Inspired by David Kelly’s work on design thinking I’ve been thinking about a practical framework for creating social media and viral marketing campaigns.
I think one of the most important steps in this process is the “Research” phase. When I started thinking about this process, I used a metaphor from genetic engineering: If I wanted to construct the most infectious biological virus possible, I would start with the most contagious existing pathogens and work off of them. You might also study the spread of epidemics to identify the most important vectors. So in Viral Thinking, I’m suggesting that you model your campaigns off of those campaigns, ideas and memes that are relevant to your goals and have proven themselves to be viral.
Here’s my first attempt at it, I’d publishing this as a rough draft to get as much feedback as possible.
- Define
- What are the goals of your campaign
- Who is your target audience
- Research
- Identify relevant successful memes
- Identify relevant influential vectors and individuals
- Identify “information gaps” in your target audience
- Brainstorm
- Brainstorm many possible campaigns
- Brainstorm many possible seeding tactics
- Check
- Check your campaign ideas for “viral ingredients“
- Novelty
- Simplicity
- Social Proof
- Utility
- Communal Recreation
- Incentive
- Build
- Build out several of the best campaigns
- Test these campaigns with a small portion of your target
- Refactor them as necessary to maximize the “that’s awesome” responses
- Seed
- Launch your campaign via as many seeding tactics as relevant
- Monitor
- Measure campaign analytics against your goals
- Monitor your target audience’s reaction to your campaign
- Refactor the campaign to respond to feedback where necessary
- Learn
- Identify lessons learned from each campaign
- Implement lessons learned in each successive campaign
Again, I’m posting this to get your thoughts on this process, especially how it could be better and more concrete and practical.
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{ 15 comments }
Well done Dan. I feel that people skip your first two steps way too often. People just want something “viral,” but don’t take the time to figure out what that means for their organization and what the true goal of the campaign must be to achieve the desired results.
I wonder if there shouldn’t be something between steps six and seven to help nudge the thing along? Does the campaign have a destination site that needs to be updated as the campaign runs its course? Is there new content that has to be trickled out on a specific schedule to make sure it works? These are, of course, rhetorical questions, but it is nonetheless important to know every detail of what your plan entails before you launch.
Excellent post!
Hello Dan,
I think you are onto a great track. In the days and weeks ahead I will be exploring all your writings and am looking forward to hopefully being able to communicate with you more about them and my thoughts.
I am getting ready to launch what I consider to be the peoples medicine. Guided healing with ten cent tools (literally) and more. I am looking at how to get it out there to the public which is in desperate need of guided healing at an affordable price.
I am vibraman on twitter and will try to connect with you. Still new to all the tools and growing into them quickly.
maury
An excellent post. For my mind Check INCENTIVE should be made a a stronger ingredient, (i know it is listed in your previous post) That is oftne the key to it all. How and why are people going to make this go viral
It is great that you are providing an empirical look at viral marketing. So much of what I read seems anecdotal by comparison.
One point that I would add relates to (1) Define. I think that it is worthwhile to specifically state ‘What reaction to you want to create within your target audience’. As an example I would point to the Burger King Whopper/Facebook friend sacrifice. I wouldn’t say that the audience was carefully targeted but the message sure was – that the Whopper was something really valuable, valuable enough to sacrifice for if necessary.
-@wbw_Jeff
I love your recipe and it makes sense. That said, how do you test the campaign on a small target without letting the viral aspect kick in and get out of control before your ready? If it truly is viral then it certainly will expand beyond your containment ability very quickly.
I think where most people fail is the seeding aspect. Afterall, viral campaigns are typically created to develop reach yet if you need to develop reach then you probably don’t have enough reach for it to become viral. At that point in time, it’s a matter of relationships wiht key influencers who are willing to promote the campaign to their network on your behalf. Hence, just like in days of ol’, relationships are still at the heart of the campaign.
Great post.
Dan,
I see so many “viral” projects get launched that completely omit your Step #2:
(From Above)
#2 Research
1. Identify relevant successful memes
2. Identify relevant influential vectors and individuals
3. Identify “information gaps” in your target audience
And then after much time & money expended they’re left wondering why it didn’t perform.
Great post – brief but very useful.
Jeff
@darryl I meant “testing” as in doing demos or even just telling people in your target niche about the idea just to see what they think of it.
Good ideas right there to explore viral creative thinking. You’ve made a couples of great points and set the record for anybody who are interested in viral thinking. That’s wonderful idea!
Dan, I like this structure you’ve pulled together. Like other commenters have said “so much viral marketing is just anecdotal”…a creative director comes up with something “cool” the client likes, but with minimal research up front.
We just did some work with a client, and we did deep listening beforehand…we noted a lot of discussion around the brand relating to weddings. The client was stunned. They’d never considered that.
But it was a meme, and so when the microsite launched, weddings were featured…voila! it took off and they reached a whole new segment.
it doesn’t always work so nice, but this one did.
Dan,
I enjoyed reading this and definitely agree that we can always spend more time on step one.
So much so, that by starting with “What Problem Are We Trying to Solve”, it would help if we went so far as to entertain the notion, “Is a viral campaign even what we really need here?”
For many of us in the military, the drive is to “use more social media”, and I am constantly keeping folks on track by asking, “okay, but use it to DO WHAT?”
So I would expand step one to consider whether viral marketing IS the right solution.
Love your work!
Mike
Totally un-rock-and-roll.
Oh yah, Kurt Cobain went through that framework when he wrote “smells like”.
Get a Gibson !!!
Just ribbing ya.
Great post, I just wrote one on viral campaigns as well, but you really took it to the next level. Well done. I’m going to have to add a link to this.
I'm really impressed about this post…I think you get all of the insight to get viral a campaign…I would like to present you my own theory “The secret formula oto get viral”..Maybe, there are somethings you miss…
http://www.juanmarketing.com/formula-secreta-vi…
Following you to now…
Hi to all marketing passionated
I'm really impressed about this post…I think you get all of the insight to get viral a campaign…I would like to present you my own theory “The secret formula oto get viral”..Maybe, there are somethings you miss…
http://www.juanmarketing.com/formula-secreta-vi…
Following you to now…
Hi to all marketing passionated
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