Recently in Viral Marketing Category

In a previous post I talked about the characteristics of Viral Marketing. You may recall there were 6 R's for any marketing campaign to be successful - Replication, Reach, Regular audience, Resilience, Reliance and Response.

This meant that as a company indulging in Viral marketing one has to have an idea which spreads far and wide, to people who really want to know and get excited about it. It has to be genuine and open to comments and feedback. The Viral marketing idea being called the "seed".

How does one seed the viral marketing idea? And where does one go to seed it? If we look at the evolution of the net it took the following paths ...

1) Long ago there was the concept of e-mail which enabled users of a particular organisation to write into each other.

2) Then we got into world wide web where hotmail or yahoo enabled conversations between people who did not belong to the same organisation but could register with these platforms and exchange information. Therein evolved "User Groups".

3)Then came along Google which revolutionised the web by providing large storage space and exchange of pictoral content as an option. Orkut became an instant rage with chats and profiles dominating mailing ... oh so passé!

4) Orkut has been replaced by our addiction to our Facebook, Linkedin and YouTube in that for everything one wants to do one instinctively reaches to these platforms. Statistics show that Facebook is almost as big as Google in page views. YouTube is double in page views. Facebook adds 100,000 to 250,000 new viewers each day. There we have the audience who will hear, listen and respond. There followed the usual players in Twitter, or Digg for creating your own video.

The above are the known ones. Squidoo is another great option. Some marketers swear by it for driving in the traffic. HubPages is a good option too.

My next posting will be about Web 2.0 and using social marketing as a medium for winning business. Stay tuned ...

Image courtesy of: Brajeshwar

What would Asia be without them? A quick bowl of "ramen," as they are called here in Japan, can bring you back to life on chilly winter nights or make you sweat like a hog in the summer. The busy Japanese businessman or university student can pick up the instant type for a few yen at the corner convenience store, make them and wolf them down in a matter of minutes.

Such is the love for ramen in Japan, that, ramen lovers, young and old, sometimes line up outside restaurants and even whip out their own fantasy noodle recipes! Well, lo and behold, the digital world has caught up to the world of cooking. The smart folks at Yahoo! Japan noticed "fantasy ramen" soup and garnish recipes floating around in blogs, as well as actual blogs and entire websites dedicated to noodle appreciation, tasting, making and just about anything about them. There is even a ramen museum here in Tokyo.

Those smart marketing guys then asked bloggers to come up with a winning noodle soup concoction and believe me, they received thousands. What to do next? Well, why not talk to Acecook, an instant noodle soup manufacturer, and get their product managers to develop a Yahoo! branded consumer originated line of products? They not only came up with one recipe, but many consumer originated variations including non-traditional ingredients like bacon and eggs.

The idea has been so successful that social networks like Mixi, the Japanese version of Facebook with more than 15 million members, have partnered with yoghurt manufacturer Calpis to get their members to contribute recipes. The project started late last year and 4 Mixi Juice mix products have been released to date. The online community was involved in everything from the recipe, catch phrases, right through to the bottle design. What a great way to get consumers involved in product development and marketing. The instant food and drinks market in Japan is a jungle, yet these innovative efforts do put brands ahead of the competition.

If you'll excuse me, I'm getting the munchies, so let me go for my Yahoo! Noodles and a bottle of Mixi Juice Mix for lunch.

Image courtesy of: moriza

Good news for all you wannabe Mad Men (and Women)! There's now an alternative to getting into advertising: becoming an advertisement. That's right. Anyone with untouched skin space and no self-image issues can now create an online profile and pimp...I mean, rent your most personal space to hungry advertisers willing to shell out considerable coin for the services of a living, breathing billboard.

Sound ridiculous? Don't be too hasty to judge. Not only will this gig not interfere at all with your daily routine, but think of the implications - or rather lack thereof - for your diet. The rail-thin model look will be replaced by "rotund but resourceful," and your extra pounds will be worth their weight, or at least surface area, in new ad revenue.

Personally, I couldn't be more behind this movement. And though my forehead belongs to Aquent for the next 3 years ("Register with Aquent and this won't be you"), I do still have some available space left on my abs.

Back when it was the latest thing, I wrote about Modernista!'s new "website", which is really more like a widget that connects you to Modernista!'s pages on Facebook, Flckr, Wikipedia, etc. I thought then and still think now that this approach is WEB design in the truest sense. They didn't design a something that people view on the web; they designed a way to do something with the web. The essence of the web is connectivity, and the folks at Modernista used this connectivity itself as their site.

The infinite, even fractal, connectivity of the web is uncontrollable, as they themselves highlight at Modernista.com, "The menu on the left is our homepage. Everything behind it is beyond our control." Their site is transparency itself, which means that they don't try and spin the news, for example, even when it's not really that great.

The fact that layoffs are the most prominent news that you'll find on the Modernista! site today (February 18, 2009) led the AdFreak to remark, "Downturn not kind to Modernista!'s anti-site," and AdRants to snarkily quip, "Modernista Promotes Own Layoffs."

