Viral marketing is an effective way (when used right) to spread your business. This post will go over an ultimate form of viral marketing that has yet to be discovered.
The secret lies in Facebook
Anyone who uses Facebook on a regular basis probably has heard (or has written) a ’25 Random Things’ note. This trend swept across Facebook like a wildfire. With over 5 million notes created in a week, wouldn’t it be great to harness the power of this for your business?
No one is really sure who started the ’25 Random Things’ trend. It has created huge hype across Facebook and other social media areas. There is a group on Facebook dedicated to getting President Obama to create one of these lists and a group dedicated to never creating a list of their own. Thousands of people are blogging about it (like me). Imagine if that effect (or that effect scaled down) occured, with your business as the topic.
More about the ’25 Random Things’ note
The Facebook '25 Random Things' note spread like wildfire across the huge social network.
The note contains a simple paragraph stating to write a note with 25 random things if you are tagged, and then tag 25 more people in your note. It’s quite simple. I will admit that I have written a note myself. I suppose that people were just interested in the note enough to continue to post their own. People do seem to be in love with lists (it’s a really good method of displaying content), and randomness is a key factor also.
Would a commercial note work?
This is questionable, but if possible, it would be great for any company interested. The ’25 Random Things’ note had everything that it needed to become popular – it asked people to tag others, it was an interesting topic to most people (random things about yourself/others), and it had a good format (a list). I think that it would be possible for other notes to achieve similar results (maybe not 5 million, but a good number). Since the ’25 Random Things’ note, it seems that the note usage has increased in my community. Friends are now adding other notes, such as a note where you have to set your music player to shuffle and answer questions with song names. During the time when I was a MySpace user, it seems that people were obsessed with notes (I think that they called them bulletins). Notes on Facebook are only heating up now, but it seems that it would be a great method (if it works) to spread your business.
It would take a while to generate an idea that would spread. Maybe something like – ’10 Random Pepsi flavors that you would love’ or ’10 Weirdest Google image results’. It would be difficult to create a trend that many followed, but once it gets going, it would spread like wildfire. People seem to like to follow bandwagons on Facebook and other social networks. It’s the ultimate viral marketing technique – a Facebook note that spreads itself.