Blog Post #11 - Viral Marketing

I have to be honest...the topic "viral marketing" would never pop into my head as something I MUST READ ABOUT. It just is not all that relevant to where my interests lie. Though, as I read through this Wikipedia post I was not terribly bored. I even learned a thing or two. First off, “viral marketing” is not just anything that gains popularity. It being successful does not make it “viral”. I also learned about the three basic factors that go into making a viral marketing successful. The first criteria is messenger. The three names of the messengers are market mavens, social hubs, and salespeople. The market mavens are the people that are on the ball about everything on the web. So they are probably the first to laugh about the latest meme. Social hubs are the people with lots of lots of different connections. Obviously they excel on the concept of the whole “marketing” thing. This makes them incredibly useful. The final form of a messenger is the salespeople. Salespeople are the ones that alter the text to make it more relatable to the audience before releasing it to the public. The next criteria is the message. It is necessary that this message, whatever it may be, peaks the interest of its intended audience. Finally, the right environment is crucial to the success of the message. For example, imagine that we are living in 2007. Trump is just another ordinary celebrity. You see a news bit that Trump does not pay his taxes. Oh wow, interesting. That is not all that relevant to us. Now, imagine Trump is a primary candidate in the presidential election. The same information is released. It blows up because this was just the right time and place to infuriate people as he was about to become the president. It’s all about the time and place…