I think that viral marketing is a huge asset to companies. So many things are done on the web today that most people will see advertisements online more than they will in other places like magazines, newspapers, etc. Not only is viral marketing awesome because the word gets out quick, but it is also usually free. This is great for companies because they make more profit when they don’t have to spend so much money on advertising to achieve customers. Instead of breaking even, they will just increase their profit margin. It is pretty amazing how word gets out so quickly on the web and how it spreads like a virus. I think that its great that companies are taking advantage of this because it will give them a competitive advantage over their competitors.

I believe that companies really benefit from using the internet to market their products and services. Even using websites such as facebook, companies have ways of getting their information in there and building their own facebook account for their company, people can pass those along onto their friends to join the group and at the end you have thousands of people who are now aware of your company and the stuff it provides to the public. I believe that the virual marketing however can sometimes get annoying, many companies have email addresses in their data base and someone who is working graveyard shift overseas does not know if it is 5 am or 3 am and happens to send me an email and wake me up 3 in the morning. Although they are annoying, they are sometimes useful. For example if GNC is having 20% off and sends me an email 3 am, i know when I wakeup to go and buy something that I need.

I believe that as a society we are moving towards a virtual means of communication as opposed to communication face-to-face. For this reason, the way people interact is changing and adapting with the increase of technology that is available and being used by the population. In turn the way companies market towards the population has to change and adapt as well. Companies now are creating websites on facebook to promote an advertise the company and to create interest online. For instance some companies will give an incentive to join their facebook group, by giving coupons and discount. The companies are smart to market to people through these social networks especially to students and the younger population. However, the purpose of these social networking gets lost with the marketing.

This whole viral marketing thing is great. I didnt realize how big of a deal it really was. The example with Hotmail really hit home with me and made sense to me becasue I use to have a hotmail account. Now that i think about it I remember seeing that at the bottom of my emails that I use to get from some of my friends and family that were also hotmail users. The idea of viral marketing is so easy and simple too and like you stated in the article Dr. Willis is that it can save a company lots of money and can be relatively cheap to create. Also the one thing that i also liked was the idea of community within the viral marketing. I really like the idea behind the community with the viral marketing becasue it alows for the company to listen to its customers and it creates a dialogue between the consumer and the seller.

It is really true how viral marketing is become the most prominent kind of marketing. It is definitely smart of companies, because not only is blogging free, but marketing to sites such as Facebook and MySpace will reach a vast population of people, especially because the younger generations are so in tune to the internet. Because the younger generation was raised in a world with the internet, they will most likely be greater consumers from the internet rather than other media outlets such as the newspaper and radio. Viral online marketing is the fastest, cheapest and easiest way to reach the largest amount of consumers. People may not even realize it, but as they network on sites such as Facebook and blogging, they are continuing that “spider web” of viral marketing and sharing their opinions which helps the companies and the consumers in the end, so I think it is a really great thing.

It is really ture how viral marketing is making itself known. I never thought of such a negative word being such a positive thing. Viral marketing is like a chain reaction. Such things like, unknown artists posting their music on Myspace can get millions of users listening to their music causing them to get signed without the artist ever leaving his house. The amount of material that reaches people is astounding. Nothing can be kept a secret. Everyone is looking for the next best thing and likes to jump on the bandwagon. Forwarding emails, looking up pictures, everything is at people’s fingertips. Without the internet I feel things would be so much more difficult and slow. I can’t even imagine living without the internet.

Viral marketing seems to be an essential in our world today. We live in a culture where everything is done through internet means. That is why viral marketing is so important. It’s amazing to see the opportunities it allows employers and future employees. This type of marketing seems to eliminate the hassle of negotiating with one another and instead it makes it simple and easy.

I think viral market is strategic and demonstrates fiscal responsibility. I have been attracted to eye-catching advertisements on the web. I am even guilty of forwarding messages and advertised products that I found appealing to relatives and friends. Lets be honest, everyone and their mother use the internet today. It is how the world communicates. It you want to tap into everyones interest, then why not post things where people will go looking for them instead of doing all the work to look for those people. Make them come to you! Marketing online is a brilliant idea, plain and simple.

Mass email advertising is BIG! Not only does it work for advertising, many people use it to promote parties, etc. I’ve used it to send information to everyone in my address book before. And when I started up my Event Planning company, I did the same thing. It works! Its cheap and effective, why change it? ALso, when someone forwards me a good deal on a product, I forward it on to others whom I think would benefit.

Viral marketing is certainly a threat to traditional modes of delivering PR, such as newspapers and television. It’s hard to match the instant reach, the unfiltered messaging ability, the cost and the short amount of time it takes to create a social media message. The example of Hotmail is a great one. A simple line, which took about 15 seconds to type, brought in who knows how many customers. Brilliant.

However, for something to go “viral,” it also needs to stand out from the crowded message field of the Web. That is becoming harder and harder to do. Yes, you can reach millions of people in just seconds, but you’re not going to tell them very much or keep them there very long. And you might not get their attention at all, due to all the clutter on Internet.

While companies and organizations certainly cannot afford to ignore the power of the viral message, it’s not time to throw out traditional methods like the news release, either. Many newspapers will run a news release nearly verbatim, and post it on their Web sites for millions to see, but they probably won’t do the same with a tweet. There’s something “official” about traditional marketing/PR efforts that still demands our attention, even in this increasingly social-media-dependent world.

I think one of the most intriguing things about viral marketing/messaging is that a lot of the time these mass messages become larger than the creaters, companies, and individuals had ever anticipated. Viral messages spread so quickly and can really show how society is accepting a particular product, service, thought, or idea. Social networks and viral marketing allow for almost instant feedback. The costs to reach as many clients as these videos reach audience members would be astronomical and viral marketing certainly helps with cutting costs. I don’t think that even television can reach as many viewers as what viral marketing on the web does. Proof of this is when we see television broadcasts of these viral messages. This is an example of web messages being recast and are being viewed for the Nth time by many viewers. Repeat Exposure.

As mentioned in this post the word “viral” has many negative connotations to it. For me, it sounds expensive. This may sound odd – but follow me on this one.

