This post will close my responses to Chris Bjorkland's question #6 from AllBusiness.com, although I still have three questions left to answer to complete this arc. You can hear the complete podcast at The Importance of Viral Marketing. The podcast was based on NextStage's research into WOM, viral and buzz marketing and this arc provides a text version of the 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 answer some part of one of the questions (regular type) Chris Bjorklund asked me 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, and started answering "How can the message get distorted?" in Part 6b. That thread was continued in Part 6c and concludes here, picking up with my examples of communication vectors as graduating class sizes.
For example, a small high school or college’s graduating class may have 35-50 people in it and each student knows all the other graduating students on a first name basis, probably has had direct interaction with them at some point in time.Now expand the graduating class to 50-70 people and, okay, you may know all their first names but you have to think a bit before you can state their name for sure. You might have worked with them on a project but you didn’t talk much after that project was finished except the friendly, polite hello as you passed in the hallway.
Now make the graduating class 75-100 students and the college or high school starts to recognize unique areas of scholarship or participation. This shows up in club pictures, “Most likely to…” photos and such.
I’m on a business social networking site and see some people with over 500 connections. Impressive and I know immediately that many of the people in such a network are purely business contacts, which is fine, except that at the end of the day business (especially at the higher levels) is personal, sales is definitely personal, and buzz marketing, viral marketing, WOM, etc., is totally personal.
This goes back to finding the right influencers for your product, service or market.
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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