CHAPTER 8: GOING VIRAL: THE WEB HELPS AUDIENCES CATCH THE FEVER— QUESTIONS

1)  What is a viral campaign?

marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networking services and other technologies to try to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses or computer viruses. It can be delivered by word of mouth or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet and mobile networks.


2)  Why do you think Psy’s song and dancing have gone viral? 

Youtube. Its funny and has its signature dance move. 


3)  When organizations set out to go viral, why do the vast majority of the campaigns fail?  

Worse, some companies set up fake viral campaigns where people who are employed by the company or in some way compensated write about a product. The web is hyperefficient at collective investigative reporting and smoking out trickery, so these campaigns rarely succeed and may even cause great harm to reputations. Often a corporate approach is some gimmicky game or contest that just feels forced and advertisement-like. I think it is virtually impossible to create a web marketing program that is guaranteed to go viral. A huge amount of luck and timing are necessary. A sort of homemade feel seems to work, while slick and polished doesn't. For example, the Numa Numa Dance that was so popular several years ago was about as homemade as you can get—just a guy with a web camera on his computer—and it helped to popularize the song and sell a bunch of downloads.


4)  How did Mentos benefit from social media to create viral buzz?

On the day that the Diet Coke and Mentos experiments went viral, there was a tenfold spike in the number of blog posts mentioning Mentos. If you follow the word Mentos, you'd want to know what was going on, so you could either respond to the crisis or leverage the positive development. At the least, you should learn the reason for the spike and alert company managers; when the Wall Street Journal calls for comment, “Huh?” is not the savviest response.


5)  What is a World Wide Rave and what is required to trigger it? 

A World Wide Rave is when people around the world are talking about you, your company, and your products—whether you're located in San Francisco, Dubai, or Reykjavík. It's when global communities eagerly link to your stuff on the web.

Many of the easy techniques for triggering a World Wide Rave are the exact opposite of what you've learned on the job or have been taught in school. Similarly, if you're a CEO, business owner, or entrepreneur, you should know that these ideas are likely precisely what your agency partners and marketing staff tell you not to do.


6)  Briefly summarize the Rules of the Rave.

• Nobody cares about your products (except you). Yes, you read that right. What people do care about are themselves and ways to solve their problems. People also like to be entertained and to share in something remarkable. To have people talk about you and your ideas, you must resist the urge to hype your products and services. Create something interesting that will be talked about online. But don't worry—because when you're famous on the web, people will line up to learn more and to buy what you offer!
• No coercion required. For decades, organizations of all kinds have spent buckets of money on advertising designed to coerce people into buying products. Free shipping! This week only, 20 percent off! New and improved! Faster than the other guys! This product-centric advertising is not how you get people talking about you. When you've got something worth sharing, people will share it—no coercion required.
• Lose control. Here's a component that scares most people silly. You've got to lose control of your messages, you need to make your valuable online content totally free (and freely sharable), and you must understand that a world wide rave is not about generating sales leads. Yes, you can measure success, but not through business school ROI calculators.
• Put down roots. When I was a kid, my grandmother said, “If you want to receive a letter, you need to send a letter to someone first.” Then when I was in college, my buddies said, “If you want to meet girls, you have to go where the girls are.” The same thing is true in the virtual world of the web. If you want your ideas to spread, you need to be involved in the online communities of people who actively share.
• Create triggers that encourage people to share. When a product or service solves someone's problem or is very valuable, interesting, funny, or just plain outrageous, it's ready to be shared. To elevate your online content to the status of a World Wide Rave, you need a trigger to get people talking.
• Point the world to your (virtual) doorstep. If you follow the Rules of the Rave as I've described them, people will talk about you. And when they do, they'll generate all sorts of online buzz that will be indexed by the search engines, all relating to what your organization is up to. Forget about data-driven search engine technologies. The better approach to drive people to your stuff via the search engines is to create a World Wide Rave. As a result, your organization's websites will quickly rise to prominence in the rankings on Google, Bing, Yahoo!, and the other search engines.

7)  How could somebody utilize Creative Commons to spread their ideas and any other type of information published on the web?

    With a Creative Commons attribution for photos, blog posts, e-books, and other information published on the web, originators of works assert legal copyright ownership but also grant others free licenses to incorporate these works into new ones. That way, others can share, remix, use commercially, or otherwise mash up the content without asking explicit permission

8)  How did Ryan Gielen create buzz for the movie The Graduates?

      it was with great interest that I had an opportunity to connect with Ryan Gielen, executive producer of The Graduates,to learn about his strategy of making the soundtrack of his film available for free download. The Graduates is an award-winning comedy about four friends who head to the beach without a care in the world. Prior to release, the film had been developing a loyal following among the 18- to 34-year-old demographic following a dozen sold-out festival and sneak preview screenings. It had been advertised solely by word-of-mouth and a free soundtrack download.

9)  What are the odds of creating a successful viral buzz for a product, service, and so on, and why are the odds so discouraging?


Viral marketing—creating a world wide rave by having others tell 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, but with careful preparation when you are sitting on news and with clever ideas for what has the potential to create interest, any organization has the power to become famous on the web.

10)  What social media were used in creating viral buzz for the $7 million home in Fort Myers, Florida?

Homeowner Rich Ricciani decided to offer potential buyers a coupon good for $1 million off the price of his $7 million Fort Myers, Florida, home. He created a site for the coupon and placed it in newspapers in lieu of a typical real estate advertisement. This creative approach sure beat simply reducing the price of the home on the real estate Multiple Listing Service database.

11)  How did Chuck Richard expose click fraud on search engines?

“At first we hinted at the report in our client newsletter,” says Chunk Richard, vice president and lead analyst at Outsell and the author of the report. “We always make certain that the paying clients get access to reports before they hit the media. But internally and with our PR firm, Warner Communications, we thought it was going to be big.” Outsell had a logistical problem in that the report was to be released to clients over the U.S. Independence Day holiday weekend. The PR firm sent a media advisory, headlined “Outsell, Inc. Pegs Click Fraud as $1.3 Billion Problem That Threatens Business Models of Google, Others; Study Shows 27% of Advertisers Slowing or Stopping Pay-Per-Click Ads Due to Fraudulent Billings,” to selected media. The advisory offered an early look at the report to approved media under an embargo period—stories could not appear until Wednesday, July 5, at the earliest. Verne Kopytoff of the San Francisco Chronicle spent the holiday weekend researching the problem identified by Outsell, interviewing Richard, and reaching out for comment from spokespeople at the search engines. His story, “Click Fraud a Huge Problem: Study Finds Practice Widespread; Many Cut Back Online Ads,” was the first to break.