Science can play its role in shaping your online strategy. A viral hit is what all marketers aim for, yet so few campaigns take into account the key forces needed to create your best chance for viral propensity. If you can apply Mailman’s 5 Factors to Viral propensity to your campaign you will give yourself the best chance at viral success.
Let’s begin… with this image in mind.
5 Forces for Viral Propensity
1. Media – You must ask yourself ‘what about our online initiative can attract mainstream media attention?’. Like most tabloid press, you must think what is ‘shocking’, ‘memorable’, ‘unique’ or simply a first off experience that you can weave into your program. Ensure it’s worth reading about in the newspaper and you’re on the way.
2. People – Get the people behind it. Empower the public to influence the outcome of the campaign. Create incentives for the public to play a major role in the success of the campaign. The more people actually participating in it, the more of them are talking about it.
3. Entertainment – It’s got to make you laugh or cry. That’s right, ask yourself what is the sort of content that will be produced from this campaign? If your campaign has scope to produce lots of content then you’ve created more opportunities to find entertaining content.
4. Emotion – Are you touching on someone’s dreams, hopes, desires or passion? By creating a deep connection with an individual’s heart you can make mountains move. Be sure to connect emotionally and do it as much as you can.
5. Social features – Technology allows you to create features that make it easy for users to share the campaign. Features such as personalized invitations, voting applications, reminder emails, rating and more each add a layer of engagement which builds on the campaign.
By addressing the 5 forces you can begin to build out the structure of a successful viral solution. Nothing is guaranteed – yet nothing is gained without taking at least one blind step forward.
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