Social Marketing

Raj, one of my group members, has a pretty cool blog about marketing.

http://www.blogs.ubc.ca/rajibdas

The Viral Curve:

http://www.theviralmarketingblog.com/

Lots of great content worth checking out.

Check out Leemor’s blog. She talks about and analyzes lots of different marketing strategies that I find interesting.

https://blogs.ubc.ca/theunobserver/

Barack Obama is probably the first presidential candidate to use the internet and social media to help his campaign for presidency. He tweets, has a great website, and has a database of over 2000 videos on Youtube. It’s cool to see an older generation grasp the potential of the internet to reach millions of people cheaply and effectively.

http://www.barackobama.com/

An example of a viral campaign produced independently of a company in which it would benefit, is the Diet Coke and Mentos youtube video. In the video some random guys use mentos combined with coke to make it explode. Spinoffs of this include a vehicle powered by mentos and coke.

Here is the video

Looking back on where viral marketing took its roots… one of the earliest examples of the tactic is surprisingly with Hotmail. At the bottom of every outgoing email sent by their users, a simple “Join Hotmail and send mail for free!” allowed them to reach new customers at exponential rates.

Can someone learn skills that will make them a good viral marketer? There are definitely some principles, in my opinion, that one should learn (see my previous posts) but to be an actually good viral marketer means you need to understand your audience base EXTREMELY well, as well as the cultural differences. I ran across this company that specializes in delivering viral messages,

http://www.viralbuzz.com/

I would take sites like these with a grain of salt.

I ran across a new campaign: it’s called FCKH8.com and there message comes in the form of a viral video where they utilize cussing, kids, kissing, and witty remarks to bring across their point. The guy who runs the site, a gay individual, says he donates $5 per t-shirt order ($13) to a gay cause of the customers choice. That probably still leaves about $5 of profit per t-shirt, and with an exploding following of 50 THOUSAND + tshirts ordered already, I’d say he’s making a fair buck. Anyway, check out the movement online here\

http://www.fckh8.com

Old spice has broke the bounds of viral marketing by using newer communication channels to their full potential: social media. It’s the biggest buzzword today circling the internet, but who understands it, and how can you harness it’s power to create a brand following?

Ask Old Spice.

Haley would say, “Pay it Forward”.

But, it’s not exactly that easy. If paying it forward is what leads to exponential growth in your brand, then it must be: valuable, easily transferred, scales well, utilizes existing communication networks (social media, etc), and most importantly – it has dig under the skin of every humans common behaviors and motivations.