There is a meme burning through the Facebook society. According to wikipedia.com, a meme is "a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet, much like an inside joke" In this case, the "25 things about me" meme is basically a little quiz that is spreading organically from person to person. You write 25 little "facts" about yourself, tag people in the message and then it gets passed along to the next person and so on. There are a lot of memes out there, and most professionals consider memes to be the basis of viral marketing. Youtube.com, blogs, twitter, and really anything you can hyperlink is essentially the concept of memes - things getting passed along to friends. But what had my interest was these quizzes, these lists that many people spend a lot of time and thought on.
I completed my "25 things" yesterday (a little late to the party), and as a marketer, this had me thinking "are there new ways I can
The facebook community has gotten so unwieldy large, that it makes sense to think about these in the same way we think about other marketing... locally. Why not start a quiz that asks specifically about your product? It may not get 100 million responses in 50 countries, but wouldn't it be better if it gets 100 responses within 1 mile anyway? There would be a fine line (obviously) between a fun quiz that people want to pass along to their friends vs. overt marketing, but if you think of it as a joke that you are passing along it seems that this may offer a new avenue for building brand affinity. Another option is to use it as a way of getting others to promote your product for you. Create a quiz that your product, website, or store would be the answer to some of the questions. Of course, there is a population out there that hates these memes (maybe you're one of them). They don't like to fill them out, but my experience has been that most of these folks read them anyway. For the purposes of branding, really, that's all we need.
Of course, measuring this is pretty much impossible, but with the exception of the time you'll lose writing, answering and reading your friends responses, it doesn't really have many other costs (that time cost shouldn't be underestimated, though). So, what do you think? Could you write a meme promoting your business without promoting your business? Maybe this will be your first foray into viral marketing. Give it a try, I'll fill it out!
1 comment:
There's always those "oh how I wish" moments when you've owned (and closed) a business. As technology and trends progress you see those tools and techniques that would have been so interesting to apply. Oh how I wish I'd have had the opportunity to try and write viral marketing like this for the gallery. I think, despite what if any positive outcome it could have had, I would really enjoy the challenge of trying to tap that resource. Plus or minus, it would have been fun!
Facebook and its transparency present a lot of different opportunities – and dangers as well - for connecting with your acquaintances and hey, your customers too. Facebook is a business after all, I make no mistake. While these memes have been around for years and years on LiveJournal, Friendster and MySpace, Facebook could very well take them to a whole other level. With its intricate and non-stop barrage of connectivity, constantly letting you know every single update/change/mood/happening in your friends' lives, this site can disseminate AND gather information with startling velocity. What could the wily marketing set (or is it "sect"?) do with such a trend? I think you're definitely onto them here. I bet we'll see very soon.
Of course, I'm a notorious member of the "duh" collective when it comes to these techno-marketing realizations.(Just ask my closed art gallery.) So it's reasonable to assume that "they" - and there are many "theys" in play here - figured out what I'm talking about 36 months ago.
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