Problem Solving - Assignment Example

Viral Marketing Introduction Viral Marketing Introduction Introduction There are different techniques that can be used to engage in internet marketing. The most common include viral marketing and direct sales. In viral marketing, every new internet user will be exposed to advertising. There are usually two techniques of viral marketing. One type is the original classic method in which the product is the actual marketing process which inevitably prompts a self-amplifying cycle. An example of original classic viral marketing can be seen in elements such as You Tube and Hotmail.

In essence, whenever internet users click on these sights, they are compelled to see them and thus are influenced by them. These sites are improved with every click that earns them new traffic. The second type of viral marketing involves the use of an actual marketing campaign. For instance, people in different areas around the world can choose to post posters of a popular musical group because they like it. This means that the method used to advertise the musical groups talents is viral. Viral marketing has grown extremely popular because it allows for marketers to be able to spread messages quite easily and over a short period of time.

All that marketers are required to do is to select a number of enthusiasts who support their idea and message, and then make it viral (Woerndl, 2008). The message will then spread on its own momentum without the need for allocating extra expenses on marketing. In many industries, viral marketing is viewed as being a trendy way of promoting different services and brands. Viral marketing is greatly favored by different industries because it reaches customers faster than most other methods of advertising would and at a relatively low cost.

Viral marketing also allows for marketers to be able to include the direct messages that they desire instead of cutting the number of words they use in the interest of saving costs. According to Woerndl (2008) there are 144, 000 hours of videos that are uploaded on YouTube on a daily basis. This means that, even though marketers can benefit from free press and have the opportunity to reach billions of users in seconds with their messages, they have to ensure that their videos are authentic and original in order to attract the attention of YouTube traffic.

Viral marketing also provides an opportunity for a marketer to benefit from high-level sharing, social engagement, and brand interaction which then accentuates brand advocacy. For instance, the ‘Dove’s True Beauty Sketches’ advertising campaign benefited from almost 30 million views just ten days after it was launched (Fetscherin & Lattemann, 2008). This attention also resulted in 15, 000 subscribers of YouTube being added to the Dove channel in the subsequent 60 days. This launched the Dove brand into the global market in a big way.

This trend will also attract more interest for the brand. According to Chiu, Lee, & Chen (2008) when internet users are drawn to brands through the content that they decide to click on and not through the advice of other sites or campaigns, they are prone to likely to get more involves with the brand in question. Organizations have learnt the importance of viral marketing and are actively involved in trying to benefit from it. There are different methods that can be used in viral marketing. Some of the more popular viral marketing methods entail the use of videos, social media sites, blogs, and email marketing.

Videos are greatly favored by many organizations because it has many carriers such as Face Book, You Tube, Digg, and MySpace. Video is a good option because it allows for marketers to include as much detail as they wish whether it be in form of information or images. Highly visual channels allow for detailed brand messages. Videos are also easily shareable with many individuals around the world.Another method that is often used by organizations for marketing purposes is blogging. Business organizations can easily create their own content and then post it in their blogs.

There are no rules that are used to determine the content that the organizations use (Chaffey, Ellis-Chadwick, Mayer & Johnston, 2006). This means that they have the right to use controversy, challenge business rivals, or prompt debates on different subjects in order to draw attention to their blog. Once this content is exposed to the world by means of viral marketing, the marketers will benefit from world wide exposure in a way that might have been impossible in the past. Another method used by organizations is that of social media platforms.

Social media platforms are visited by billions of users around the world on a regular basis. They are a quick and easy way for these people to learn about new products or services. Some of the more popular social sites that are often used for marketing purposes by business organizations include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, and LinkedIn (Bruyn & Lilien, 2008). A different type of viral marketing involves the use of email to send marketing messages to users. Email is important because it allows users to share their views about different brand products or even mediums for viral marketing operations.

The study of viral marketing as a method of communicating among users is still relatively new. Researchers have not really concentrated on examining the unique trait of techniques such as mobile communication as an additional technique for viral marketing. This study concentrated on the use of mobile forms of communication in viral marketing. This included an evaluation of the technological evolution of mobile forms of communication and the emergence of Mobile Viral Marketing trends. To support this research, there was an extensive research on mobile technical literature as well as the trends that have in the past supported the use of viral marketing by many industries.

The analysis would find that the present mobile forms of viral marketing were generally similar to the word-of-mouth technique of marketing (Palka, Pousttchi, & Wiedemann, 2009). It was also revealed that there are mobile device technologies that can be used in to assist in viral marketing with great success. In the final analysis, a tactical Mobile Viral Marketing framework was created. Its main function is to inform business organizations, from a forward-looking standpoint, in the deployment of Mobile Communication as a way to disseminate information about their goods and services.

ReferencesBruyn, A. D., & Lilien, G. L. (2008). A multi-stage model of word-of-mouth influence through viral marketing. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 25, 151–163.Chaffey, D., Ellis-Chadwick, F., Mayer, R., & Johnston, K. (2006). Internet Marketing, Strategy, Implementation and Practice (3rd ed.). Pearson Education Limited.Chiu, H. C., Lee, M., & Chen, J. R. (2008). Viral Marketing: A Study of E-Mail Spreading Behavior Across Gender. Journal of Website Promotion, 2(3), 17–30Fetscherin, M.

, & Lattemann, C. (2008). User acceptance of virtual worlds. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, 9(3), 213-242.Palka, W., Pousttchi, K., & Wiedemann, D. G. (2009). Mobile word-of-mouth - a grounded theory of mobile viral marketing. Journal of Information Technology, 24, 172–185.Woerndl, M. (2008). Internet-induced marketing techniques: critical factors in viral marketing campaigns. International Journal of Business Science and Applied Management, 3(1), 33-45.