Viral Marketing – Why is it important?

“Viral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks and other technologies to produce increases inbrand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses or computer viruses (cf. Internet memes and memetics).” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing

I hope wikipedia’s definition of viral marketing helps you to understand the concept of it. However, I want to share a short fact about Godaddy.com’s viral marketing. Godaddy.com made a risk choice, yet it was the smartest move ever I’ve seen in my life. Why? Godaddy released a video of a nerd man making out with sexy lady and close-up of their make-out motion on SuperBowl! Yes, believe it or not. Superbowl is not the only well-known football, it is also well-known for awesome commercials! Over a million people were truly shocked and speechless by the commercial video Godaddy made. It triggered the anger out of people who opposed to this video. At that point, when it has triggered the anger that has also boosted their motivation to do something about it. What is something? People could write a blog. People could post a video. People could share their opinions on social media sites such as FaceBook, Twitter, etc. People will talk about it with their friends in flesh. They talked how bad this commercial video is. They degraded Godaddy.com, but they didn’t realize how much they have helped Godaddy.com’s in a different way. What does this mean? People didn’t realize that they were heavily advertising or giving a free link that directly to GoDaddy.com. As in result, over a million people ended up clicking on link or going to GoDaddy.com for a specific reason – they want to know what is that company and why did they produce a disturb commercial video? From there, they didn’t realize that it is a domain/host website. They noticed how great this company provides these services and features that might meet people’s need for business or personal or other reason. GoDaddy.com earns more revenues by doing this. That was a clever viral marketing move because the higher risk it is, the higher reward it is. GoDaddy has obviously noticed how high risk this is, but it will not harm GoDaddy’s reputation as long as GoDaddy satisfies customers’ needs.

Why is it important? It increases the traffic to your website. It helps your company to get recognized more in the community or the world! It can increase company’s revenues. It can get more attentions from other companies. It can make a difference in company’s future. Before you excitingly start working on it, I am pretty sure that you think it is easy method to develop a viral strategy. In fact, it is not easy. There are over thousand companies that they have attempted doing some viral marketing. Some didn’t work. Some worked. Some damaged company’s reputation. You have to be careful. You have to be wise. You have to take time to think about everything. Everything could be what, how, why, when, etc. For instance, what video should company produce? How can that company make customers or new customers to share a video with others? What is approriate? What is not approriate? What is ethic thing to do? What is the best choice? I will make it simple for you. There are many things you need to be sure before you begin produce it. Whatever you do is represent the company you work for. This viral marketing can easily get you fired if you accidentally produce something that may damage company’s reputation.  It is risky move. If you don’t give a damn about it, then you should take it. If you ended up making it successful, you will definitely see yourself at somewhere better in the future because you are what every company wants.