What do you think makes a good viral campaign?

[Adventurelife]

Very hard to do , for all the ones you see and talk about there are thousands of failures. Worth it if you get it right though if you ensure that the effect is increase sales.

I am not sure that all of them actually achieve that.

 

[Former Member 1]

Personally I can't think of any marketing parameters that this would be detrimental too.

Also I can't see that the redirect can possibly have pissed anyone off or done any damage to either "brand" for the following reasons:

1. 10ReasonsItWouldRuleToDateAUnicorn.com was specifically created for the content.

2. The page it is redirected to on the other domain: here carries exactly the same content.

On the contrary, 10ReasonsItWouldRuleToDateAUnicorn.com was never a brand - but it brought mingle2.com great benefit, it could even be viewed as a product of the brand I suppose....

I could of course only be seeing this from one angle, but I'm exceptionally interested in the subject matter and love debating... feel free to rip my argumentation to shreds

Well please understand there's a element of Devil's Advocate here....

....So what was the point of the redirect after the links had been established?

Dating sites offend some people. Some folk are lonely and feel being single carries a stigma. They don't want to feel/seem desperate to don't want to be seen exploring dating sites. Some people view them as sleazy and/or risky. Some corporate systems will have the smart filters set to block such sites and possibly even flag up attempted access.... To be 'railroaded' towards one is potentially embarassing.

In marketing everything and everybody is a brand. What you've just told me is that the brand called "Mark Inman" is prepared to harvest links contributed for one (non commercial) use and apply them to another not only commercial but arguably contentious one... Not only that but the people behind the dating site are prepared to condone this.

Is there some 18-year old ex-office-clerk somewhere cursing the bones of Inman to hell because they got fired for accessing a banned site at work? An extreme (and abstract) example I know but extreme examples are often handy when it comes to shedding light on the trivial. How many have learned of this sorry tale only to navigate away with a click, a tut and an under-the-breath "f-in chancers"?

Is it even a decade since some of use were afeared to keep a PC in the living room because individuals were re-directing clicks on apparently innocent sites to either blatant porn or pop up pages you couldn't steer away from? And there were plenty back then advocating the use of pop-up adverts (or even what were in effect trojans) as the way forward in driving traffic to one's site... I recall my own Father being absolutely incandescent with rage when a search for 'wooden ships' (he's into model boats) railroaded him to a gay porn site that not only snapped his browser into a loop but changed his homepage to direct him down similarly unwelcome routes....

All things that 'certain' web designers were advocating...

It's legal yes. and in this instance the principal hasn't really been abused. As a technique though I suspect it's more likely to become part of the long-term problem rather than the solution.

In my experience the most valuable marketing data you can get is negative feedback. It's relatively easy to gather data about why something is working. And easy to get carried away with that. But what's more valuable is finding out the the reasons why people aren't even looking in your shop window or worse still coming, seeing and voting with their feet.

 

[andrewburnett]

Well please understand there's a element of Devil's Advocate here....

But of course Discussing the merits of techniques I use make me aware of the fears other may have. You've raised a couple of very interesting points in this which both tend toward ethics:

In this particular example Matt Inman hasn't harvested links for non commercial use and then missapropriated them for commercial interest. I feel it's important to defend the ethics behind what he has done... it may be a subtle difference, but an important one nonetheless - there was never any doubt about the purpose of 10ReasonsItWouldRuleToDateAUnicorn.com - the source code is precisely the same as it is now, including the "Don't want to date a unicorn click here" link at the bottom of the page. It was always clearly an advertisement for a dating site - all that has changed is that this page is no longer on a domain of its own.

The other point I found interesting was the hypothetical office clerk accessing a banned site at work. This is actually a much more difficult one, as there is perceived guilt on three sides. I'm pretty sure that any tribunal would not accept a firing over a single instance of missuse of IT infrastructure, but asssuming they did for the sake of argument... was the clerk employed to work or to surf the net looking at things her friend's sent her in personal emails? The moral dilema here is much less easy to distinguish.

What these concerns tell me is that this style and methodology needs to be applied carefully and selectively with full explanation to the client of the potential pitfalls. Not only that but also never to deal with dodgy clients.

At the end of the day, there are any number of unscrupulous people who will redirect a seemingly inocuos link to something much less savoury indeed - some for financial gain and others seem to gain pleasure from such actions.

....So what was the point of the redirect after the links had been established?

Rankings, in a word - inbound links build domain strength.

There is also debate over is it ethical to create content specifically to gather links or not, I firmly and truly believe it is (I would say that, it's what I do for a living). But there is a very good reason I say that, links are the online equivalent of "word of mouth" Don't Irn-Bru and the Leith Agency deserve the attention that their hard work receives?? Same applies online the way I see it

The debate and discussion is never something I shy away from, because I continually learn from it - please never feel you can't play devils advocate

 

[andrewburnett]

Very hard to do , for all the ones you see and talk about there are thousands of failures. Worth it if you get it right though if you ensure that the effect is increase sales.

