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Marketers are focused on virality these days. They do some research to understand the science behind it completely. But, until now, it remains the biggest mystery in the marketing world.
Every company wants it, but they lack the time, management, and resources to power it. The primary purpose of writing this post is to provide information and educate marketers and business owners about virality.
What is Virality?
In digital marketing, virality is the term used in describing what is viral. It is also referred to as viral marketing. The end goal of this strategy is to generate exponential growth.
The term refers to a new video, app, product, game, tool, software program, content, or anything that has gone viral. It usually has thousands or millions of views from individuals who use that particular product or service.
Virality is like a virus that spread too fast. The idea of internet virality originates from the scientific study of spreading viruses. The manner of calculation is similar to the formula used by scientists in measuring the spread of viruses.
Virality is not an exact science. It is not just creating a viral marketing campaign you can think about, plan, and have. This is not simple as you think it is.
Viral marketing can be a stand-alone or as part of a broader campaign utilizing various kinds of marketing. Most smaller businesses or companies are into virality because it is much cheaper than traditional marketing.
The Fundamentals of Virality
The core of viral marketing is how the information is spread by word-of-mouth. But today’s technology has enabled the viral effect to include several internet-based platforms.
The viral effect can spread in various networks that include:
- Video sharing sites like Vimeo, YouTube, etc.
- Web forums
- Social network sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and many more
Viral marketing is providing your audience with great value for free. It is used along with other methods of marketing. Viral content encourages people to share it in such a manner that many can receive the content’s message.
There is a misconception between virality and word-of-mouth. We have to make it clear. Virality is not word-of-mouth. Although these two are closely related, they are not the same.
Word of mouth is when people continuously mention how happy they are with the product and cannot stop talking about it.
You can do several things to make people talk about your products. One is to provide them great products and provide them an experience they cannot forget. You can also offer them incentives for a cheesesteak.
Virality Formula
When measuring your business virality, you need to focus on two factors. The (i) refers to the invitations each user sends, while the (c) denotes the fraction of invited people who converted to users. The virality coefficient (k) is the product of (i) and (c).
If the virality coefficient is below one, the impact of each new user is minimal. For example, if k = 0.5, it means each new user can invite at least one additional user.
To calculate the time for a new product, game, content, app, etc. to obtain virality, you can use the formula below:
C(0) x k = the number of people at the end of the period
C is the number of individuals you have from the start of the period you are tracking. And k represents the number of people when the period ends and the product of the number of invitations or referrals multiplied by the conversion rate.
Types of Virality for your Start-Up Business
When people talk about virality, you will usually hear the term viral growth. The term comes from epidemiology. If a sick person can infect more than one individual, the disease can grow fast and spread into a population.
We surely do not want that to happen, particularly during the pandemic. But, in business, this is good news.
You can choose from the three common types of virality for your business. Here they are:
- Incentivized
Incentivized virality is when a business bribes users to invite their friends. For example, you can get a free one-month subscription for online music streaming in exchange for each referral that signs up. The disadvantage of this type is that your users might feel like you are trying to exploit them in exchange for their friends’ data. If you are starting up with your business, this can be effective.
- Inherent
Inherent virality is when the service provides you more value when more people are using it. Thus, they share the product with more people. The sharing can be done using mechanisms like inviting all your contacts or just through word of mouth.
- Advocacy
This virality happens if the users tell their friends about your business. If they find your solutions helpful, they will let everyone know more about them. In turn, you’ll gain more customers.
Tips to Achieve Virality
One of the reasons why tracking virality is essential is to determine how fast a product becomes viral. This is quite vital for start-up businesses so that they will know the speed of their product growth. Below are factors that will help businesses to achieve virality.
- Create an original content
- Ensure your content is relatable
- Provide solutions to a common complaint or interest
- Make visually appealing and valuable content
- Talk about current events or popular trends
Final Thoughts
Virality is the answer to the rapid growth of businesses. It is one way to attract a group of possible users for free. As discussed, to measure virality, you have to determine the K-factor and the average time from the user registration to the time an invited friend registers.
Also, word-of-mouth and virality are two different methods, but you can use them in coordination. We also provided in this article the factors you need to consider if you want to achieve virality.
Let people know about your products by creating excellent and relatable content. If you want to share your thoughts about virality, feel free to comment below.
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Sources:
https://sites.google.com/a/trah.biz/www/virality?mobile=true
https://medium.com/@devtodev/how-to-measure-the-product-virality-47f4a81d507
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/virality
