It is common for every internet and
social media user to see a viral story roaming around various social media
platforms. Such kind of viral stories is liked and shared by millions of users.
One would wonder how these stories are made viral, whether it randomly
happened, or it happened by luck. But the fact of the matter is that viral
stories sometimes have a well-planned strategy behind it. First, it is
important to understand what viral marketing is. It is a kind of business
strategy which uses a variety of social media platforms and networks for the
promotion and marketing of a product or service. To give it more understanding,
here is a definition of viral marketing, which states that “Viral marketing is a style of promotion that relies on an audience to
generate the message of a product or service.” In this definition, the
internet or social media has not been mentioned because the earlier concept of
viral marketing dealt with “word of mouth” marketing, making a product viral.
The word viral in his definition actually means how quickly information is
spreading amongst the consumers. Moreover, how large this sharing of
information amount is. It was mentioned earlier that viral marketing has a
well-developed viral strategy, but still, it will always be dependent on the
essence of luck, but no one knows, how users will conceive a viral content. If
it doesn’t seem interesting to them, then they will not share it with others,
and the spread of information would be lower, which means that content would
not go viral (Barnhart, 2020)
2. Name and discuss two advantages
and two disadvantages of viral marketing for any organisation?
It is important to understand for a
variety of organisation that viral marketing has many advantages, but it also
has a few disadvantages as well. It means that when organisations are looking
to use this strategy, then they should be extremely careful because if strategy
is not well-designed, then it can turn in to a nightmare. It’s time to look at
the two advantages of viral marketing. The first critical advantage of viral
marketing is that it is a low-cost strategy. The organisations always look to
handle their costs effectively, and when it comes to traditional marketing,
there will be so many costs to handle. But when it comes to viral marketing,
the costs are very lower as compared to any other marketing strategy. This
strategy is low cost because the majority portion of this marketing is
dependent on the users and consumers. If an organisation has made a viral
content and it grabs the attention of people, then leave the rest on them, and
the organisation have nothing to do (Fraile, 2020)
The other great advantage of viral
marketing is for the international organisation, and that advantage is getting
a great potential reach. If a company’s video has gone viral on the internet,
and it is a popular company across the globe, then this viral content can reach
a great potential international audience making a buzz. The beauty of this
reach is that organisation will not have to invest anything, whereas normally
international marketing can be costly. One of the disadvantages of viral
marketing is almost no control. Once the content has gone viral and spread on
the internet, then organisations will have no control, like changing the
perception of its content or doing anything else. The other disadvantage of
viral marketing is its uncertainty as it cannot be measured in any terms. The
marketing experts of an organisation will have no idea, how viral content can
be, and what purposes will be served. All things will be dependent on the
audience, who receives the content (Gaille, 2016)
References of What is viral marketing?
Barnhart, B. (2020). What is
viral marketing (and does it actually work in 2020)? Retrieved April 3,
2020, from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/viral-marketing/
Fraile, A. (2020). What is Viral
Marketing? Advantages and Examples. Retrieved April 3, 2020, from
https://www.cyberclick.es/numericalblogen/what-is-viral-marketing-advantages-and-examples
Gaille, B. (2016). 19 Pros and Cons of
Viral Marketing. Retrieved April 3, 2020, from
https://brandongaille.com/19-pros-and-cons-of-viral-marketing/