My 3 Golden Rules on viral marketing

After working in Advertising for the better part of two decades, in a dozen markets all over the world, I like to challenge myself by making three golden rules for most everything in the industry. It is as much a cathartic mental exercise as it is a practical guideline, nevertheless it’s always good to remember that in advertising there are no rules, just effectiveness.

My three golden rules….

Viral marketing.

Viral marketing is seen by many as the panacea of advertising; its free media and has the potential of elevating a brand to global superstar status, but most viral campaigns, at least those that are designed as so, fall flat on their face. Some of the greatest examples of viral campaigns are somewhat accidental, and RARELY brand centric. Dove’s “campaign for real beauty” saw an accidental viral video turn into a global campaign. A 60 second video originally made for an internal Unilever sales conference in Canada leaked online (or so the story goes) and became so viral that it was quickly adopted as a global TV commercial. You can watch it on youtube- “Dove evolution”.

In the digital age where consumers have trillions of terabytes of content and distractions to seek and consume, a brand has to really stand out and offer something genuinely valuable to justify engaging with you.  With media being fragmented to the incredible degree that it is, brands are increasingly relying on consumers to evangelize for them. A consumer being a willing brand advocate or happily associating themselves with a brand, will have far more impact than any advertising can ever do. 10 years ago we used to call that word-of-mouth.

When clients come asking for a viral campaign my initial reaction is to cringe, as i know they are asking for it in the hope of saving money, and besides, when you consider my three golden rules of viral marketing, most clients turn away from the idea, while those who embraced these guiding principles, have come away with tangible success:

1-    Inherent Value: Whether it’s comedic value, high production values, sheer audacity or shock factor, there has to be something genuinely valuable in the video/microsite/app or whatever it is you are expecting people to spend time and effort sharing. Alternatively you could incentivize (win something by sending this on, liking etc ..), but that, strictly speaking, isn’t a viral initiative. Viral also tends to be very topical, and brands having something emphatic to say at the right time have a better chance of success. Sadly most brands in this region are very timid when it comes to taking any sociological or political stance lest they offend anyone. There were many lost opportunities for brands to take emphatic positions on issues during the early days of the Arab spring, but few if any did.

2-    Effort: Whether its integrating the initiative with offline activities, Search Engine Optimization, intermittently getting all your staff to initiate sharing with their friends and family or simply using cold lists to get the critical mass of people sharing and engaging, there is a tremendous amount of effort that runs behind any successful viral campaign, and that’s assuming the initiative has a big idea that resonates with people.

3-    Keep it simple: Asking people to make their own video, upload it and share (a common formulae deployed by brands) is inherently laborious and is probably asking for too much and greatly limits the number of participants. Of course there are loads of internet memes that people replicate in their own way showcasing their individuality, wit and creativity, but it is rare to see them coming from a brand. Again, incentivizing participation makes it promotional with a viral element rather than purely viral. 

4-    Pushing the boundaries: Though arguably linked to the first golden rule, this is where brands fear to tread. Lets face it, no one is going to share your 3 minute corporate video with all their friends unless you are appealing to a darker aspect of humanity: sex, voyeurism, sado-masochism, or dark humour. Ofcourse the opposite is also “virable”; demonstrating acts of selflessness and altruism and giving, but lets be honest, we rarely see that coming from corporations.

For those who astutely observed that I’ve offered four rather than three golden rules, remember there are exceptions to every rule. Next month I tackle the odd and irrational world of corporate premium giveaways, a throwback to the fax age when branded key chains, pens and desk diaries reigned supreme.

First appeared in Venture Magazine (Jordan) February 2013

My 3 Golden Rules on Social Media Management

After working in Advertising for the better part of two decades in a dozen markets all over the world, I like to challenge myself by making three golden rules for most everything in the industry. It is as much a cathartic mental exercise as it is a practical guideline, however it’s always good to remember that in advertising there are no rules, just effectiveness.

