Using Forums in Viral Marketing
Recently, forum marketing has been touted as a kind of free, organic, viral marketing. But because so many marketers go into forums purely with the intention of marketing products or services, their actions and attitude unwittingly causes the exact opposite of the desired effect.
Forums aren?t marketplaces but when used as such, the marketers? actions become offensive and will only inspire the wrath of fellow members and marketers, not to mention moderators who can ban them from the site with the click of their mouse.
In order to be effective, this kind of marketing carries a certain degree of commitment, responsibility and respect. The first requirement is to take a personal interest in the main topic of the forum. Not only does that mean visiting it regularly, but it also means developing a good relationship with both other members and the moderators, as well as taking an active interest in helping others. Of course, it also means abiding by and all rules that exist. By doing this, one can develop a reputation and, since it is human nature to work with a trusted colleague, business will naturally develop from this.
This type of marketing has already suffered some abuse and because of this, many forums have recently developed stringent rules designed to protect their members from abusive or overly-aggressive marketing tactics. One forum grants .sig files only after a member has created one hundred valid posts and another has disallowed ads in sig files altogether.
Marketers must respect that the purpose of a forum is to be a platform to exchange ideas on a given topic. It is not there to advertise products and services. By focusing on the topic and posting questions and answers, a marketer?s reputation will grow and this creates the potential for sales naturally.
The Many Facets of Viral Marketing
In the beginning, e-mail was the one way that viral marketing was started. Since that long ago day, viral marketing has gone from a marketing strategy to an art form and there are many ways to accomplish the objective of creating a successful viral marketing campaign. Seven of those ways are:
1. E-mail: It was first but it is still around and still used. It is, however, getting a little harder to use as more and more government restrictions are placed on it. Still? it does work.
2. Newsletters: This is an extension of e-mail but it a very effective tool. If you include enough timely and valuable information, a good newsletter can drive up the number of visits to your website.
3. Blogging: Providing the tools on your website to enable bloggers to interact with one another is a terrific way to get the message about your product of service out there and being talked about. Bloggers have their ears to the ground for new products and services.
4. Chat Rooms: A chat room on your website can and does encourage interaction among your customers and that can?t be a bad thing. Also, you can use the chat room to schedule special events like having an expert available to answer questions on a given day at a given time.
5. Tell-a-friend Script: If you add this with a statement saying that e-mail addresses supplied will never be shared with third parties, you can increase your potential customer list greatly.
6. Video Clips: Including cool video clips on your website will keep the interest up and increase traffic.
7. Flash Games: Although they are a little costly to start, they are an extremely effective tool to get your viral marketing campaign going. Once they are launched, they require nothing more from you.
Using Videos in Viral Marketing
More and more advertisers are adopting video as broadband continues to rise and ad-serving technologies become more sophisticated. Online video advertising is really taking off. Users? attention can be captured and ads stand out from the crowd in an increasingly ad-cluttered online environment. It is true that video formats cost five to ten times more to serve than standard banners and they involve a lot more production and implementation work but they may well be worth all of that if they achieve greater response rates.
Where to use online video if wishing to maximize its effect, is what advertisers must carefully consider. Video to be used on the Internet should be information and communication focused while video to be used on television should be focused on entertainment.
Like everything else, there are good ways and bad ways to use video advertising. Right now most marketers are incorporating their audio-visual content into existing embedded ad formats like banners or over-content formats like pop-ups. Though this could reach a potentially large audience, viewers are likely to be less captivated and more annoyed by these disruptive and distracting placements.
Cached or streaming video on a specific destination site offers the best chance of interesting consumers in brand messages, but it is not likely to reach a large audience unless it generates a viral outcome.
Whatever you come up with, don't forget to make it easy to open and distribute. File size is important, as is the media format. If your viral video has been created for a particular type of software that not many people use, how will you get people to spread it like wildfire?
Also, if you've made a video the impact will be better if you send the clip as an attachment rather than stream it. It's cheaper and, if you're not hosting it, it's more viral, too.
The Subservient Chicken
Created for Miami Advertising Agency Crispin Porter and Bogusky by The Barbarian Group, the Subservient Chicken is a viral marketing promotion of Burger King?s line of chicken sandwiches.
The campaign is based on a web site that features a person in a chicken costume. The actor performs a wide range of actions based on a user?s input, showing pre-recorded footage and appearing like an interactive webcam. The takes literally the advertising slogan ?Get chicken just the way you like it?.
There are more than a hundred commands the chicken will respond to, including:
? Michael Jackson dance moves such as moonwalk
? River dance
? The elephant
? Lay an egg
? Walk like an Egyptian
? Yoga
? Rage
? Spank
? Taco Bell
? Fight
When told to do anything the Subservient Chicken thinks is offensive, like perform sex acts or take off his mask, the chicken walks up to the camera and shakes a scolding chicken finger in disappointment. If he is told to east food from rival fast food places like McDonald?s he approaches the camera and places his finger down his throat but when told to eat Burger King he has a more positive response. The chicken responds to the command ?smoke crack? by smoking but when told to ?smoke a bong? he waggles his finger scoldingly.
Burger King?s Chicken Fights campaign was recently introduced. The two cockfighting chicken characters are modeled off this chicken.
There seems to be no end to the variations on the theme from Burger King. There has also been a lot of criticism leveled at the chain about the Subservient Chicken but for now it looks like Burger Kind is crying all the way to the bank.
A successful viral campaign isn?t always in good taste? maybe that?s what makes them so tasty.
