Organizational Strategies for Designing Effective Viral Marketing Campaigns for Competitive Advantage

Abstract

Viral marketing is a form of peer-to-peer communication in which individuals are encouraged to pass on promotional messages within their social networks. Viral marketing is emerging as an essential tool for organizations to reach millions of web users through various online communities. Viral marketing can provide competitive advantage to an organization as it is a low cost form of marketing. The greatest strength of viral marketing lies in its capability to reach far and spread fast. This research concerns the phenomenon of viral marketing, explores the existing literature on viral marketing and current trends in viral marketing. Specifically this research paper focuses on formulating strategies for designing effective and successful viral marketing campaigns and analyses and compares the case studies of two most successful viral video campaigns namely "Gangnam style" and ·'Kolaveri di". In addition to suggesting viral marketing strategies, this research is concerned with clarifying the role of viral communications within the broader scope of integrated marketing communications. Along with it, the aim of this research paper is also to understand the possible ways of measuring and evaluating successfulness of a viral marketing campaign, through a comparative study of "Kolaveri Di" and "Gangnam Style" viral campaigns. Findings suggest that any on line content has the potential to go viral provided that if is audience relevant and that the proper viral mechanisms are in place. Three types of content are identified which increase the likelihood of a video going viral and those include: entertainment (fun, dance, music, humo,; and uniqueness), positive message and Global appeal of content. While it is impossible to predict which video will go viral, organizations can employ strategies for online viral marketing campaigns that can not only enhance the chances of a video to go. Viral, but can also easily spread the organization's message through online communities like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube etc. in a very short span of time. Marketers seeking to optimize viral marketing campaigns performance should give consideration to these finding.