I am sure I am not the only person to go to the doctor only to have him say, “Well, this appears viral, not bacterial. If you aren’t better in 7 days – come back.” This means paying for another visit to the doctor when an illness turns out to be bacterial after all, a sickness the doctor could have stopped within 24 hours with antibiotics.

What does this have to do with the web? Everything.

The key to a ‘viral video’ or ‘viral message’ is that there is no way to stop it. It must run its course. This can be bad news for politicians when a video goes viral putting them in a negative light. So, although viral messages can generate positive results and reach a large audience, they can also spread negative messages that are impossible to stop.

Still, we never stop looking for a cure or treatment for viruses in the medical world. With so much at risk I anticipate a future for ‘viral information’ cures as well.

Right now, the Web 2.0 boom is nearly, if not completely, impossible to control. But, what if someday companies were able to find technology that acts as a technological ‘antibody.’ I would imagine it would bring an uproar over privacy issues but with the big battles over copyright and ownership could we one day have programs that shoot through the portals of the Internet and seek out and destroy copyrighted materials that have been downloaded or swiped? Could it find every site that these videos have been posted to?

And, could this put some power back in the hands of PR professionals hoping to minimize the impact of negative messages? Would it be ethical? I would say probably not. Others would say spreading incrementing videos across the web to damage a person or company’s reputation is unethical.

Could it be the answer to stopping illegal downloading or will it be a paranoid step toward Big Brother? Could we find a cure for viral messages without overreaching privacy issues? We may not know for quite a while. For now, I’d say have your crisis communication plan ready ahead of time before you catch a “virus”… in essence, get your PR flu shot. : )

Just out of curiosity, from a personal profit perspective, could the inexpensiveness of a viral PR or marketing campaign lead to more money for the person who developed and executed the campaign. Could a marketing or PR professional charge more for their services knowing that their client will have to spend less on the actual execution of the campaign that will be developed for them? Take the music industry; since there is very little money to be made in album sales, an artist’s true source of income is in touring. Since it’s very hard to make advertising revenue these days, would the ‘new money’ be found in the development of the marketing campaign that doesn’t actually cost anything?

The scary part about viral marketing is the consequences of mistakes and damage control. Since information spider webs out so fast, the margin for error is, basically, zero. One upset or negative person can balloon into a legion of followers in and instant since the web has such a heavy mob mentality. It would seem as though crisis management would be next to impossible since there are so many directions to try to cover.

It’s going to be interesting to watch social media evolve over the next handful of years. That’s when we’ll really find out if it’s here to stay or just a fad. I tend to think that it’s here to stay as a communication form but the latest ‘generation’ of social media users are, dare I say, backing off a bit and that might be a sign of some cracks in the foundation. It started with some high profile celebrities deleting their twitter accounts. Miley Cyrus and John Mayer announced that it was just too invasive. Miley went to far as to say that people were missing out on the moments of life because they were too busy tweeting about them. The first decade of the 21st Century was marked by people desperate for attention, which lead to the rise of social media, but we’re seeing some discretion now and web communities becoming a bit smaller and tighter. It’s not so much about who has the most facebook friends anymore. With that sort of discretion on the rise, does that make it more difficult for viral marketing to find it’s way into various web communities?

Three things come to mind when presented with viral marketing: reach, cost and customization. First, the message can be broadcast to a largest of audiences, it is active public relations pushing the message rather than being passive. The message will reach their inbox, their Facebook page, etc. One clear objective that all corporations have is readily accomplished. Second, is cost; viral public relations plan is less expensive than traditional methods. With development costs still exist there are no advertising costs or delivery costs. The third issue is customization; in direct contrast to a stoic newspaper ad social media allows a company to change their message to fit the audience, several times over.

One of the reasons that viral marketing and public relations is here to stay is that it allows companies to reach a mass audience for virtually zero cost, just like the example of Hotmail. What a genius idea! They didn’t realize their own potential, and when they did, it paid off in a BIG way. This example, as well as the Six Flags scenario, show that viral marketing can be a very powerful tool, if used properly. But just as it can be helpful for an organization, this viral ability can also mean the quick spreading of negative information. Consumers are active participants today and the Web is their tool. It has always been said that bad news spreads faster. Now, that bad news can spread even faster than before. There is clearly give and take with anything new, but the key is to use it wisely.

The infinite reach of viral marketing, and its consequential impact, provides strong support for the idea of blending marketing and PR. Using this notion of integrated marketing, messages are still afforded the opportunity to go viral using Web 2.0 while incorporating solid PR theories and practices.

“The number of ways to get in front of and connect with customers is expanding fast. And we’re seeing blurring lines between which disciplines ‘own’ which pieces” (Four PR Trend Predictions for 2010).

This collaborative approach of including PR into marketing initiatives ensures that viral messaging is appropriate and consistent while being aimed at the correct audience. With PR playing a key role in the process, companies are better prepared to handle the impact of viral media, be it positive or negative.

Viral media is cheap, genius and fast! Messages that use to cost thousands of dollars now can be uploaded in five minutes and are free. This tool is not so good for traditional news media but amazing for the internet, customers, fans and pr.

Viral marketing is genius. It allows the company and audience to interact. The company can see what the audience is saying and thinking and companies and organizations can get involved and be a part of the solution to the problem.

Viral marketing has two goals and that’s to help organizations reach their goals and help customers be in the know. This new marketing tool is perfect and is very viral.

I thought the analogy to the online party was really interesting. It’s very true . . . it either catches your interest or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, you adios your way outta there pretty quickly. It’s that simple. So the main question that arises in my mind is that, if I’m in marketing, what do I do to get a NEW customer’s attention? You’ve already got the attention of loyal followers. I think it comes back to the hierarchy of needs. What do people need? How does it contribute to your own self satisfaction? Facebook and People magazine online and CNN.com get a lot of my attention because I know that one of my human needs is to be curious and nosey about the social world going on around me. I need those websites. Now do I really need them? No. Do I need them to survive? Of course not, but I’m trained now to check them daily, it is part of what I want. Online marketers need to secure that space in a persons’ mind, so that when they are invited…viral marketing… they see something they need and can use. From there is grows and grows. I think viral marketing will be a big part of the future of the web and advertising. I can see the challenges it presents as it can cut advertising costs and that right now is a struggle in itself. I think that when companies go about advertising this way, they will have better results. Rather than printing something and putting in the local ads, viral marketing will enable companies to really figure out their targeted audiences. The last post flash and the cash mentioned the idea of targeting tracking web traffic, “Startups that help advertisers and marketers better target the users of social networking sites are fashionable investments for venture capitalists. Such startups hope to sell advertisers detailed information about individual social networkers.” I think this combined with viral marketing will eventually be a really great thing. Companies will be able to better target their customers off of web traffic. I think it will help eliminate the “old school” guessing game that advertisers/marketers play, “Did they like it or not? Did it reach them or not?” Viral marketing will contribute to helping advertisers focus more so on expanding their products to the customers and potential customers they know they now have.

