viral marketing

Do you know that signature line from Henry Jenkins about how if it doesn't spread, it's dead?  Yes, well, this is the "if it doesn't spread, you are dead" kind of thing: a military rumor manual dated 1943, now declassified, and unearthed by a colleague of mine. Plenty of solid insight for the designers of spreadable media, some already familiar from the books like Made to Stick and Rumor Psychology, written more than half a century after this document. My top ten favorites follow, mostly verbatim. And I really like how they  use of "design" and "rumor" in the same sentence:

by: Ilya Vedrashko

An interesting, even if slightly dated (2007) data bit from an eMarketer / Marketing Sherpa study: of those people who tried e-cards as a viral strategy, there are many for whom it didn't do anything -- twice as many as those for whom it worked.

by: Idris Mootee

When most people think about viral videos, they think of a crazy idea (often funny) that is irrelevant to the brand and put it out there to see what happens. The field has gotten much more crowded in the past 12 months but the behavior of sharing video is more common and bloggers help create more space for that. iPhone is another factor.

by: David Armano

by: Karl Long

What makes me laugh so much about this brilliant parody and almost homage to viral marketing is how it’s almost plausible. Remember LonleyGirl15

by: David Wigder

Tapping social media to engage consumers as well as facilitate viral marketing has the potential to generate significant results for marketers. Not only can this drive greater brand impact but it can significantly increase reach to a receptive audience at little, if any, incremental cost.

by: Nancy Baym

Last Thursday and Friday I had the pleasure of attending a retreat of the Convergence Culture Consortium, an alliance between a core group led by Henry Jenkins and William Uricchio in Comparative Media Studies at MIT, industry partners, and consulting researchers made up of people like myself looking at issues around participatory audiences, media convergence, and all that good stuff.

by: Karl Long

by: Christian Smagg

by: Karl Long

Todd linked to this excellent viral homage to some of the notable viral videos of the last few years. Believe me they list a hell of a lot, but what I found interesting was the number of deliberate commercial “virals” for want of a better word. These are the companies/people that managed to achieve what I believe is quite a feat, to launch a deliberate campaign that “goes viral”.