The Virus of Marketing

Many say content can spread online as fast as a virus does through humans. However not all content does, so how do you determine what does and what doesn’t?

Well, with social media dominating the world at the moment, a single post can spread to hundreds of people within a matter of minutes. J. Clement recorded that 41.6 million online mobile messages were sent within a minute around the globe in 2019, just to give us an idea on how fast the online world moves. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing for businesses.

With competition being much higher these days businesses need to stand out in order to make their product or service go viral. The challenge is deciding how to do that.

Businessman Seth Godin made a comment in his Ted Talk that your idea doesn’t have to be loved, but needs to be remarkable. This comment leads me to think that if your idea is memorable and leaves a mark on a person they are more likely to talk about it to their friends and family. This then can create a buzz around your idea, starting the transmission, the spreading of the idea (the spreading of the virus).

It is important to use Word of Mouth as it is more reliable than traditional advertisement. So for a business to utilise this ‘promotional strategy’ they are using the fast-spread content platforms to their advantage and making their business known to as many people as possible as fast as possible.

Another tip to help ensure your business idea spreads, is by ensuring your idea gets to the right people. It is crucial that the right person sees your idea and spreads it the way you expect. You need someone who will listen to your idea, care about it and want to talk about it to others. As Seth Godin suggests, the 'Innovators' and 'Early Adopters' are the ones you should focus on when introducing a new product. These groups care about new and fresh ideas, they want to listen to what you have and spread their newfound knowledge to everyone. In many cases they can be that first infected person who spreads the virus (your business idea) from person to person.

This concept that content spreads like a virus is so accurate in a time where we can connect to anyone in the world 24 hours a day 7 days a week. This makes it crucial for businesses to utilise this situation and ensure their business idea spreads as quickly as a virus does.

So, I wonder, is this a healthy way of promoting a business when you can’t control how it spreads?