productive when your customers are excited about doing your marketing for you!