The Internet and in particular social media has rapidly changed marketing. E-mail referrals, online forums and customer reviews have encouraged consumers to share information far more easily than before. Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on marketing messages to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in message’s exposure and influence.
Before the internet, viral marketing has been related to other marketing strategies such as word-of-mouth. Viral marketing depends on a large percentage of recipients forwarding something to a large number of friends, trying to quickly achieve the overall effect of snowball. The communication style used for transmission is usually informal. Nowadays, with the internet and social media communication tools information spreads much quicker. Messages spread through the different social media platforms contain text and images, presentations, animations and video.
Why is Viral Marketing Important to Students?
The growth of viral marketing (and other forms of digital marketing) has seen social media marketing becoming an important module in marketing research. Viral (digital) marketing modules provide students aspiring to develop a career in digital marketing or interested in developing the necessary skills for starting up their own business. Joint European Masters in Digital and Social Media Marketing is developed by a European project (JEMSS). This course is developed by academic institutions and digital marketing industry professionals. This course prepares students to become future entrepreneurs with the option to succeed in the digital business environment.
JEMSS project is developed in collaboration with leading European Universities and industry organisations who offer an International Social Media Masters focused course. This course will be balancing both latest research in social media marketing and the latest practice from the industry. Students studying on the course will be exposed to developing skills in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Optimization (SMO), Analytics and Return on Investment (ROI), Viral Marketing and so on.
Why Viral Marketing?
Viral marketing is become an increasingly important strategy for organisations aiming to maximise on their digital return on investment, here are a couple of reasons why viral marketing is in such demand?
- Viral marketing is relatively inexpensive – compared with traditional reach of a similar television advertising campaign
- It relates to how quickly information can be dispersed – that is information reaching millions of prospects within weeks
- It can help overcome legal and privacy concerns – as messages are no longer coming from a unanimous brand but from your friends
- It offers exposure to wide audiences – enabling marketers to reach diverse audiences through social contacts
Interested in Viral marketing? Why not check JEMSS viral videos (The JEMSS Wave & The JEMSS Selfie)
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