Posts Tagged ‘Small Business’

For a little while now, I have been writing weekly blog posts summarizing viral media happenings in Colorado. I’ve been doing these posts in order to identify and point out techniques that marketers and others use to get viral attention.  They are also pretty fun to research. Along the way, I have noticed that certain ingredients help blog posts, videos or other media get forwarded from person to person. This post is the first in a series exploring what those ingredients are. Doing research for the series has helped me understand how businesses can benefit from and create viral media. I hope my findings are helpful to you too. I’ve also tried to use funny and interesting examples – some are probably familiar, and some surely not.

What gets me most excited is when I find a small company that has created a successful viral marketing campaign without big celebrities or a hefty marketing budget. For example, have a look at this video on the home page of Biota Spring Water. The video tells the story of how their bottles bio-degrade, and has been viewed many thousands of times. It is not shocking or hilarious, but it does communicate what is special about Biota Spring Water and has captured the interest of a lot of viewers. I believe that most small businesses have a compelling story to tell. If you can get at the heart of your story with a clever video, web site or email, you have a shot at going viral.

Here is my list of viral marketing ingredients. As I do example posts, I will link to them here:

• Pass-it-on – the desire to help someone spread a message because the reader agrees with its point of view. Click here for examples.
• Is It Real? – when something seems too freaky or amazing to be real. Click here for examples.
• The Piggyback Effect – an event that resembles or mimics another well-publicized event. Click here for examples.
• Absurdity – CEO’s with blenders, subservient chickens and other unlikely characters. Click here for examples.
• Ohmygod! – the sense of ‘I can’t believe I’m really seeing what I’m seeing’.
• Make-believe – we all like to play make-believe, we’re just not supposed to do it as grownups.
• Virtuosity – watching sheer talent in action. Click here for examples.
• Misdirection – the surprise ending. Click here for examples.
• Play – having fun with people, people having fun.

I haven’t called humor out as an ingredient, but it has to be said that most successful viral media makes us smile or laugh – the desire to share laughter is a universal and wonderful human trait. I am also not including celebrities, news events, sporting events and cute baby animals as ingredients. I don’t mean to downplay their effectiveness in viral media, I’m just not as interested in researching those topics.

If you know of other ingredients or examples, I’d love to hear about them in the comments below.

Credit where credit is due – these are some particularly good resources for tracking viral media:

• http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/viral-marketing-examples/
• http://www.marketingsherpa.com/ – Marketing Sherpa publishes an annual viral media hall of fame
• http://www.visiblemeasures.com/

Network Solutions has partnered with the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland to produce a series of studies tracking a variety of factors that affect the competitive health of small businesses. The most recent installment is detailed here: The State of Small Business Report – December 2009 Survey of Small Business Success. There is a lot of useful information in the report, ranging from statistics on methods of acquiring capital to characteristics of an effective workforce.

Below I have pulled out some choice statistics from the study relating to small business marketing and in particular social media. The number of small businesses who are using social media has doubled in the last year! While small businesses have been slower to adopt social media than big companies, they are starting to catch up. I believe this harkens a sea change in consumer habits, as social connections are strengthened between local consumers and local businesses. Mass marketing benefits big brands and big box stores, because it favors price as the common denominator across all consumers. But social media benefits businesses that are owned and operated by people who live in the community, because it favors social connections between individuals.

• “The incidence of small businesses having a social media presence has doubled from 12 percent to 24 percent in the past 12 months.”
• 70% of small businesses who use social media believe the medium has met or exceeded expectations.
• 50% of small businesses who use social media say it has used up more time than expected.
• 46% of small businesses have a web site – down from 50% a year ago.
• Marketing & innovation was second to capital access in affecting overall competitiveness. Workforce, customer service, computer technology and compliance were all less important factors.
• Referrals from existing customers are the most effective source of new customers.

Oh, and unrelated to marketing, but I couldn’t resist pulling this statistic out as well:

60% of small business owners are highly satisfied and 33% are somewhat satisfied with their jobs. Only 43% of the overall population are satisfied with their jobs. Source for the latter: The Conference Board.