I think they miss they point. The web forces transparency on organizations and individuals. The real question is whether you are going to ignore that you are already exposed, or seize the day and expose yourself (you know what I mean).

AdAge published a story yesterday on what is supposedly Arnell's design strategy brief for the new Pepsi logo. As that article states, it is unclear whether is this a viral hoax or what but, if you haven't read through it, it's actually pretty trippy (check it here pepsi-arnell021109.pdf).

The strategy described is called "Breathtaking," and the document explains that "BREATHTAKING is a strategy based on the evolution of 5000+ years of shared ideas in design philosophy creating an authentic Constitution of Design." This statement is accompanied by an amazing chart that documents the evolution of human thought from the mystical numerology of the Hindus circa 3000 BC to Pepsi circa 2009 CE.

I have a Phd in German Studies so my tolerance for pretentiousness and intellectual bravura is pretty high, which is why I'm totally captivated by this, particularly the lengthy section describing how Pepsi's iconic geometry depends on ever-evolving perimeter oscillations. I can only imagine that future generations will find in this document a post-modern Rosetta Stone and view it as the hieratic key to the mysteries of contemporary culture.

For you brand strategist and ad types out there, is this sort of document the typical fruit of your labors or just a particularly grandiose and amazingly awesome example thereof?

Image Courtesy of brownpau.

If you don't know what inbound marketing is, then let the clever and, as it turns out, funny folk over at HubSpot school ya with this edutaining video:

Enough scribbling about social media and the marketing associated therewith. Here are 5 (count 'em, FIVE!) videos that introduce you to various aspects of social media, how to get into the game, and what you can get out of it.

1. Birds + Bees | 4 Truths about Social Media Networking

Laura Bergells tells a charming and insightful tale of beekeeping and falconry that will help you think about how you approach and use social media.

2. Social Marketing: What you NEED to know for today's market

This is Paul Chaney, the Social Media Handyman and Conversational Media Marketing advocate, talking about why social media matter.

3. Social Media in Plain English

Another brilliant overview by the brilliant geniuses at Common Craft. Oddly enough, it also involves bees. And Twitter has that bird thing going on. Hmm.

4. How to Be a Social Media Change Agent

Forrester's Josh Bernoff, co-author with Charlene Li of the influential Groundswell, talks with Harvard Business Digital about becoming a "social media revolutionary."

5. Social Media Addiction Rap

And because I've always been a fan of Chuck, the Poetic Prophet, I include here the totally ill, "Social Media Rap."

Image Courtesy of Dave Q.

Don't know if y'all use StumbleUpon, but a graphic designer we represent turned me on to it and it is addictive.

Basically, you sign up, choose your areas of interest, install a button in your browser, and are fed as much web randomness as you desire.

Most recently I "StumbledUpon" this generative drawing application on zefrank's site. I even "created" the drawing to the left using it.

Cool, what?

When you have a dream worthy of mention, it's best to write it down immediately, otherwise it disintegrates beneath the day's remnants.

Case in point, I had a dream on Sunday night in which Seth Godin made an appearance. The details are hazy. I kind of remember standing at a buffet with him. I might also have been trying to engage him in a conversation about Stanford, which we both attended.

I don't know what happened next, but I clearly recall making a conscious decision, in the dream, not to mention his action figure. I envy him this tiny idol so much, if we had talked about it at all, I would have waked up screaming.

Image Courtesy of C+H.

On Twitter the other day talking with the Conversation Agent about the Associated Press' decision to go after sites that quote too much of their content - apparently, they called the Drudge report out for quotations ranging in length from 39 to 79 words - and it got me thinking.

I'm no lawyer but I learned about "fair use" as a graduate student and always assumed that, if you were using a quotation in certain expository contexts, that the copyright holders would just have to grin and bear it. I can see there being a problem with populating your blog or website with entire articles penned by someone else - but even then, if you have given proper credit and linked back to the original location of the text, is that really so wrong/bad?

Though I tend to lean in this direction, I'm not saying that all content should be free or that copyright doesn't mean anything. I am saying, however, that trying to control where your content shows up on the web goes against the tide of history as well as the essence of the web an sich, as the Germans would say.

On the "tide of history" front, "give it away" is the order of the day. I've referred elsewhere in these pages to an essay by John Perry Barlow on the power of giving away "content," and my ideas have not changed on the subject. Specifically, every business should focus on their absolutely unique, inimitable, and irreplaceable offering, and deploy their "content" to sell that.

Barlow uses the example of the Grateful Dead allowing taping at their shows because they realized that circulating bootlegs increased interest in their music and, more importantly, promoted attendance at their shows which were always one of a kind. As the bumper stickers used to say, "There's Nothing Like A Grateful Dead Concert," which is why concert revenue was the core of their business.

Apply this to your business and ask yourself, "What is my live-in-concert moment and how can I use my content to get people through the proverbial door?"