Total Marketing Solutions

Viral marketing’s ability to generate cost-effective word of mouse is undisputed. What does remain in dispute, however, is just how ethical it all is. Where do marketers now stand on viral marketing now that it has had time to evolve and develop over the past view years? When it all first started, a few companies tried their hand at incentivising a few influential bloggers who really should get out more. In many cases the plan backfired when the “independent” opinions were found to be anything but and the ensuing negative publicity undid all their good work.

Today, the ethical debate still rages. No longer the sole domain of big brands and big budgets, viral marketing has become a cost-effective means of marketing communication for an increasing number of SME’s too. But the question remains: how do we as marketing consultants and also as consumers ourselves feel about the whole spectrum of viral marketing? That spectrum ranges from total deception - i.e. sneaking into online forums to talk up the latest gizmo and infiltrating chatrooms - to full transparency via branded advertainment, which leaves no-one in the dark as to who is behind it all. The only clear issue is that, ironically, the more transparent you are, the less effective the impact of any viral marketing activity. So what to do?  

The whole area of word of mouse is now so vast that to attempt to enforce some ethical standards would be nigh on impossible, but there are a couple of things to bear in mind if one were to go down this route:

1. Any content to be used for word of mouse should have the legs to stand on its own, even if everyone knew it was destined specifically for viral marketing.
2. Make sure anything you submit is of interest and/or helpful to the online community you are targeting.  Nowadays, it’s not so much cloak and dagger and mouse and content. 
3. As everyone is becoming increasingly sophisticated in their use of social media marketing, the messages need to be relevant, creative and transparently invisible.

 Who said it was going to be easy? 

Trackback URI | Comments RSS