Viral marketing is the idea that you can harness social networks or other communications channels to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve product sales using a ‘viral ‘ process that mimics the spread of infection. The origins of the idea are probably linked to the concept of computer viruses that spread from machine to machine seemingly unaided.
As digital PR specialists we will be asked by clients to assist them with on line viral marketing. It is a mistake to enter into a campaign with viral marketing as the central feature. That is not to say it is impossible to deliver, but it is exceptionally difficult. To imply that a piece of content such as an image or a video clip will achieve viral status at the outset of a campaign is a bit like guaranteeing that the campaign will be of national award winning quality before you have even come up with the ideas.
In any case I prefer the idea of internet memes to the ‘viral’ concept. It is a better description and it carries more explanation which gives as a better chance of providing clients with clear explanation and managing expectations.
Richard Dawkins, the author of the ‘God Delusion’ originally came up with the term ‘meme’ in a book published in the mid seventies called ‘The Selfish Gene’. It was coined to describe how Darwinian principles could explain the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena like fashion, music, catch-phrases, architectural styles and even beliefs. Dawkins argued that memes propagate themselves in societies in a way that is similar to the behaviour of a gene or virus. The meme is cultural unit or idea that spreads rapidly. The term has gained greater currency with the growth of the internet.
Although we can’t eliminate the human element in propogating the spread we can’t control or guarantee it. We therefore should not claim we can deliver it in any quantifiable sense.
This article is adapted from a more in depth piece in the book ‘Public Relations and the Social Web’ published this week and available from Amazon.
Five cool blogs for you all to follow this Friday. As usual there is a mix – some are mega blogs, others are small, but perfectly formed. Also following the format of Follow Friday Fives there is a bit of PR, some social media and a smattering of politics too. 
For twenty years or more the marketing industry has been obsessed with the idea of integration. The nature of the internet is such that if we don’t integrate our online communications may for ever languish in some digital backwater. 
It is time for the British media to end their unholy alliance with the publicist Max Clifford. Max plies his trade by doing deals and peddling untruths, he says so himself and I have witnessed it at first hand. 
By blogging standards and the pace of the social wed after five weeks I consider my five Friday blog suggestions to be a well established tradition. Here are five unequivocally excellent blogs to kick off your Friday with.
Alan Rusbridger the Editor of the Guardian has started to twitter. Along the the Telegraph’s William Lewis he is blazing the trail for major newspaper editors in using the microblogging social network*. It should be of little surprise that he is leading the way. Many of his colleagues at the paper are avid users and the Guardian itself is redefining media concepts. The Guardian is no longer just a newspaper. It is a trusted media brand that delivers audio, video, web content as well as a daily, dead wood and ink edition.
An article appeared in Popular Mechanics in April last year that began with the words “Search is dead”. The argument was that the huge escalation in social networks would eventually make algorithm based search engines redundant. This is a pretty bold claim when Google has become arguably the world’s most powerful brand. The core of the argument is that as social networking grows web users will find what they want by using their social network rather than search because of trust. Indeed people in general will know the answer that you want better than a mathematical equation. This has begun to happen with Twitter. Within days of starting to use the service I saw a request from Jemima Kiss, technology writer for The Guardian for information about about iTunes and a request from social media guru Shel Israel for information on business applications on Twitter. Shel got what he wanted in just 10 minutes, admittedly quite a bit slower than Google but qualified by trusted human intelligence:
