Guest Post by Cindy Gordon
Vice President of New Media and Marketing Partnerships
Universal Orlando Resort
Nimble companies are using the Web in ways that they could never do before. New media has created a new marketing environment where the old rules of marketing no longer apply. When you have a passionate fan base for your brand, the Internet is especially vital for going viral. Communicating to a small but powerful group of fans first online to enlist their support is a smart way to ensure positive coverage in the mainstream press. The power of the Internet makes it easier for people to fall in love with you faster. But beware—it also makes it easier for them to fall out of love with you faster. It’s a double-edged sword. Listen constantly to what’s being said about you. Social media technologies do not make a brand viral; they merely allow consumers to tell others about good brands. The main thing is to be different and relevant with your brand. And when you have that, the sheer power of the Internet can accelerate your brand. Traditional media takes weeks to build brand awareness and months to build preference. The Internet can make your brand famous literally overnight.
Viral marketing success comes from self-publishing Web content that people want to share. It’s not about gimmicks. It’s not about paying an agency to interrupt others. It’s about harnessing word-of-mouse, the most empowering form of marketing there is.
Word-of-Mouse empowers you
You and I are incredibly lucky. For decades, the only way to spread our ideas was to buy expensive advertising or beg the media to write (or broadcast) about our products and services. But now our organizations have a tremendous opportunity to publish great content online—content that people want to consume and that they are eager to share with their friends, family, and colleagues. Word-of-mouse is the single most empowering tool available to marketers today. I wrote this e-book so you can take advantage of the power of viral marketing too. In it, I share ideas that will help you create your own viral marketing strategies and campaigns. These are the “new rules” I’ve used to create marketing programs that have sold more than a billion dollars’ worth of products and services worldwide.
There are people who will tell you that it is possible to create a viral campaign that will certainly be a hit, and there are agencies specializing in taking money and making promises. But I’ve noticed that when organizations (and their agencies) set out to go viral, the vast majority of their campaigns fail.
It is virtually impossible to create a Web marketing program that is guaranteed to go viral; it requires a huge amount of luck and timing. That’s an important point to remember as you work on viral marketing ideas, because it’s unlike the old-rules, numbers-based marketing techniques you’re probably used to. Consider a direct mail campaign: You could always count on a direct mail piece to generate a known number of responses, say 2 percent. So if you needed to have 100 people respond, you sent out 5,000 mailers. Easy, right? Viral marketing is much different. You just can’t count on numbers in the same way. Many efforts fail miserably, and there are countless Web sites, e-books, and videos that only their creators’ mothers and bosses have seen. However, tomorrow those same marketers might get lucky and get a million people to view their content, driving tens of thousands of people’s interest in their products and services.
However, this importance of timing and luck shouldn’t discourage you from using viral marketing techniques; you just need to learn how to turn the odds in your favor.
Viral marketing—having others tell and spread your story for you —is one of the most exciting and powerful ways to reach your audiences. It’s not easy to harness the power of word-of-mouse, but any company with thoughtful ideas to share—and clever ways to create interest in them —can, after some careful preparation, become famous and find success on the Web.
What viral marketing is not
Viral marketing is a popular buzzword out there but is misunderstood by many. It’s also gotten a bad rap in some quarters. Why? Because there are a cadre of viral marketing “experts” who will happily take (large amounts of) your money to create a viral marketing “campaign” for you. However, these old-line agency approaches typically depend on some gimmicky game or contest that just feels forced and advertisement-like. Typically, advertising agency-developed viral campaigns involve buying access in the same old ways, such as purchasing an email list to spam people or launching the campaign with a pricey print or TV ad. Often these viral ideas dreamed up by agencies have absolutely nothing to do with your company or its products.
Sure, an email subject line “Get Your Free iPod!” will drive viral buzz, because people want to take a chance on a free iPod. But unless your company has something to do with iPods, this bait-and-switch game is unlikely to educate people about your organization or drive sales.
Worse, some companies (urged on by their unscrupulous agencies) set up fake viral campaigns where people who are employed or in some way compensated by the agency write about a product or create a video purported to be from a customer. The Web is hyper-efficient at collective investigative reporting and smoking out trickery, so these campaigns rarely succeed. And, in the worst case, your organizational reputation may suffer great harm.
