My Days of .Com
Future of Interactive Advertising

The viral campaign workflow

Written by Mihai Dragan on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 ( 2 responses )
Tags: campaign management, creative, interactive campaigns, viral, viral campaigns

Viral is one of those over-hyped web2.0 buzzwords.

You want a client’s approval on the budget? Just assure him it’s going to be “viral”.
You want funding for your internet start-up? Add the word “viral” in the subtitle.
You’ve lost that Webby award? But why? Your campaign was sooo viral.

However, viral campaigns actually work and engage users. Inspired by Brendan’s post on the Viral Effect, I thought I should post some of the things I know about making “it” go viral.

Target

Making something go viral without a purpose is just an waste of resources. Figure out what you want to accomplish with your viral campaign. Write it down. Find a target and sketch a plan to get to your target.

Concept

After you have the target and you know where you’re heading, assemble the creative team, brief them on the subject and start brainstorming. Write down everything you can come up with. Nothing is stupid, everything is doable.

After the brainstorm delete the least interesting/doable ideas. Now you have a concept.

Implementation

Perfection lies within details. Plan your campaign carefully. Assign the best people to the project. After you have laid out the plan start doing it. Be flexible. Ideas may come up along the way. Keep focused but open to improvements.

Testing

After your viral campaign is ready to go be sure you test it. You wouldn’t want your funky flash game dead after it reaches 10 000 users.

Seeding

Viral effects don’t just happen. People make it happen. Agencies make it happen. Be sure to target a certain message delivery channel (be it a video on YouTube, minisite, flash game or just a picture) and stick to it. You don’t want your users’ attention distributed in dozens of places.

Talk to the influential bloggers. Ask them to write about your campaign (first of all make sure it is interesting enough to write about). Try to get social media power users to mention it. Do this and more (this is where the magic actually happens).

Management

Viral effects are like hurricanes. Once they start you don’t actually know where they’re heading. The best you can do is watch carefully and correct the campaign when needed.

Analyze and report

So you made it viral. But how viral? Track the answers, the number of users that got caught up in the viral effect, blog mentions, twitter mentions and others. Find out how many of the users took the path you’ve suggested. Report it to the client. Understand what happened and do it again. Better and smarter.