What is a Viral Marketing Campaign?
Viral marketing is a marketing strategy that relies on the audience. The messages might include text, graphics, or video that quickly spread across to people and have gone viral. Viral content generates when the viewers share the content among themselves quickly. A content going viral across the internet is similar to a virus spreading among people, and hence the name. Social networks are popularly used for spreading viral content. Social networking platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Reddit facilitate quick and user-friendly options for instant sharing of content. However, viral marketing is a double-edged sword. Users may even manipulate the original content and mislead the audience. If successful, a viral marketing campaign can have a huge positive impact on the brand.
The viral marketing campaign is, in theory, a simple strategy. A creative or a group of creatives generates content in different forms such as text, images, or video. Then this content is upload and promoted in various platforms on the internet. If the content is appealing enough, it might go viral in a very short time. However, not all viral content is crafted voluntarily for the sole purpose of going viral. Some of the content goes viral by accident.
Brands generally use two strategies in a viral marketing campaign. These are show viral marketing campaigns and concealed viral marketing campaigns. Users can understand that it is an advertisement in the first few seconds, in a shown viral marketing campaign content. On the other hand, a concealed viral marketing campaign represents the brand indirectly, in a subtle way.
Viral Campaigns are Comparatively Cheaper
Viral campaigns are comparatively cheaper than other forms of advertising, since the brand is any space for advertising, the price of advertising is minimal.
A viral content, especially a viral video, has the capability of reaching a very large number of audiences. The audience may not be regional, but from across the globe. This gives viral marketing campaigns an upper hand over other forms of marketing. A brand can produce viral content even without investing a lot of money.
Unlike other forms of advertising, in viral marketing, the audience plays a key role in propagating the content, so that viral marketing content does not come across as invasive. The viewer has the freedom to choose whether to share the content or not. This also makes viral marketing campaigns somewhat risky as well.
Example of a Viral Marketing Campaign
An interesting example of a viral marketing campaign is ‘Dumb ways to die’. This video was released by Australia’s metro trains. This is a short gritty and fun animated video aimed at raising awareness to act safer near trains. Soon this video went viral all over the world. This video was released back in 2013. It had over 60 million views in 2013 alone. As of now, the Dumb Ways to Die video has earned over 189 million views on YouTube.
Thus, viral marketing is a tool with infinite capability to spread brand identity and awareness over the internet.
