Samenvatting

Technology has been evolving rapidly throughout the years and the Internet has become a dominant marketing tool. Traditional media has been losing ground because of new media channels. Information can be shared globally through the use of social media. In today's global village, viral marketing is becoming an important strategy in terms of online advertising. The central research question of this report is: 'What is needed to create an effective and successful viral marketing strategy?'.
Research for this report included a review of various articles, reports, infographics and videos from social media blogs and other websites. In addition, field research was conducted by interviewing professionals from the field. The report consists of an explanation of the concept viral marketing, an internal analysis of the tools, an external analysis of the viral marketing environment, case studies and a SWOT analysis and Confrontation Matrix.
Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages people to share information with others and thus creates the possibility of exponential growth. The six principles of viral marketing are: using incentives, effortlessly transferring, rapidly scaling, exploiting motivations and behaviors and using existing communication networks and resources. It is important to take these factors in consideration. For instance, Starbucks' viral marketing campaign failed because of the inability to expand when the response was larger than anticipated.
The main tools used for a viral marketing strategy are social networks. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are suitable tools because of the large reach, global character and its features such as the option to embed videos or pictures. Viral marketing is about encouraging people to share information. Three factors have to be optimized before people are able to share messages, namely exposure, awareness and motivation. This means exposure of the communication channels, awareness of the messages and motivating the users to share the messages. Opinion leaders can be used to optimize these factors. The external analysis showed some threats that have to be taken into consideration, for instance, demographic factors to determine whether or not the target group is accessible via the Internet and the increasing concern of online privacy and Internet censorship.
Some of the strengths of viral marketing are the availability of the resources and the high credibility through recommendation by friends. These strengths enable companies and organizations access to new markets and new consumers and to raise awareness. A viral marketing campaign can reach millions of consumers, but it can be hard to keep control which can cause negative consequences, such as reaching the wrong audience or damaging the image. It is important to keep up with the changing social media environment. In the end the audience decides what goes viral.