A strategy for success, funnelled by best practices

Create a strategy for content development:

In the previous post we discussed the notion of separating users into groups and deriving common data pertaining to all of the groups. Let's expand on this:

1. Mine for relevant data on as many channels as possible. 

2. See what's out there that's important and relevant to the people. 

3. Integrate the findings into the viral content. 

4. Include found buzzwords in the content. 

5. Invoke the means for emotional engagement and attachment into the content. 

Key: Capitalize on emotions that are common ground for all human beings: the desire to be loved, the need to be accepted, the thirst to thrive, and the impetuosity to become an overnight celebrity. 

6. Make it real. People like what they can relate to. Make it as real as possible. 

Attempt to spread it:

1. Spread the content initially by seeding it through a network of strong influencers. 

In the background: Observe the impact and the success of the campaign from the initial spread throughout the influencer network. Tweak the campaign as needed. 

2. Seed and spread the content within secondary influencer networks (less strong but still good networks of digital influence). 

In the background: Observe the impact and the success of the campaign from the secondary spread throughout the influencer network. Tweak the campaign as needed. 

3. Seed the campaign randomly. (We have already established that lucks plays an important part in the success of viral marketing). 

In the background: Observe the impact and the success of the campaign from the random spread. Tweak the campaign as needed. 

Tip:

Complex contagion theory tells us that the impact of a message is not truly realized until the message comes through to the user from several different sources. It is not enough to rely on one or two shares that reach someone to truly impact the individual. With this being said, the best way to go about a viral marketing campaign would be to employ as many online marketing channels as possible in the process. 

Online marketing channels may include:

- Social networking websites

- Emails

- Ads (banner, text, etc)

- Corporate portals (if possible)

- Mobile messaging 

Ensure that the efforts are fully scalable, by being ready for access on all internet accessible devices: desktop, mobile, tablets, etc. 

Observe best practices:

1. Ensure that the content is emotionally engaging: a high level of affective attachment and commitment from the end user is correlated with the likelihood of sharing. 

2. Keep the message in the content simple enough for anyone to understand. Comprehension is key. 

3. Include a free gift or a promotion in the sharing mechanism. 

4. Ensure that the act of sharing the content or the message is quite trivial in itself, does not require very much work on the user's part. 

5. Make sure that the technology behind the content's scalability is up and running, and that the message will not be killed in transit, i.e. growth limited by server capacity that could potentially shutdown the campaign during its growth phase.