Chapter 4

Viral Marketing Characteristics and Tools

Some of the key characteristics of messages with viral potential include innovative, creative ideas and unique ways to present a brand or a product to consumers. Modern marketing messages need to be exciting, funny, provocative, and even shocking in order to attract attention and make consumers share them. As examples of successful viral campaigns show, viral messages need to have a certain something that makes them different and controversial, which raises the level of communication to the consumers. Just as in the evolution of a biological virus, in the spreading and success of a marketing virus, it is important for the message to be able to penetrate consumers’ minds and hearts, to make ...

Get Viral Marketing and Social Networks now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.