I am not sure that all of them actually achieve that.

I won't pretend it is easy to do, but some people have studied how to get ridiculous amounts of exposure to websites and have it down to quite a fine art

 

[Former Member 1]

The other point I found interesting was the hypothetical office clerk accessing a banned site at work. This is actually a much more difficult one, as there is perceived guilt on three sides. I'm pretty sure that any tribunal would not accept a firing over a single instance of missuse of IT infrastructure, but asssuming they did for the sake of argument... was the clerk employed to work or to surf the net looking at things her friend's sent her in personal emails? The moral dilema here is much less easy to distinguish.

Well, it was an abstractexample. And why do you assume the clerk was a girl?

We actually did have an example of this sort of thing popping up a few years ago. At Stow we run all sorts of creative courses. and that includes music management, TV and indeed web design courses. Accessing various marketing websites in that context is a perfectly legitimate activity.

One lad was directed to what might be termed a mildly pornographic site. This was on a communal machine and happened to be found by ICT. THAT in turn sparked an investigation by the senior management team during which each and every staff member was 'grilled' to track the source...

Two, three or even four wrongs don't make a right. And the fact this hapless young lady possibly shouldn't have been looking at personal email doesn't absolve those who misdirected her in any way...

As you suggest; this particular example is one where the technique has been applied with some consideration. But it has at it's heart the ability and intent to deliberately circumvent and misdirect what might be termed the 'natural' process.

As I pointed out in another post. We are already teaching students to use more 'creative' search techniques to unravel what's out there; the search engines becoming increasingly less useful in practical terms of finding what's actually out there rather than what people want us to see. Indeed you could argue that the decreasing usefulness of the search engines is what makes viral marketing such a potentially powerful tool..... But then pop-ups were once a potentially powerful tool too...

And you should hear my Father ranting on about wooden ships!

 

[andrewburnett]

Two, three or even four wrongs don't make a right. And the fact this hapless young lady possibly shouldn't have been looking at personal email doesn't absolve those who misdirected her in any way...

I would hate for anyone to construe my comments as exonneration for misdirecting anyone. Not to suggest that you do, but just to underline the fact that I agree with you whole heartedly on this.

As you suggest; this particular example is one where the technique has been applied with some consideration. But it has at it's heart the ability and intent to deliberately circumvent and misdirect what might be termed the 'natural' process.

On this point I need to raise my ugly disagreement I'm afraid - one cannot flame the technique in general, because it could be used for malicious purposes. Every CMS system worth its salt uses redirects to make its URLs more readable. The mechanism used is precisely the same. The UK government use redirects when they streamline their old plethora of sites down to a more manageable amount (not that the UK government is angelic, but you see my point hopefully...) To sweepingly brand the technique as devious is simply wrong.

It's similar to attempting to ban steel toe cap boots because someone got kicked in the head with them (which is of course unacceptable) and ignoring what they are useful for by the vast majority of their users... Ok, it's an extreme analogy but it fits

Perhaps fibreglass boats yield more relevant search results

 

[johnthesearcher]

I think that previous posts make some very valid points with ref to the subject.

It is useful, but should only be used as a planned part of your overall marketing strategy, as it is not suitable for everyone and some of my colleagues cringe at the thought of 'viral'.

It is relatively easy to set up an offline or online viral campaign but with so much competition and rivalry going on, every method of marketing must be cleverly employed and utilized.

The main and foremost advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site and your company. You get to generate a flow of traffic to existing and potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.

Different types of companies are catching on to the effectivity of Viral Marketing and Advertising. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the rating games.

Many big companies have tried viral marketing and have had many success stories with it. A classic example is Microsoft's Hotmail. They were the first known big company to utilize the scheme and it has worked wonders for them.

Viral marketing may be you simply posting a reply on a forum blog, or simply creating your own blog with an interesting topic.

Other low cost effective methods worth a mention ..........

Create a Newsletter or Blog.

Tell A Friend Script

Add To Favorites Script

Social Bookmarking Links

Articles and Content

Add A Guestbook

Hope this helps

John

 

[andrewburnett]

In response to the thread title, what makes a good viral campaign....

edited: The almost flat line is actually fluctuating between 300 and 400.

 

[Former Member 1]

To sweepingly brand the technique as devious is simply wrong.

potentially devious... potentially

It's similar to attempting to ban steel toe cap boots because someone got kicked in the head with them (which is of course unacceptable) and ignoring what they are useful for by the vast majority of their users... Ok, it's an extreme analogy but it fits

Quite so, but advocating them as general schoolwear might be equally problematic.

Perhaps fibreglass boats yield more relevant search results

It's possibly just my sick and twisted mind at work but I suspect fibreglass boats might belong to a different but related genre; possibly one that's best not explored on a full stomach, if at all!!

Personally I think he'd be safer with a copy of 'radio control boat fan' monthly or whatever... I feel the ads in that back of that would yield better results.