Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Why is it that viral marketing reminds me so much of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic tale? It seems everyone out there wants whatever they’re flogging to go viral. Interesting feedback from Ben Ayers on his Twitter profile about brands on social networks that “of the 122 major branded pages in Europe, half had less than 1000 ‘friends’ - largely because of assumption that they would ‘go viral‘” Ayers rightly points out that these profiles need plenty marketing and PR behind them.

Helge Tenno has a very interesting presentation in this respect on Content Marketing. Slide 7 stands out for me, it simply states:

Content isn’t King. Conversation is King.
Content is just something to talk about.

When marketeers think Facebook, Youtube et al, they see that there are plenty of conversations taking place on these platforms. They wrongly assuming that by inserting themselves here, their brands will somehow suddenly be relevant and be talked about. Hugh MacLeod talks a lot these days about ‘social objects‘, a node in people’s social network which brings them together to have a conversation, i.e. content that is of interest and relevant to them.

The simplest way of going viral? Mark Nagurski has some simple advice:

So, if repeat business and word-of-mouth make successful businesses AND being really good helps fuel word-of-mouth and keep customers coming back for more, then …
The best way to market a small business 
is to be really good at what you do.

For those that thinking going viral is a case of flicking a switch, more wise words from the Canadian Marketing Blog:

Viral is not strategy. Viral is an outcome. You can plan for it all you want. You can implement the right hooks that makes something go viral. You can even trick components of it to get passed along, but in the end, you don’t decide if something goes viral… everyone else does.

Viral is the effect of doing everything right - strategy, design, content, creative and marketing it in the right channel - the added layer that makes something “go viral” comes through community acceptance and embrace. Stuff we think should go viral never does, and the stuff we think nobody would ever care to play with always goes viral.

If a Marketer claims that they can make something go viral, be sure to steal their crystal ball on the way out of the meeting.

Going back to the slide on Helge’s presentation, organisations have to give consumers something to talk about. Today’s successful brands will bring ideas to life that are implemented through an integrated communications campaign - one idea that is easily communicated through a variety of mediums and communications disciplines. It is not enough to say ‘Oh we should be on Facebook, let’s create a fan page.’ You need to give consumers a tangible reason to ‘adore’ your brand, otherwise as the Sinead O’Connor lyrics inspired by the original fable go - “Through their own words, they will be exposed. They’ve got a severe case of the emperor’s new clothes.”