Yep, still responding to question #6 in The Importance of Viral Marketing, a podcast interview I did with AllBusiness.com's Chris Bjorkland. The podcast was based on NextStage's research into WOM, viral and buzz marketing and good listening it is (my opinion, of course).
This arc provides a text version of that interview. There was a lot more in the podcast than appears in this arc, save a few last questions we didn't have time for. Each post in this arc will have one question (regular type) followed by my response (italics). Question #6 was "Some viral messages keep re-appearing and become annoying. What are some ways you can control how long a message is out there? How can the message get distorted?" I responded to "How long can a message be out there?" in Part 6 and Part 6a.
Here I take up with "How can the message get distorted?"
Messages can get distorted very easily if they’re not regularly maintained. Did you ever play the game where I whispered in your ear then you whispered in someone else’s ear and it went around the room until someone whispered back in my ear? I originally whispered “The sky is blue” and what came back was “This guy has booze” or some such.That’s an example of how a message can get distorted. NextStage did some research to learn just how far and how fast a message would lose its original meaning, its potency. What we learned is that the internet is great for maintaining a message’s potency because it’s immediate – people can get reinfected with the original message as many times as they want whenever they want.
This isn’t true of TV or radio unless you’ve recorded something and can play it back again and again and again. Print is better on the individual level but not en mass because the only way for me to guarantee you’ve got the same “infection” I have is to make sure you’re reading the same print material I am. Print allows the individual immediacy but not necessarily the group.
(more to follow)
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Links for this post:
- 3 Rules for Creating Buzz
- The "AllBusiness.com's Chris Bjorklund interviews viral marketing expert Joseph Carrabis, founder of NextStage Evolution" arc
- Holmes&Watsons
- Social Networks and Viral Marketing
- The Importance of Viral Marketing Podcast on AllBusiness.com
- Viral Marketing blog posts
- Why Some Viral Marketing Doesn't Work
- Yes, You Can Predict Viral Marketing
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