Using Video for Viral Marketing
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Visual communication particularly video clips/material which is (in preference to laborious copy intensive ads) used to inform consumers of a specific service or to build a brand has proven highly successful. After all, when most consumers view a product or item that looks great they usually assume that it is worth buying. Equally, if not more effective is the internet, which has undoubtedly become a main source of information for many people from all walks of life (the new-age Aunt Agony, matchmaker or doctor on call, if you will). Although the Internet is one of the youngest media in today's world, it is also the fastest growing. Use visuals, more specifically videos and the internet in conjunction with each other, and you have an effective marketing tool, coupled with an enthusiastic, captured and sometimes bored audience/browsers who'll most likely give into anything that is the least bit exciting - an opportunity worth taking.
The UK is rated as having the second highest potential for growth in online advertising, with France, Australia and South Korea coming third, fourth and fifth respectively. Google remains the world's most popular search engine, retaining a 70 per cent market share in Italy, Germany and the UK.
The UK has often been described as ‘the hotbed of viral activity. In fact, if you have a look at the Lycos UK Viral Chart, you'll find a tracking system that lists current top ten hottest and newest viral campaigns. This can be found in the entertainment section under a category called "Cheeky Emails. Ordinary internet browsers (‘Joe Soap') and marketers alike, regularly submit quirky QuickTime movies, games, text emails to these sites hoping that they will start a viral buzz. The Lycos Viral Chart has recently included marketing shorts from Mazda UK and Virgin Mobile. If interested, one can sign up for the "Cheeky Emails Newsletter" and receive a notice of the very best virals as and when they appear on the chart.
Yet, to get to grips with this viral system, one needs to know what the definition of viral marketing is. What does ‘viral marketing' entail exactly and, what are the tactics used to manipulate the system?
The term “Viral marketing” refers to how people pass on and share interesting and entertaining content via the internet. Viral commercials often take the form of funny video clips, or interactive Flash games, an advergame, images, and even text. It's been noted that viral marketing is popular because of the ease of executing a marketing campaign, relative low-cost (in comparison to direct mail), excellent and precise targeting that leads to the high and rapid response rate. The main strength of viral marketing is its ability to obtain a large number of interested people at low cost. Through the use of the internet and the effects of e-mail or internet advertising, the business-to-customer efforts have a greater impact than many other tools of marketing.
Viral marketing is a technique that avoids the annoyance of spam mail. This in turn encourages users to tell a friend of a particular product or services, which serves as highly effective word-of mouth advertising.
Researchers are convinced that this concept is a viable and effective marketing tool. There's proof to backup their claims. Apparently the brain makes decisions in just a 20th of a second of viewing a webpage, confirms a study, published in the journal Behavior and Information. According to statistics, recreational Internet surfing has overtaken television as the largest recreational activity. Apparently, by the end of this year (2006) it is estimated that more than 6 billion people will be using the internet. Note that it took more than 50 years for television to get to this point. It's certainly an innovative medium that has captured the interest of the person searching for answers behind a PC, and the individual hoping to score with a marketing strategy.
One the greatest ‘vessels' of the viral marketing concept is without a doubt YouTube, a popular free video sharing website that utilizes AdobeFlash technology to display video and allows users to upload, view, and share video clips.
After one year in business, YouTube were acquired for approximately $1.65 (approximately 0.49252 Euros) by Google. Starting from zero in February 2005, YouTube is now receiving more traffic than MySpace, CNN.com, and Ebay combined. This is certainly a testament to the growth of video and its viral nature. The wide variety of site content includes movie, television clips and movie videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging. The company was named TIME magazine's “Invention of the Year” for 2006. In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for $1.65 billion USD in Google's stock.
As for Viral Marketing, YouTube has been hailed the advertising medium of the future. Thanks to viral videos…
According to Wikipedia (the free encyclopedia), viral video is video clip content which gains widespread popularity through the process of the Internet shared typically through email or IM messages, blogs and other media sharing websites. Viral videos are often humorous in nature and may range from televised comedy. There are millions of short video clips on the web, produced by amateurs and professionals. The amateurs publish videos for fun and professional publish their clips in order to drive traffic to their websites and to sell more of their products or services. With the introduction of the latest camera phones technology, this means that many videos shot these days are shot by consumers on these devices hassle free fun. Cheap video editing and publishing tools allow video shot on mobile phones to be edited and distributed virally both on the web by email and between phones by Bluetooth.
How effective are viral videos at driving traffic to web sites?
Video clips are used to generate click-throughs and subscriptions. Videos ranging in length and promotional content placed on YouTube and Google Video for example. The Video specifies a URL, indicating that there's a website that may be interesting or relevant to the viewer. A link is also provided on the same page as the video, which potentially drives traffic back to the main website. Videos can be sorted into various categories such as Personal Blog (global issues, spirituality, current events) and Comedy (spoofs, skits, celebrity parody), to mention but a few.
The intention is not to produce a professional looking video that you'd expect from an advertising agency, instead in many instances, video clips are shot in an "amateurish" way and carries though a very ‘unprofessional' image in their approach and production. This is done deliberately as a professional image would most definitely inhibit the viral potential of videos, and set the video s apart from the ‘ordinary' videos created by individuals on the web. A point worth mentioning is the fact that although promotional, viral videos normally do not contain a sales message, product placement or a sales pitch on a landing page.
Note that entertaining or provocative videos can quickly become viral, being shared by tens or even hundreds of thousands of viewers, most of them connected through online social networks. However, it is important to understand the nature of the environment in which video clips are most widely distributed and shared. If you simply add a video clip to your site or blog, and to YouTube, you will be taking advantage of only a small fraction of the opportunity that exists. In the same way that you optimize your web sites and blogs for the major search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN, you also have to optimize the presentation of your video clips in order to be found through searches within social network community sites.
Viral Video Marketing: A Free Guide (Part 2) >>
