This post covers my responses to Chris Bjorkland's question #7 from AllBusiness.com. 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 #7 was "What should I be thinking about first if I am trying to reach as many people as possible in the least amount of time? What are some of the rules of “buzz” for that?"
Good Question. This is something I touched on in my IMedia column, 3 Rules for Creating Buzz. One of the questions our research answered was exactly this; How to reach the most people in the least amount of time?It turns out you want to seed your message with a fairly non-traveling audience, what we call a “static” audience. This is one of those things that is obvious after the fact; static people tend to have larger social networks and higher quality affiliations within those networks.
This goes back to social network sites where someone has 500 or more connections or the graduating class example. Consider that each individual in social network A is also a member of social network B; the graduating student also works at the mall. This one person will pick up a message in A, the message will strongly penetrate social network A, meanwhile the same person is busily spreading the message in social network B. Then there’s someone in social network B who’s also a member of social network C.
This is “I’ll tell two friends and they’ll tell two friends and so on and so on.” Person in social network A will have a larger network of quality affiliations, meaning they are paid attention to within their network.
Now consider the person who’s constantly traveling, who is non-static. Yes, they may be in touch with 500 people but these are people they see at a meeting, pass in the airport, talk to in the bar of the hotel. In reality their network is neither very large nor very affiliated. They interact with a lot of people but, unless they’re a Holmes (and chances are they won’t be if they’re in the 500+ connections category), not everyone in that network is impacted by what this individual does or says.
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
- Part 1
- Part 2
- Part 3
- Part 3a
- Part 4
- Part 4a
- Part 4b
- Part 5
- Part 5a
- Part 6
- Part 6a
- Part 6b
- Part 6c
- Part 6d
- 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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