We live in a day and age that is more connected than ever before. We’ve globalized, mobilized, and vocalized in ways that we never would have thought possible just 10 years ago. This can be a tremendous asset to a brand or property, or it can be its worst nightmare. A person can voice their opinion about any given topic or experience in the moment. You don’t even have to wait until you get home to your computer to post on Facebook or twitter anymore; you can do it right from your smartphone in your back pocket after purchasing tickets or before you even leave the event. People in your audience’s circle of influence know IMMEDIATELY what they think of an experience. If word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing, it’s your job to enlist this not so new, but newly gargantuan asset. It’s more important to strategize your activation efforts in such a way that you enable your target audience to spread the word about why you’re the next best thing to sliced bread, or why you might have provoked a few “lol’s.” If you’re not sure what that means, it’s time to get a social media consultant hired… If you agree with this concept, but you still hear yourself saying “I hope our audience talks well about us,” you’ve become hopeful but not proactive. I would strongly encourage your team to sit down and discuss how you can make this kind of positive viral marketing easy for your audience. Here are a few questions to ask:
What about your efforts are newsworthy? We just had our first child 6 months ago. As a new parent I’m starting to recognize the joy and excitement of having a child that used to baffle and bore me just a few years ago. Pretty sure I was ready to send out a press release when he smiled at me for the first time, or when I found out that he thought peek-a-boo was hilarious. I sometimes think that property owners are the same way with their “baby” as a parent. When you put your whole heart into something it’s easy to think that every little thing you do is going to be equally as exciting to your audience and sponsors as it is to you. It takes more time to sit down with your partners and brainstorm something that’s really going to pleasantly surprise your target audience – but it’s worth it. Once you’ve identified your distinguishers, you can then strategize tactics to make those experiences go viral.
What can people use to go viral? Inventory the possibilities. Cell phones, social media communities, texting, videos, blogs, etc. There’s no way I can capture the custom options here in this blog; but the draw to be vocal stays the same – people love talking about themselves, people love a good story, and people love convenience. Do you have a photographer at the event? Perhaps you’re driving an interaction that begs to be recorded or announced. There’s the tools that people automatically have access to which can be used to go viral, and there’s the tools you make available and attractive to them. There is a t-shirt website that blew up almost overnight. They gave t-shirt designers the ability to post their unique designs on the website, and the one who earned the most votes won 1,000 dollars. They did this quarterly. The result was that these designers posted and then had incentive to drive traffic to the site to vote for their design. The cherry on top was that people could also purchase a design if they liked it and the brand who owned the site would ship it to the customer. Things went viral real fast, mostly because of our next point:
What incentives can we offer to promote this experience? Give your users incentive that personally benefits them to speak positively on your behalf. You can only do this if you first know your ultimate goals out of what you want your audience to take away from their experience with you. Then you activate to make it happen, and you incentivize the client to spread the word. I believe the description mentioned above is a great example of providing incentive to act.
This is just a start. There’s a million ways to make your benefits go viral; the important thing to remember is that this is now a critical part of your activation efforts – let’s give em something to talk about!