4 ms·

What's Your Startup's Virality Coefficient?

3 points by shafqat 19y ago

iamdave 19y ago
Okay, I am honestly getting fed up with more and more people trying to become WOM experts. Before you know it, WOM will become the new SEO because we all think it's something we can slap on like a plastic goldpainted badge and everyone will somehow take us as if we have more profundity than we deserve. Just because it's called viral marketing doesn't mean it's truly viral. Just because you upload it to YouTube and get 200 viewers doesn't make it viral. Just because you do all the same things other true viral videos do, and make use of social content, doesn't make it viral. Especially if you only get 2 page views. Leeroy Jenkins, 2girls1cup, THOSE were viral because they shook the entire Internet cage, and they didn't run around screaming "OMG I'M VIRAL OMG I'M VIRAL PAY ATTENTION TO ME". That kind of mentality doesn't bode well, it hasn't since grade school. Calling your product marketing campaign viral and then SHOVING it in the faces of others by calling it viral takes away from the true essence of social media if what you produce comes up short, or doesn't come up at all. The thought begins to ruminate "Is this really all the web has to offer? Sad advertisements that try to appeal to me simply because it's an advertisement on YouTube? Wow I need to get something better" and we all lose. Nobody wins.
- shafqat 19y ago
  Thats exactly the point of the post actually. You cant make a product go viral. You can only build a product that is instrinsically viral because people are passionate about spreading the message. Dropping the viral marketing budget in favor of building something people want is a lot better use of $$$ in my opinion.
- TrevorJ 19y ago
  /Agree. I have always disliked the term "Viral Marketing" since it is simply Adspeak for the mechanism by which people discovered useful knowledge before there where any ad agencies around at all. Sure, the Internet has compressed the time period that this happens in and has allowed for the phenomenon (hate to even call it that) to be easily tracked with the sorts of numbers agency guys and businessmen, live and die by but in the end the true genius of "Viral" Marketing is that by giving it that name Agencies have packaged something people have done for thousands of years and turned it into a product to sell. Does it work? Sure. But come on guys, you are MARKETING people...couldn't you have at least named it something more..Positive sounding?

3 points by shafqat 19y ago

Okay, I am honestly getting fed up with more and more people trying to become WOM experts. Before you know it, WOM will become the new SEO because we all think it's something we can slap on like a plastic goldpainted badge and everyone will somehow take us as if we have more profundity than we deserve. Just because it's called viral marketing doesn't mean it's truly viral. Just because you upload it to YouTube and get 200 viewers doesn't make it viral. Just because you do all the same things other true viral videos do, and make use of social content, doesn't make it viral. Especially if you only get 2 page views. Leeroy Jenkins, 2girls1cup, THOSE were viral because they shook the entire Internet cage, and they didn't run around screaming "OMG I'M VIRAL OMG I'M VIRAL PAY ATTENTION TO ME". That kind of mentality doesn't bode well, it hasn't since grade school. Calling your product marketing campaign viral and then SHOVING it in the faces of others by calling it viral takes away from the true essence of social media if what you produce comes up short, or doesn't come up at all. The thought begins to ruminate "Is this really all the web has to offer? Sad advertisements that try to appeal to me simply because it's an advertisement on YouTube? Wow I need to get something better" and we all lose. Nobody wins.

shafqat 19y ago
Thats exactly the point of the post actually. You cant make a product go viral. You can only build a product that is instrinsically viral because people are passionate about spreading the message. Dropping the viral marketing budget in favor of building something people want is a lot better use of $$$ in my opinion.
TrevorJ 19y ago
/Agree. I have always disliked the term "Viral Marketing" since it is simply Adspeak for the mechanism by which people discovered useful knowledge before there where any ad agencies around at all. Sure, the Internet has compressed the time period that this happens in and has allowed for the phenomenon (hate to even call it that) to be easily tracked with the sorts of numbers agency guys and businessmen, live and die by but in the end the true genius of "Viral" Marketing is that by giving it that name Agencies have packaged something people have done for thousands of years and turned it into a product to sell. Does it work? Sure. But come on guys, you are MARKETING people...couldn't you have at least named it something more..Positive sounding?