SOCIAL MEDIA — VIRAL MARKETING…….WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN????
….WHAT ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT????
Have you ever asked those questions? Are you totally confused?
Well, to put it in the simplest terms, it is………
Word Of Mouth Advertising On Steroids !!!
Ok, here’s how it works. Everybody remembers the old adage “one satisfied customer tells ten, those ten, tell ten ..etc” Well take that same principle and apply it to Twitter, for example. We are going to use Twitter to illustrate what we are talking about since it is the fastest growing forum right now.
Now, while reading this, I want you to keep in mind that this younger generation (no offense, we love you) have an attention span of about 15 seconds. This is not the result of some inferior intellect, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Typically speaking, most people today, young or old, have very active lifestyles and this “younger generation” has become masters at multi-tasking. As a result, they don’t spend a whole lot of time on any one thing. Boom, next, boom, next…..
Back to Twitter. Basically, you set up a landing page (“profile”, see image )
which is nothing more than a one pager that gives very brief information about you and/or your company. Then, you start looking for people that might be interested in what you have to say and/or your products and services. Once you find people that have similar interests, you “follow” them and in most instances, they will “follow” you back.
So, what does “follow” mean. When you are “following” somebody, you can go to your home page on your Twitter “profile” and see what all the people you are “following” are talking about. The conversations range from how to get your kid to brush his teeth, to new products, to serious political discussion…anything goes. Anything one of your followers “tweets” you will be able to read about in real time on your home page.
What happens when YOU tweet something? Well, everybody that is “following” you can then see your “tweets” on their home page, in real time. Just like you can see theirs. If by some chance your followers are not sitting there when you “tweet” your message, they have the option of going to your “profile” where they can read through everything you have “tweeted” about. Likewise, you can go to their “profile”, and see what they have been “tweeting” about.
You then have two options to communicate directly with your “followers”. You can either use @reply or send them a Direct Message (DM). An @reply will be tweeted in the public forum for all to see and a DM is a private communication between two parties and is not seen publicly.
Now, let’s say you have 10,000 “followers” (people that are interested in what you have to say) and you “tweet” an article, or a press release. All 10,000 of your “followers” will see your message.
That “follower” has a following of his own, maybe 5,000 or 60,000, who knows. If that “follower” likes what you have to say and thinks HIS “followers” might like it too, he/ she will “ReTweet” (RT) it.
Now, your message is presented to all 60,000 of HIS/HER followers. One of HIS/HER followers may like it too and he/she might ReTweet it…..get the picture?
Now your message is spreading all over the “Twitterverse” and is being seen by hundreds of thousands of people.
In the meantime, it’s also conceivable that somebody in the “twitterverse” may like your “tweet” enough that they will then publish it in some other social networking forum.
That’s what we call going “viral”. Your message literally spreads like a virus.
Sounds wonderful doesn’t it? But, let’s be realistic here. Is every message going to go “viral”, absolutely not. Twitter basically combines traditional marketing with the speed of the internet. What I mean by that is, traditional marketing’s effectiveness is based on repetitive advertising. The first time somebody sees your advertisement they may just glance at it and move on. By the time they see it three or more times, they might actually start to take notice. They start thinking, hmmm, I remember seeing that before, hmm, maybe I should take a look at it. At that point, that’s when you’ve captured your audience.
Let’s talk about “advertising” a little bit. Society as a whole is sick and tired of having constant advertisements rammed down their throats. Everywhere you look, somebody is trying to push something…people tune it out. Next time you sit down with your significant other to watch a movie, wait until the commercials are over and ask him/her what the last commercial was. Bet they can’t tell you. We tune it out. So, IF you use Twitter or other social media networks, you have to make your audience WANT to hear what you have to say. If all you do is constantly ram your company’s message down their throat, they are going to tune you out.
So, in order to be effective at marketing your brand, your company, your products/services, you have to communicate on a personal level with your audience too.
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