That’s why it is important to draw the clear distinction that valuable content going viral via word-of-mouse is the new way to spread ideas, while silly contests are yesterday’s news.
You must ignore the old rules. Viral marketing is not about coercion, and it is not about buying access. Don’t get sucked into gimmicks.
Ready to try out your production skills and post some hopefully buzz-generating content on YouTube?
Here are some things to keep in mind:
1. Creating a video is easy, and posting on YouTube is free.
Shoot the video using a digital video camera and copy it to your computer. You can then either upload the video to YouTube as is or edit it with software such as iMovie or Windows Movie Maker to add titles and special effects. You might shoot from different angles with one or more cameras and then piece together the footage to create a unified final product. But remember, less is usually more when it comes to special effects. When you’re ready to upload the video, you just need to create a free YouTube account and follow the directions to add the video.
2. Homemade is just fine.
You don’t need to hire a professional. A homemade-quality video can work well and is sometimes preferable. We’re bombarded with overproduced TV commercials all the time—so often that we usually just turn off our minds when they come on. An authentic and interesting video (rather than a slick and polished one) in which your personality shines through can make people notice. But plan ahead and shoot several takes to get it right.
3. Your video should be no longer than three minutes (preferably shorter).
Think very short. When people watch video, they have extremely short attention spans. There are millions of videos on YouTube, and it’s very easy to click away from yours. Although YouTube will accept videos shorter than 10 minutes (smaller than 100 MB), try to make yours between thirty seconds and two minutes. If you have more to say, consider creating a series of videos rather than making one too long.
4. Make your description clear and specific.
A critical component of your video will be its title—the name the world will associate with your work—so think carefully about it. Make it descriptive and unique. To best promote your video, create an accurate and interesting text blurb. Use descriptive keywords and language that people will use when they search for videos like yours. And use the correct categorizations on YouTube so people can find it.
5. Don’t attempt “stealth” fake customer insertions.
Some companies attempt sneaky stealth insertions of corporate-sponsored videos made to appear consumer-generated. A typical case might feature happy twenty-something’s at a party having fun while using products of a certain brand. The YouTube community is remarkably skilled at ratting out inauthentic video, so this approach is likely to backfire and cause harm to a brand. Remember, if your video is worth watching, viewers won’t care that it was submitted by a company.
6. Consider inviting your customer communities to submit video.
One of the most effective ways to use video to drive viral marketing is for companies to develop a contest in which users submit their own video, which then is made available for others to see. The best would-be directors are given prizes, and their videos are usually showcased on the company site. In some cases, the winning videos are also played on TV as “real” commercials. For example, more than 100 people submitted videos for a Mentos contest seeking the best customer-created videos of geysers made by combining the popular mints with Diet Coke.
7. Try a series of similar videos to build interest.
Sometimes a series of videos, such as those from Blendtec, a small company that makes household blenders, works well. Blendtec created a huge hit with their series of YouTube videos called "Will It Blend?" The following videos have each been viewed more than a million times:
8. Tell everyone about your video!
When you upload your first few videos, you are likely to hear a deafening silence. You’ll be waiting for comments, but none will come. You’ll check your video statistics and be disappointed by the tiny number of viewers. Don’t get discouraged—that’s normal! It takes time to build an audience. When you’re just getting started, make sure people know it’s there and can find it. Create links to your video from your home page, product pages, or online media room. Mention your video in your email or off-line newsletters, and create links to your video as part of your email signature and those of other people in your organization.
9. Make sure bloggers know about the video.
Sending bloggers a link to the video or commenting on other people’s blogs (and including a link to your video) is a good way to build an audience. If you comment on blogs in the same space as yours, you might be surprised at how quickly you will get viewers to your video. However, when commenting on someone else’s blog real estate, make sure you’re on topic and genuinely contributing to the conversation in addition to linking to your video. Don’t just spam bloggers with your link without adding value.
10. Above all, have fun! Don’t be afraid to go out there and experiment.
Video content on the Web is still very new for marketers and communicators. But the potential to deliver information to buyers in new and surprising ways is greater when you use a new medium. And while your competition is still trying to figure out “that blogging thing,” you can tap into the world of video and leave the competition behind.