Personally, I love viral marketing. I think it’s clever and open to just about anybody to try. Although I’ve never participated in one, I enjoy when companies hold homemade commercial contests on YouTube. It makes ordinary citizens feel like they can have a part in a companies presence.
Regarding traditional media, they’d be crazy not to try to have a presence. Whether it reaches everyone in their target audience or not, it’s cheap and easy (for the most part). I read several blogs regularly and have noticed the change of companies sending certain blog writers products, hoping that they will write about them and hoping that it goes ‘viral’. Of course, as you said, sometimes the results are not necessarily favorable. But, as the saying goes (loosely), a little bad publicity is still better than no publicity.

I believe using viral marketing helps a company our tremendously. First, everything is linked on the internet. My friend’s family plays a game on Wikipedia that demonstrates this. They give a start and end point. Say the start point is the Grand Canyon and the end point is Britney Spears. They have to click on the Wiki links to see who can get to Britney fastest — sort of like Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon! So, it shows just how much things are closely linked. Secondly, people who otherwise wouldn’t see something has a chance to see it if it goes viral. Just like with hotmail, whether or not you wanted to see them advertise, you didn’t have a choice, and it worked to hotmail’s benefit. Lastly, if it is viral, it’s on networking sites, and everyone and their grandma is facebooking these days!

Viral marketing is the new billboard. Companies are learning and seeing the benefits of developing such campaigns. Just as any smart business would do they are adapting to the changes society is presenting them. Sink or swim. Many organizations tend to benefit most because of the cost effectiveness of viral marketing! Look at Hotmail, they found themselves in a whole and added one sentence to every email sent by its users! Viral marketing is the smart way to go, the catch though is to develop it successfully. While many feel no Pr is bad PR, I tend to disagree. A bad ad, video, or viral campaign could be the end of your business. The same way a company can build success, is the same way it could demise. News spreads quickly through viral marketing, there is no legitimate way to bounce back for a bad viral campaign.

The word “viral” can be very powerful. Like Dr. Willis mentioned, it can have a negative ring to it because we all avoid the word “virus”. I’ve actually heard people threaten others over posting an incriminating video to the web. “If you don’t do what I say, this video will go viral”. Like I said, it can be a very powerful word. In regards to marketing, it can be an effective tool.
There has been studies done recently that measures the success of marketing through online social networks. Like it or not, there were a lot of obvious benefits. It increased their Web traffic, gave them free feedback, and increased overall sales. Viral marketing allows for a conversation between millions of people. I like RealWire’s party analogy. It is like you are at a party and you are listening to several different conversations. You are typically drawn to certain conversations depending on your interests. You want to stop and chat. This is the mentality that those in marketing should take. The Web is the single most public place in the world. People love being involved in that public place, which is why it’s important to get your messages out there.
With so many tools at our fingertips, it’s important to have all hands on deck. The Six Flags Magic Mountain campaign is the perfect example. They were able to not only send their message out successfully, but they also added several elements to that message. They went through the trouble to picking up a camera and using it to show the public what their rides are all about. If people are big roller coaster fans, this is the perfect way to catch their attention. They were able to post it on YouTube, which was most likely uploaded on several people Facebook’s page. Just like that, the message becomes “viral”.

Viral marketing is no doubt important in the new age of the internet, that fact can not be disputed. The opportunity to reach a large portion of the general public is valuable for any company, but not all campaigns end with the success of hotmail or realwire.com.

What I find interesting is that all companies produce a video or some marketing campaign and expect instant results. Tempered expectations are important, especially when public relations agencies are crafting these campaigns for their clients. There are plenty of these campaigns that undoubtedly fail miserably and leave clients wondering what went wrong. Having a specific campaign “go viral” is not an easy task and most certainly not a given.

Another aspect that needs to be touched upon is the impact on traditional media outlets. Advertising and marketing campaigns online are hit or miss; however, for relatively low costs they can POTENTIALLY reach a greater audience. Advertising in the traditional methods will remain present, because online poses many of the same problems as advertising on television or in the newspaper. More and more, our consumer driven culture is tuned out to advertising. Just as TIVO can allow you to skip television advertisements, so to, the internet can provide multiple outlets to avoid unwanted interruptions in surfing.

So while the internet provides vast opportunities, clients must possess tempered expectations of their online campaigns – not everything can successfully “go viral” as you may hope.

An important point in this article that I would like to elaborate on is the role that public relations has begun to play in the field of public relations. I recently had the opportunity to go to a public relations speaker who worked for a major hotel in downtown Indianapolis. As a part of her job, she was in charge of the hotels social media accounts. I find this interesting because, while this is one way to market the hotel, the role fell to her as the public relations staffer. It will be interesting to see whether or not in the future work, such as this, begins to be conducted by public relations personnel and done less by those in marketing. If this is the case, the rise of the importance of the Internet will positively affect those in public relations as they have more avenues in which to conduct their business. At the same time,it will be important to note, with the rise of the public relations presence on the Internet, whether this presence means that organizations will utilize their services more and the services of those in marketing less.

The internet has certainly made spreading messages to the masses incredibly easier than ever before. It’s amazing how companies have entire departments dedicated to monitoring and communicating online. The hope is that your positive news goes viral which can potentially benefit your company or organization immensely. According to the Youtube video, “Social Media ROI: Socialnomics” Dell once used Twitter to sell $3 million worth of computers. I’m sure whatever original message they sent out went “viral” to make this happen. On the flip side, what if something goes viral that is extremely negative? Like the one time a Burger King employee took a bath in the sink and posted it Youtube. Talk about taking a hit. Like a computer virus, once it starts spreading there’s no stopping it!

It is extremely important for companies to have an online presence and to be the drivers of that message that goes out. In addition to advertisements and media messages, they need a social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and shortly Google +. But they do need to make sure they are actively utilizing these tools to the fullest. A stale Facebook page without new material or a poor social media presence will do more harm than good.
I have a friend who is actively involved in the online interactive community known as Empire Avenue; which allows users to measure their level of social influence through an online currency, buying and selling of shares of other users’, linking their other social networks, and basically competing to have a higher social presence in the group. I bring this up because when I read that Ford puts 25% of their marketing budget into digital and social media, it reminded me of another auto manufacturer that has such a poor presence on Empire Avenue that members saw it as a joke. Audi had only seen it as an advertising tool instead of the social media tool that rival Ford saw it to be (who has a very good presence on EA). By being on EA but not understanding the social influence the members have is doing Audi more harm than good in their branding.

I think that with the popularity of the internet and social media outlets, viral marketing should be considered extremely important to companies as part of their public relations and marketing plan. The way people interact is adapting with the new technology that is available and most people in the United States are utilizing it. I think with the user friendly environment, companies can reach their target audience without bothering those that aren’t interested. Viral marketing is very cheap right now, especially when compared to newspaper and television. It’s the way of the near future, what’s next though?

The key to successful viral marketing certainly does center on the notion of community. It takes many people, who know many people, who know many people, in order to execute an effective viral campaign, but it also requires a message or brand that people believe, or relate to or engage in. For every successful viral Web campaign, like Hotmail’s or Six Flags’, there are thousands of campaigns launched that go nowhere. Knowing your audience, performing the correct research and distributing a quality product with a brand or message that consumers will embrace is the difference between a viral campaign that ends up in a textbook and one that nobody even knows was sent out.

Viral campaigns were once associated only with YouTube, and believed to only be possible using video. Social media is proving that a campaign itself can go viral, with or without the support of video. However, campaigns, videos, etc. depend on the company’s target audience in order to go viral. It takes user effort, albeit very little effort, to click the share button, or vote for a cause to win the Pepsi Refresh Grant – another example of a viral campaign. Companies should also be weary of which social media outlets they choose to use, focusing on their brand and what suits them best rather than chasing the next shiny object that comes around. It becomes difficult for many companies to effectively manage such a wide range of pages, and a page that isn’t updated might leave consumers wondering if there’s something wrong. To keep up with the abundance of information being shared online, many companies use some sort of system, like Google Alerts, to notify them when a specific campaign or company is mentioned – their own or that of a client. This allows companies to keep a closer eye on what’s being said in the vastness of the web. Yet, with social media seemingly changing every day, it might simply become the next chapter in the textbook of a mass medium that eventually failed.

In the past two weeks, I’ve been watching closely as Google launched its new social media site through what is, essentially, a viral campaign. Sure, they say Google+ is invitation-only because it’s in “testing” mode. But clearly they wanted to attract initial users with an element of exclusivity. If anyone can sign up for a service, users don’t have much incentive to share the news that they’ve joined. But if you can brag “I scored an invite to Google+!!!!” that’s something worth sharing. Facebook started out with exclusivity, as well, since it was limited to those with a university email address.

As marketers move into viral campaigns, they need to keep this in mind. Content alone doesn’t make your viral game or video spread like wildfire. Users do – especially users who want to look cool because they’re among the first to discover something. If marketers push their viral campaigns too hard or too fast, they’ll lose that sense of exclusivity and the campaign is doomed to fail.

We talk about Web content going viral all the time, but I often wonder, what exactly constitutes “viral”? How many people does a video need to reach to become a “viral video”? Viral used to be a word to describe a Web anomaly—a random video, photo, blog post, or article that received an unprecedented amount of attention over a short period of time. And if you mentioned a particular viral video, the vast majority of web users would know exactly what you were talking about. But with social media, it almost seems like even the audiences for viral web content are fragmenting. A YouTube video that I find interesting enough to share with my Facebook friends or Twitter followers might go “viral” among those that I network with online (my virtual tribe), but members of other “virtual tribes” may never be exposed to that same video. For example, a while back, I posted a video on my Facebook page entitled “2D Photography Rube Goldberg”. Although the video had definitely made its rounds in the photography community, and had, at least among that crowd, become a topic of every conversation and blog, its existence was almost unheard of outside of the community. So could that video, very popular among one Internet audience, be considered viral? I also wonder, if technology continues to fragment audiences, will the term “viral” someday become relative to virtual communities? If that’s the case, how will public relations professionals develop viral marketing campaigns that are meant to target a number of disparate audiences?

Viral marketing can be both good and bad. If the message you want spread is positive for your organization that’s a great way to enhance your reputation and build business. However, if something negative about your company catches people’s attention and goes “viral”, it could be a PR nightmare in trying to recover the brand and integrity of the company.

One of my favorite “viral” videos is when the New York choir did a mob flash at a mall during Christmastime. In the crowded food court one person stood on their chair and started to sing the start of the Alleluia Chorus. After a few lines, another person stood up and started to sing. Then, before the song was over the entire choir joined together to sing the beautiful Christmas song.

First, this was unexpected. Second, the singers were dressed in street clothing so they fit into the crowd. Third, with the use of cameras and recording devices on cell phones, the flash mob went viral immediately. This circulated over the web all season long to bring cheer to people’s hearts during Christmas. While there was no business objective or profit gaining due to this act, it’s a great testimony for what social media and viral marketing can do, if done right, to spread the message quickly and to a mass amount of people.

My Response to: Web marketing goes viral
Studying how one message can be spread to thousands or even millions is so interesting to me. I would like to thank you for assigning the YouTube Video in week 7, it was astonishing. It really is true to viral marketing is allowing marketers and public relations professionals to connect to their audience in different ways. Currently, I am working on learning the ins and outs of Etapestry, which is an online software for tracking fundraising. The program is set up to allow you to send different letters out to people who are interested in different things, based on what they give to. The might give to our history program, so we send them a link to our history information or they might be interested in development, so we put together a letter specific to this need. The internet has made it so easy to make things more personalized, while still reaching mass amounts of people. I am excited to see what our fundraising plans are in the future and hope that we can do something that involves using online systems, but our membership is primarily the older crowd so it will be interesting to see what the marketing and public relation teams combined decide to do. As always, good points!

Going viral has definitely helped me with all of my internet surfing/purchasing. One piece of viral marketing that always affects my purchases are product reviews. I do a lot of online shopping and the first thing I check, whether it be clothes, food, or funiture is how my peers felt about the product. For example,when buying clothes, it lets me know how things may fit or if it is cheaply made and I just don’t want to buy it. Of course, there are always YAYs & NAYs, but those product reviews let me know what I should look for or if it would be a waste of time. Also, those reviews help companies know what they need to improve and if customers are satisfied. Many people have started going viral when they are dissatisfied. Companies hire people to specifically focus on social media and these people immediate respond to complaints in an attempt to make the wrongs right. Viral is VITAL!

I think that viral marketing is a good thing. To me it seems like companies can reach a larger market on the web. The web makes the world smaller and connects more people and in different ways. The big social media websites help with this, especially Twitter and Facebook. The fact that markets can listen to what people are saying about their products is beneficial. It allows them to build relationships and a sense of community. I do agree with the statement, “…many say online marketing is all about community.” With just about everything going digitally and shifting to the web, companies have no choice to market virally.

I think that viral marketing is essential for companies today. Not only is this a way for companies to get their name out and build brand loyalty, but it is inexpensive. One Tweet could reach countless numbers of individuals and what does that cost the company? Nothing. However, there is more to success than just name recognition, you must be able to get individuals to make purchases. Herein lies the difference between companies who use viral marketing to their advantage and prosper because of it and the companies who fail to use this exposure effectively.

Viral marketing allows word to spread at a rapid rate about a product or service that a company has to offer. Facebook uses this feature through the act of “Liking” a company. Users who state that they “like” a company can receive updates about the company’s offers and new product releases. For Twitter users, word can spread with a marketing campaign through “retweeting” to Twitter users. This allows those who perhaps do not follow the company to still get word of the product or service that is being offered. Blogs and announcements on a company’s website also can aid a virtual marketing campaign. It is important that when using this medium (blog site or company’s website) that a variety of text, pictures, and videos be used to keep the reader’s attention on the item the company is trying to promote.

Virul marketing is an impressive tool when used properly.The potential impact and audience are unlimited. Many retail organizations have utilized virul marketing very successfully.
One of the common strategies I experience is through social media. Participants in Facebook can “like” a certain retailer, and with every update from the retailer or any links the Facebook user participates in, a link, or advertisements posts to their wall and will display as an update to their “friends”. Once one person clicks on a site, it opens up for more and more to do so, as well.
While there are so many ways virul marketing can be used, it really is pretty impressive in its abilities to reach people.

Viral marketing and news dissemination from public relations firms has become increasingly more difficult in a world where more and more users are cognizant of providing unique material to catch a viewers attention. Advertisers such as Old Spice have come up with very innovative ways to promote a product but have found that just because a video sees overwhelming amounts of viewership, it does not always equate to consumer purchases.
The real question then becomes what characteristics of a viral campaign also induce viewers to the point of purchase?

This post brings up a good point about the nature of how businesses are communicating online, more specifically how they should be doing it. While online communication is different in Web 2.0, it really isn’t that dissimilar from how we already communication. Effective marketing of businesses online is done through careful planning and relationship building, we’ve seen that organizations that try to weave themselves into a conversation, or a community, often fail if they do not take the time to listen and learn how they are most relevant to the group beforehand. Web 2.0 has presented challenges for many organizations looking to the internet to reach their audience, but if they keep in mind how basic communication principals can be applied to the digital world they are more likely to succeed than if they go in with high expectations for viral campaigns that serve little relevancy to their audiences

It’s amazing how companies now have to have such a strong online presence just to do business now. Gone are the days when a person could make a good product, open a shop and tell everyone in the neighborhood about it to be successful. In our global village we no longer have a local marketplace but an international one and businesses have to now communicate with consumers in the same way they are communicating with each other. The company I work for celebrated when we became the number one listing on Google for our industry and is continuing to harness the power of the internet to drive sales.

Viral marketing is a fascinating concept, and you bring up a good point about the impact it has on newspapers and TV stations. Why should a company invest thousands (or millions, even) in costly ads when it can come up with a clever viral campaign on YouTube or Facebook? As you mentioned, the PR industry has latched on to this concept, realizing that effective viral marketing campaigns can oftentimes get more visibility (and, thus, profitability) for a company than traditional avenues. The Vivian text discusses how one of PR’s key functions is in the realm of crisis communications, as well as image management, and provides the BP example. In the years following the company’s disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP has invested a lot of time and money into its presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to help repair its image and communicate its ongoing “recovery” communications messaging. I work for the corporate headquarters of an international real estate firm, which, in 2011, launched a viral video campaign featuring somewhat hokey, tongue-in-cheek videos depicting why consumers should choose our brand over competing franchises. The result: increased web traffic to our consumer site and more growth of our social media networks. Viral marketing, when done right, can be extremely effective and extend an organization’s reach well beyond the local marketplace. It’s a brave new world out there…

As the news module’s blog post demonstrated, there is great power in the potential of a viral marketing campaign. They can reach consumers directly, and they are often far more affordable to create than traditional advertising campaigns. The difficulty with viral campaigns, however, is that they’re difficult to predict. There is no sure-fire formula determining what will go viral. Sure, Invisible Children’s “Kony 2012” video was designed to be viral. However, so were the organization’s more than 70 videos that came before it. After dozens of attempts, there was just something about “Kony 2012” that resonated with viewers, provided just the right amount of edginess, and possibly had a bit of luck on its side which caused it to achieve viral greatness.

The quest to go viral, to spread a message to the masses, can cause some companies to go too far and alienate fans. There is an interesting article by FrogLoop titled “When Viral Campaigns Fail and Social Media Mobs Rule” that identifies some attempted viral campaigns that flopped. In the 2011 Super Bowl, Groupon launched a campaign to promote its services but looked as if it were capitalizing on suffering in Tibet. People were outraged, and the company had to nix the campaign and deal with the outcries. As many others have commented, there is great potential that lies in viral campaigns, but public relations professionals should be cautious to not go too far and anger their audiences in pursuit of viral-ness.

Viral marketing is key to a companies success in truly reaching customers directly and quickly. The only way Viral marketing can be a huge success is to keep in mind what kind of audience you are trying to appeal your product too, how many people you are actually trying to reach, and what your audience really wants or ought to see. Viewers are very specific in what they invest their time in because their is so much out there already. Viewer will choose something that is appealing to them as well as society in general. Viral marketing, when done with the right tools and understanding of how to become successful is the best way of getting your product out there. Not only is it cheaper compared to publishing your advertisement in a newspaper or airing it on television, it also will spread like wild fire and reach more people. Everyone has access to the internet nowadays whether it is on their smart phone, laptop or even their office. Newspapers are inconvenient because you have to physically go and pick it up as where this type of information can be one click or finger swipe away.

The first thing I thought of after reading this post was the viral marketing example we saw last week on “Kony.” Wow. How simple it is now to reach millions with a single mouse click and upload–and for the good.

It’s also especially interesting this time of year, though, to see what ends up going “viral” in the presidential and other election campaigns. Some uses are viral marketing efforts, but sometimes other messages unintentionally go “viral” when candidates would rather them not. For instance, with Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock’s recent “mishap” or wrong word choices in last week’s debate. A YouTube search will turn up many video spin-offs of his “God intended rape” statement and, in part because of this attention, other GOP candidates like Mike Pence (IN gubernatorial race) and even past presidential hopeful John McCain called on Mourdock to apologize. If it wasn’t so easy for his comments to have been spread on the web or “go viral,” would this have gotten as much attention? It’s a good reminder that messages and downloads going viral can be bad for someone’s or something’s credibility and reputation, too. Putting messages out through social media and via the web requires a great deal of monitoring.

If an authentic message is created, and it happens to go viral, that is excellent. It means that the audience really connected with the brand, and it opens the brand to a whole new audience. However, public relations people should be careful when creating messaging for the purpose (or hope) of going viral.

First, because the social-media savvy generation can smell gimmicks. Second, because creating that kind of “gimmicky” messaging goes against the “honest and open” aspect of communication that makes public relations a driving force behind ethical business communication. As someone who is betting her future on the legitimacy of the profession, I understand the lines between PR and advertising are becoming blurred, but I would hate that blurring to cause irreparable damage to the (as you pointed out in your slides for this module) already tumultuous reputation of the public relations professional.

Viral Marketing is a huge asset to companies nowadays. People see advertising online way more than in magazines, newspapers, and T.V. If you can be clever as well, a successful youtube, facebook, or twitter campaign can be more effective and cost almost nothing. The old spice commercials on youtube are the first ones that I think of. They are hilarious and get a lot of views on youtube. Proper management of ads with social media is a necessity for companies who want to succeed in this present age.

I think the ability for advertisements to be catered to an individual’s needs is probably the largest reason why ads (mainly online ones) are so successful today. It’s simple, if you have an ad that appeals to the user, the ad will be more successful than one that the user has no interest in. The concept is so easy to grasp, yet it brings up other issues. Should ads on Facebook have access to our personal information in order to best tailor ads to our needs? Is this really necessary to the world of marketing? Or is it simply a ploy to try and get the most out of the advertisement? That’s what I think. While it is a great idea, I think the means through which companies go to find users to buy into their ads is a bit excessive these days.

I think viral marketing is better for a company than standard advertising. I think viral is a great thing because it leads to a massive audience and ends up becoming knowledge to the majority of the world. I think the affect it has on advertising that happens to be already hit hard is somewhat tragic, but it is also a part of life. News should get to people however it possibly can and it cannot worry about how much money is being lost because some news is priceless. Things can be bought, but ideas can lead to actions and emotions that change the world, so I would definitely reconsider the process of waiting to publicize news in order to make profit from advertisement.

It is so interesting that something going out over the internet can gain such a huge popularity. The first time this became obvious to me was when the Kony 2012 video came out. Within hours it had thousands of hits on Youtube, and was all over Facebook .This video went viral fast. People shared it on Facebook, meaning more and more people saw it and then shared it themselves. It is crazy how networking and sharing things with people can get the word out on so many different topics.

fter the presidential election last night, the Obama Victory tweet on Twitter became the most re-tweeted thing ever with over a million in a single night. An incredible feat of marketing and PR, accomplished with virtually no cost. This alone demonstrates the power of the web and “going viral” through the vast network that social media has created. Sometimes we forget that marketing is not always limited to shopping or a product, but people, political campaigns, and organizations are always marketing themselves to the public and social media is a very effective way of doing it.

Advertising is becoming more and more innovative in this day and age. For the most part, the innovations seen in viral marketing have worked, but I think there’s a little bit of risk involved with viral marketing. Just like viral videos, and Internet memes, the concept only works if the message can reach out to people in a universal way. If it does not appeal to most people, it cannot become viral. Also, obviously, if it does not have enough visibility, the campaign will fall flat on its face. I think viral marketing works best when performed in a subdued, mysterious way that intrigues people enough that they have to do some investigation of their own into the matter at hand. Like the Six Flags ad, letting people know that they have an exclusive first look at something doesn’t hurt either, and will certainly bring more views.

It’s pretty interesting how easy it is to get publicity now that numerous available social media sites. Even the little ads on the side of the newsfeed on Facebook is a really simple way to advertise. There are now ads before YouTube videos, which are annoying most of the time, but they do a good job at advertising their company or product to the appropriate audience.
It’s even easy for people to get publicity from blogs or YouTube videos that get thousands of hits. All you need is a few people to share it with their friends, and eventually it becomes the trending topic. So, not only does the internet make it easy for companies to advertise, it makes it easy to even advertise yourself.

i think viral marketing is a very great for companies to go forward with. it is usually free and it saves so much money and stress when it comes with having to do advertisements. it saves time because going viral can allow to get the word out quickly. if you take the Kony 2012 video that achieved lots of success in spreading the word about the issues in Uganda. so i believe viral marketing can be a great asset to companies trying to market. and excellent source for this would Youtube.

