Appeal to the masses

Virality is all about thinking big. We want to appeal to as many people, in as many places as possible. Viral marketing is about spreading the message as far and as wide as possible. Whereas, marketing in the digital age has provided us with the opportunity to market intimately to consumers, viral marketing is all about appealing to the masses.

There are certainly an extensive amount of tools available on the internet to collect data on "the masses". Some of the most powerful and useful tools for marketers have been those falling under the category of social networking technologies. 

Social networking sites have not only done the job of changing the way that consumers behave, but they have also become a powerful tool in providing insight to marketers on consumers interests, needs, behaviours, locations, family life, future projections, etc. Social networking sites grant marketers almost instant access to models of consumer social behaviour.

The websites have done the job of mapping out social interactions and making them readily available through online portals. The information retrieved by observing the patterns and interactions of consumers online is paramount to marketers. What better source of information on consumer behaviour existed prior to the internet? None. 

With all of the readily available information pooling around the internet, marketers have had the opportunity to strategically shift their business models and create new ones. With this, comes the potential for viral marketing campaigns. Marketers are able to target groups of differing sizes of consumers, and target them intimately.

But we're not trying to target groups of differing sizes by appealing to their intimate needs uniquely. In viral marketing, we are aiming to address and appeal to the entire set of these groups. How can we go about this? By identifying trends and patterns among the different groups that we can capitalize on in our viral marketing efforts.

Contagion theory argues that consumers act as a group, differently than they would as individual consumers. The anonymity of group inclusion (similarly to existing as an unseen entity on the internet) enables individuals to act irrationally, irresponsibly and emotionally; actions and emotions that would not otherwise be exhibited by consumers individually or without the group relation.

As marketers, we can capitalize on this...