Going viral: 7 best practices from the Viral Marketing Cheat Sheet
Viral phenomena are the unicorns of the internet. Some famous examples are:
> Burger King’s ‘The Subservient Chicken’ (2004-2007)
> Cadbury’s ‘Dairy Milk Gorilla’ (2007)
> Cloverfield’s teaser trailer (2008)
> Blendtec’s ‘Will It Blend’ series (2007-2010 and beyond)
> Old Spice’s ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ + Responses (2010)
More here:
Like a virus, viral campaigns are successful if they are able to replicate themselves – sometimes by changing the objects who are exposed to them into copies of itself.
Unfurtunately, crafting a succesful marketing campaign is more difficult than it looks. It requires careful planning and research. Seven golden rules from the Viral Marketing Cheat Sheet:
- Stop being neutral
- Do something unexpected
- Don't make advertisements
- Make sequels
- Allow & promote sharing
- Connect with comments
- Never restrict access
Mobile users’ activity on social sites is growing
Internet marketing research firm comScore just released a study that illustrates how mobile users’ activity on social sites is growing spectacularly. During August 2011, 72.2 million Americans aged 13 and up accessed social networking sites and blogs on their mobile devices. That’s an increase of 37 percent in just the past year.
For more than half of the current mobile social media audience, visiting social networks and blogs on their mobile devices is part of their everyday routine. And, though many of these mobile users are accessing social media with mobile browsers, the increased use of social networking apps must be underscored.
Further reading:
- Social Networking On-The-Go: U.S. Mobile Social Media Audience Grows 37 Percent in the Past Year @ comscore.com
- Mobile social media audience up 37%: report @ econsultancy.com
- Mobile Social Networking Booms @ marketingcharts.com
Social moms are influential
A new study by Nielsen and NM Incite (a Nielsen/McKinsey Company) provides more context on social moms: “social moms”, defined as females with at least one child who actively participate in social networking.
How Social Moms Access Content
The social mom is highly active in accessing social networks via mobile devices. Fifty percent of all moms actively participating in social media access platforms via mobile devices, in comparison to 39 percent of females overall, and 37 percent of the overall population in general.
How Social Moms Shop
Social moms tend to be cost-conscious, being 56 percent more likely to download coupons than the general population. They are also more likely to shop online for CPG products than other product categories, with the research showing that 86 percent are more likely to shop online for cosmetics than the general public, as well as skincare products (85%), hair care goods (74%) and fragrances (68%).
Social Moms: Likes and Dislikes
The growing influence of women and moms is increasingly apparent, and so too is their level of activity in social media. Moms who actively participate in social media are 81 percent more likely to become a fan of or follow a brand online, 86 percent more likely to post a status update, and 84 percent more likely to comment or post content than the general population. The research also shows that social moms definitely aren’t shy in sharing their advice and reviews of products with others. This segment is 85 percent more likely than the general population to share frequent advice about beauty and cosmetic products, 28 percent more likely to provide frequent advice about online shopping/e-commerce and 6% more likely to post a product review online.
Further reading:
- Getting to Know (and Like) the Social Mom @ nmincite.com
- Women of Tomorrow: A Study of Women Around the World @ Nielsen.com
5 Belgian Facebook Pages worth looking at
Sometimes it's hard to distinguish whether a Fan Page is linked to a Belgian company, product or service. But based on our own metrics, these are the Top Pop charts for today.
Most liked Belgian page: Tomorrowland
Tomorrowland is a Belgian outdoor dancing event (festival) organised every year in the Flemish town of Boom since 2005. This year's edition was from 22nd to 24 July. Over two months later after the event, Tomorrowland's Facebook Page is relatively speaking the most lively page of this moment with a daily change of over 1,000 new Likes and an impressive total of 273,240 fans. It's Tickets iFrame tab, however, is no longer accessible for most Facebook users because it's using a http connection instead, which got depreciated by Facebook recently over (safer) https connection.
It will be interesting to see how an event like Tomorrowland will keep its Fans' attention up until the next edition in July 2012, but so far they're doing a really good job.
Belgian page with the least growth: Van Vlees En Bloed
Van Vlees en Bloed was a Flemish television series, broadcasted at één between 1 January and 12 February 2009. The last Wall Post at the Van Vlees En Bloed's Facebook Page (a picture from the cast) was posted during that period, at 23 January 2009. Although the Page still has a whopping 118,462 fans, the amount of daily likes for this Page has dropped significantly over the past few weeks and months.
If a TV series becomes popular, unofficial Facebook Pages will pop up and force the TV Channel to either start their own or take over the grassroots one. But even for Van Vlees En Bloed, the "long tail" of a tv series clashes with Facebook's EdgeRank algorhythm. If a Facebook Page doesn't keep updating, it falls off the radar of its fans.
Belgian breakthrough page: BASE Belgium
BASE is a telephony services and broadband internet brand operated by KPN Group Belgium. Although in sheer numbers BASE Belgium's Facebook Page's posts does not receive a lot of likes, it does see a consistent 1% daily growth in its amount of "likes". BASE Belgium's Facebook Page got launched in April 2011 and currently has 6,834 fans.
Most popular non-branded Belgian Facebook Page: Shoppen
The Facebook Page Shoppen (the Dutch verb for "shopping") is one of Belgium's most popular Facebook Pages that is not linked to a brand (whether it's a personal brand, or a product/service). It is linked to fashion, beauty and lifestyle site/blog http://www.shoppingville.be and offers a mix of Dutch and English spoken pointers to its partners' content outside Facebook - mostly e-commerce sites that sell fashion brands.
And the most engaged fans belong to... JCVD
Although the "Muscles From Brussels" does have an international fan base, Jean-Claude Van Damme's Facebook Page still holds the number one spot in the Belgian Fan Page hitparade. Not only does he have the largest fan base (865,928 fans and counting!) they're among the most active ones, too. His most recent post against animal cruelty got over 3,000 Likes.
Facebook for business: traffic to site most prominent KPI
Custom fan page designers Pagemodo conducted a survey among small business owners who were using Facebook as a marketing and revenue generation channel. The results show that, while only half of respondents use Facebook, a significant number of users report increased revenue as a result.
Highlights from the survey:
- 47% of SME owners said their Facebook pages are pushing a significant amount of traffic to their websites.
- 48% reported that a portion of the traffic converts into customers.
Businesses that use Facebook for business engage in the following activities:
