On Viral Marketing

One of the courses that I've gone to appreciate in the MBA program is Marketing Management (MM) under Prof. Joe Miranda. The Case Method, in my opinion, really brings out the best in our MM classes. We've already covered a lot, such as market research and components to a successful marketing program, but not so much on one specific item that has caught my attention: Viral Marketing.

According to Wikipedia, Viral Marketing is defined as "marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses." I highlighted social networks because this blog is part of one-- the Blogosphere. I wouldn't be surprised if this blog would have a"word of mouth" effect on prospective MBA students.

As for the Viral Marketing, we did tackle a case before on non-traditional marketing channels such as mobile devices and the web, but our class discussion focused on the broad view and not a lot on more specifics. From what I've read, Viral Marketing is good in generating buzz, but not a fool-proof plan. Here's a proof of it (watch the video):



I would say a good number of MBA students looking for a business school used the web to look for more than the school's admissions requirements-- they're probably looking for insider info from forums and blogs as well. And that's where Viral Marketing proves its worth.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Nice post...but you have just scratched the surface..read "Tipping Point"....you would know all that you ever wanted to know about viral marketing
Unknown said…
Thanks for the "tip." :) I've read Blink and it was a very good read.

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