Viral marketing could very well be a positive thing if we used it for the right reasons. The Kony 2012 video, for example, was a very powerful video that went viral and caused a revolution. Our generation is very tech savy which leads to both positive and negative things. We have the power of reposting images, text, articles, etc. Perhaps we should take advantage of the media and influence our governments and those in higher power. In a matter of minutes, my Facebook newsfeed was filled with posts about the presidential election and how Obama had won. This is such good advertising for the government. If we focused more about serious issues in the world, our generation could make a change. Nonetheless, we see other things going viral that do not benefit anyone but rather than harm others.

This day in age, using viral marketing is the smartest thing a company can do. So many people go on the internet on things such as blogs, and youtube that your information will get out. SOme people misuse viral marketing. But, if used for the right reasons like the Kony 2012 video, it can educate people on very serious topics. That one youtube video opened the eyes of so many people. Before this Move 2012 video, not many knew of invisible children, or Kony. I think this was a very smart move for IC to use viral marketing this way.

This is so true and is the advertising and marketing of the future. With the interenet today it is one of the only things that unify all people (or majority) in the world. THus having that connection tailoring your advertising to certain groups of people that would be most interested is important. The dual bonus that its cheap and that theirs very little waste in advertising. It is almost going back to the old days where things were spread through word of mouth except now its the internet and travels 10000 times faster. Also things that are on the internet stay on the internet so they are acessible at all times.

Online marketing seems to have become a norm in today’s society. You can find anyone online on practically any networking site. Everything on the Internet can go viral and get to everybody one way or another. I also believe that the advertisers are becoming smarter in determining what people like and do not like from looking at what is most searched, etc. I also agree with Malachi. Once something gets on the Internet, it practically never goes away.

It’s crazy to think how when you put something on the internet it will stay there most likely forever. That scares me a lot. It makes me not want to post things about myself online because then they will be there for a long time. It is also very smart of advertisers to post most of their business to online sites like facebook, spotify, instagram, twitter, etc. Because most college students especially are on their computers way more than they are watching TV. They are getting a lot of marketing there.

Being a college student and growing up in a age where anything can be found online, when it comes to viral marketing I think the ones that stick out the most to me would be Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. The rate at which information can be spread is almost insane. I personally do not even think that the saying “spread like wildfire” is sufficient enough when it comes to the rate at which information, advertisements, videos etc. can be dispersed. The best example that I am aware of is with Frito-Lay and Facebook. According to Jeff Bullas and his article titled “The 10 Guinness World Records For Social Media,” on April 11th the snack company Frito-Lay received an unreal 1,575,161 ‘likes’ in a mere 24 hours. This fact alone give a good picture on how powerful viral marketing can actually be.

Viral Marketing is one of the most powerful tools that has come out of the whole digital revolution. The rate at which videos spread is almost ridiculous. Like you mention in the beginning of the blog post, viral has its roots in the word virus, something usually used when discussing disease. To use this to add perspective, the Black Plague claimed 20 million lives over about two years. The viral video, Kony 2012 by Invisible Children, had over 100 million views in just six days. Granted, the world population has grown a lot since the Black Plague, but you get the idea. Viral campaigns get the audience to do the marketing themselves. This has the potential to be dangerous as well. It goes back to the business stand by that if someone likes a product, they tell 1 friend. If they do not like it, they tell three. Companies should take advantage of this cheap, archivable media, but also be careful that what is being spread is a positive message.

In a sense, viral marketing allows users to do the marketing for companies. Yet, companies must still generate the product and catch to a product that would make it “go viral.” When I think of the viral nature of the internet, I most often think of YouTube videos that may start with a single person and could easily end up becoming a world-wide sensation (See Justin Beiber). More recently, the Gangnam Style video has gone absolutely viral. What started as a fairly ridiculous video has now turned into a worldwide sensation. The song can be heard at clubs and on radio stations all over the world. Major news stations have played clips and people across America have been seen doing the “Gangnam Style” dance move that resembles riding a horse. In addition, this video has launched South Korean pop star, PSY, into international fame. The video has received over 770 million YouTube views. T-shirts and other memorabilia can be purchased all over the web. The Gangnam Style video is just one example of how viral marketing can create a chain reaction of user-generated mass marketing.

Viral Marketing allows the word to get out about a certain product quicker because it is the new hot item or video. I think that many companies will still need to make sure they have a great product to sell. Apple does a great job of this where they barely promote the latest iPhone 5 and people are not able to get this phone for a month after it was released. However, this works a bit different if something goes viral on YouTube because you can set up a commercial account where it will actually generate a form of revenue for that owner. So lets say a beer company has a commercial that goes viral, they are effectively able to make up some of their marketing costs in the process. Also, this is all based on word of mouth and chain reactions so every video, or “viral” item will have a different path of growth.

Viral marketing makes a lot of sense to me. It seems that the point of advertising is not only to get a lot of people to see the product, but to get the right people to see the product. When videos on Facebook are shared, they are shared by someone interested in whatever is being advertised. They are being shared with people who are “friends” and likely have similar interests. So, once the first person is reached, they do the rest of the work for themselves, and everybody wins (except for advertising companies who lose their share.)

This is a quite successful way of advertising and marketing yourself, I believe. An organization known as Invisible Children did this most recently with their video campaign “Kony 2012.” This video, posted less than a year ago now has over 93 million views. Invisible Children, a non profit that was virtually was unheard of before this video went viral, now has a seat on the world stage. That’s online marketing at it’s best.

Viral marketing is wonderful but the point of it being viral is that the boom is only for a bit until you get your footing. All a company needs is one big hit in order to become successful and getting that big break can be very difficult in a world where everyone is vying for the same attention. It is almost like screaming pick me in a school playground full of kids with only one kick ball. Although the odds of online virality are rare (even though it seems to be the opposite) we remember the viral media content for a long time.

Viral marketing is a great thing when it come advertising. It is a great way to get a mass amount of people informed about a certain subject. For a company, all they need is one thing to become super popular in order for them to be successful. The thing that becomes popular has the ability to go world wide, seeing that it would be on the internet. This means that the audience becomes even larger than it was before.

