Viral Influencers

Posted by admin | Filed under Techniques

Creating a good viral marketing campaign is very dependant on your initial seed group. That is to say the first few people that your viral reaches control it’s ongoing destiny. You can move the market in your favour if you are able to identify the “influencers”.

The first way to release a viral is to your database of friends colleagues etc and hope that it gains some traction. I would always recommend that you do this early on during your testing phase but as a seeding strategy it is limited.

The second route is much more effective.

As you will already have researched your target audiences and created a viral to suit you should also have gathered some data as to who influences this group. If you can have these people passing on your viral then the likely hood of it hitting its tipping point are way higher. In addition it is also a good deal more likely to end up in the hands of the right people.

1. What or who do your target audience read. Can you approach blog writers or websites that might display your content?
2. Are there particular authorities or voices that have a high number of followers on social sites such as myspace, (yes myspace is still here) or twitter?
3. Are their dedicated forums that your audience use as reference points?
4. Online magazines or newsletters also have good reach are there any you can partner?