My three golden rules for…

Social Media Management

In the early days of Social Media, brands and their agencies saw it as an exciting new direct channel to target their customers and prospects, a sort of technical evolution from Direct Marketing. Since those early pioneering days of e-mail solicitation and banner advertising, Social Media has taken on a much wider role in marketing and ultimately has changed the ways that many businesses operate. Social Media can now make or even break a business. Its role in public relations, brand engagement, customer relationship management and customer service is becoming increasingly fundamental, not to mention how it has evolved the discipline of advertising over the last 7 years.

Being involved with many social media initiatives for brands in Jordan and the region, I’ve encountered a lot of hesitation and fear from some companies when it comes to getting involved in Social Media Marketing. Mostly because once they start they know they can’t stop; it just looks bad when your online presence disappears, and more importantly its value becomes very apparent and there’s no going back. The late adopters of social media were so because they feared the commitment that would follow, especially when one considers the operational changes that businesses begin to go through as they begin to adapt to the changing consumer landscape. Its scary for some, and a lifeline for others. But the scariest aspect of social media was revealed with the oft raised question “what if people start complaining about our service and everyone sees it?” to which I reply “that’s an opportunity to demonstrate your response for all to see, and if they’re not complaining about you on your platforms, they’ll be doing so on your competitors’ platform, so you decide who controls the dialogue”.

But before I get ahead of myself, here are my three golden rules for effective and long-term social media management.

1-    Take SM management inhouse: The power of Social Media for a brand or an organization is immense; it’s a platform to engage with existing and prospective customers, which enables you to demonstrate your brand values and personality. It’s a channel to manage one’s public relations, promote products, build data profiles, conduct research and more and more so from the customer’s perspective, it is a direct access to the brand – an extension of customer service. There is no doubt that multiple agency partners will have an important role in strategic guidance, content development and integrating all the social media touch points into the marketing and communication plans for the brand. The issue I faced with some brands in the region is that they felt they didn’t have the necessary competencies to be directly involved in the management of their channels and offset the responsibility to agencies (specialists and generalists) to manage their portals.

On the question of competency, anyone who has a Facebook or Twitter account (ie, anyone under the age of 70), is technically competent to manage the day to day of a brand’s social media channels with the strategic guidance from the brand and PR agencies, content from other third parties, and involvement of customer service and product managers. Asking an agency or any third party to manage the day to day is shortsighted, dismisses the full potential and ignores the reality of the changing landscape. It is needlessly expensive and potentially detrimental to the brand and ultimately the business. If a company is not involved in their own social media, one has to question how much they are involved in their own brand.  In many cases I usually suggest that a company commission a competent third party to manage their social media activities for a fixed duration, have select staff in “reverse-secondment” to shadow, learn and aim to adopt best practices and get up to speed with the discipline in order to set up their own in-house SM “command centre” and have it running in the coming year.

2-    Perpetual Beta mode: Have a strategy, but make it flexible. Sometimes you are reacting, sometimes you are leading and luring, but one thing is for certain, you will always be learning. The overarching strategy of engagement, dialogue and segmentation with the aim of winning, growing and retaining business will always be there, but the tactics will be evolving as fast as the technology.

3-    It’s all about Value: People rarely join fan pages, give their details away, follow tweeps or subscribe to newsfeeds because they love the brand. No. They are expecting value, whether that be quality entertainment, unique content, useful tools, or individual recognition, they are expecting something in return for your intrusion on THEIR social media. Much of what social media marketing aims to achieve is much like the age-old loyalty programmes. No one ever joined one out of anything other than the promise of a benefit. The same goes for Social Media.

Brand engagement for engagement’s sake is a fickle affair and rarely satisfies the objectives that they set out to achieve. Most online “brand engagement” initiatives tend to be geared towards virability, which brings me neatly to next month’s article, “Three Golden rules of viral marketing”.

First appeared in Venture Magazine (Jordan) in Jan 2013 issue