Viral Seeding might make the difference

In Part I on Viral Seeding I introduced the notion that spectacular content doesn’t always equate to viral marketing success. To understand what will succeed it is important to not only understand why some ideas spread but to also understand how they spread. At risk of being completely un-original, let me reference the book Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. His analysis boils down the forces behind epidemics into three factors:

1. Stickiness
2. Power of Context
3. The Law of the Few

The first two factors are the reasons why an idea spreads, and the “Law of the Few” refers to how an idea spreads. The “Few” in his “Law” refers to the conclusion he reaches that epidemics occur, surprisingly, as a result of only a handful of people. He calls these people connectors and mavens. The emphasis is on quality instead of quantity of people spreading the idea.

Viral success is a result of a campaign’s content jumping across networks of people. This is the reason a company’s existing network of friends, fans and followers may not have what it takes to achieve success, even if the base is relatively large. Having a large population of people you can tap is certainly better than not having one at all, but it might not be as useful if that group is homogenous with many redundant connections and few people actively engaged with other networks.

Whether or not a company already has a large social media presence, viral seeding is a great way to insure success by increasing the potential the message jumps across many networks. Here are some thoughts on how you might be able to improve your viral campaigns:

1. Include Earned Advertising (Search and Banner) in your viral campaign strategy. Think of your ROI in terms of the money you spend on producing the content as well as some advertising dollars to properly seed it to various parts of the web.
2. Identify the connectors and the mavens in and outside of your existing network. There are a number of new services that rate social media influence by individual user. Popular bloggers also have a lot of sway. Once you identify the movers and shakers motivate them and support them.
3. Don’t just focus on your preferred social media outlet. Yes, Facebook is huge but as everyone flocks to market themselves there it may create even better opportunities in other areas such as on social bookmarking sites like Digg (RIP Delicious) or emerging networks like Foursquare and Quora.