Viral marketing is fascinating to me because obviously it is one of the most effective marketing tools out there, but you kind of have to leave it up to fate. Once it is put out onto the Internet, there is only so much one can do in order for it to go viral. You can design something that you might think has a chance of suddenly taking off on the Internet, but there is not a certain way to calculate whether or not it will for sure. But when it does, it is probably the most effective marketing tool out there. This creates an interesting paradox because of this lack of control, but insane success.

Viral marketing can be incredibly useful for a company. It functions as a low-cost, interactive, self-reproducing form of advertising. The problem is that it is an impossible network to predict or control. Traditional advertising, say a billboard campaign, is very controllable. Advertisers know exactly where their ads are going and can therefore predict who will see them. Online, however, advertisers do not know where their ads will go, who will see them, or even if they will spread. The whims and passions of internet users are difficult to predict. The best bet for companies is to saturate their networks with the viral content, and get it viewed and shared by influential people.

Viral marketing, when utilized correctly, is an incredibly powerful advertisement tool. Not only does it cost next to nothing, it has the potential to reach a vast amount of people. This allows smaller companies, as well as large corporations to spread their name through the many online “communities” and potentially gain recognition. Like Hotmail, a company can quickly turn its revenue around by utilizing the power of viral marketing.

Viral marketing is a way to inform people about a new product in a fast way by hoping it spreads like a virus. The product in question doesn’t necessarily have to be great, but it must garner enough interest in which those that are viewing the product or have viewed it, find it interesting enough to spread the word around. It is a form of free advertising that will eventually generate some form of revenue indirectly.

Viral marketing, once an unfathomable idea, especially in the early days of the internet, is now probably one of the most quintessential parts of businesses advertising. Although there are other ways of advertising such as television and radio broadcasts as well as adds both physical and online, viral marketing is one of the most efficient ways in the modern work to market your business. It is fast, reaches a lot of people, and you don’t have to pay a dime. Many people have already utilized this unique and incredible tool and I will not be surprised if it continues to evolve as a system in the next couple of years while becoming the premier source of marketing for growing businesses.

I personally believe that viral marketing is one of the greatest ways to advertise. When a company is advertising virally this is not only being seen by millions of people but it is virtually costing them absolutely nothing to do this; what more could a company want? Now-a-days people use the Internet for basically everything, so if a company is smart, they will advertise where the customers are, and that is the Internet.

Viral Marketing is becoming one of the main ways to market a product or company. Since every other marketing outlet is becoming so expensive, companies are needing to rely on viral marketing. Also since this is so easily obtainable, why not do viral marketing? With so many people online and using sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc, there is no reason to not do viral marketing to get a product or name out to the community.

In dealing with Viral Marketing Campaigns, PR has really taken the cake in many different situations. The example of Hotmail that was given was an incredibly important point when making the argument that having marketing on the web can greatly increase the amount of consumers. In taking a different approach, PR’s and companies can also use the viral web approach to promote advocacy. For example the Red Cross and the American Cancer society now uses their online presence to promote their company and make online donations possible (Vivian, 2011,Pg. 281).The web makes the promotion of their charities far more reachable than ever imagined.
PR, as the Power Point Public Relations states, “Provide a voice in the marketplace of ideas, facts, and viewpoints to aid informed public debate.” This coincides greatly with the way viral marketing goes online to directly reach the networked communities that make the web. Both are using web based platforms, like RealWire to reach out to different people and engage and share with others about common interests and ideals. The web as a place for business and consumers has had a great impact on the market today. Advertising, PR, and the use of social media sites and communications have truly changed the game for every type of market.

Viral marketing has come such a long way and can be used in such a helpful and positive way for someone. I have seen it used in so many different ways, a new artist coming up, trying to get their music heard, or even people that are already mainstream use this as a tool to keep their fans in tune. for example I have a friend and he started off making one video off you tube, in a year that video received over twenty million views. he was able to use the internet and viral marketing to let people know that he is funny, and after that first video he kept making more videos and made his own you tube channel and now he has 74 thousand subscribers to his channel.

As the internet becomes more and prevalent among our culture, marketing agencies have noted this trend and utilized the art of viral marketing. With the combination of the word of mouth, social media, and the internet as a whole, companies have gotten more exposure than ever before in a very short amount of time. Many viral marketing agencies have even partnered with the public relations department to kill two birds with one stone. According to Vivian, “For many persuasive campaigns, organizations use both public relations and advertising. Increasingly, public relations and advertising people find themselves working together” (Vivian 271).

Viral marketing is an extremely important element for businesses to understand in today’s society. Much of the marketing that is done today is done on the internet due to viral marketing. Viral marketing promotes items extremely quickly due to the networks that are involved. Another advantage to this marketing technique is the cost. Marketing anything that becomes viral virtually costs a minimal amount for the amount of people that are reached through the campaign. As the internet continues to grow, viral marketing is increasing not only in popularity, but also is increasing in necessity. For many businesses, online viral marketing is essential and extremely important to understand and execute efficiently.

Being a community that is tightly tied in with the digital world, the use of viral marketing is becoming more crucial then ever. Many individuals have access to the Internet at the palm of their hand. With this, companies have no choice but to depend on viral marketing to create sales. And how is viral marketing any different then online advertising? It is the same aspect of getting your name out in the public to improve sales. Websites do it on side bars and pop-ups. Phone apps do as well when loading games or in between levels. With so many kinds of electronics out there, it is not shock that viral marketing is the growing method of spreading the word

Viral marketing has been seen and proven to be an incredibly effective tool for businesses and corporations, and just industries in general. I have been a first hand example of someone who has been a product of viral marketing via Internet where something hit social media, and mass media, and began creating a new culture in just hours. Because the Internet and online world plows such a unique and tight community, it does create a spider web effect, like Willis states. When one person falls subject to a viral marketing campaign, community members in the same web will most certainly find themselves in the same campaign and network of community members. Viral marketing has shown both positives and negatives and could be looked and viewed from a variety of perspectives, but whether or not one agrees with it, there is little room to refute that it has launched and sky rocketed many industries into the place they are today and portrayed them in marketed ways they could have never been otherwise.