Viral effect – Everything marketers need to know
What is the definition of the viral effect? Let’s find out things every marketer have to know about the viral effect in this article with CleverAds.
1. What is the viral effect?
The viral effect (or Social Proof) is a psychosocial phenomenon in which people copy/imitate the actions of others in an attempt to perform the behaviour in a given situation.
In a word, the psychological phenomenon that individuals differentiate refers to the habitual actions of the majority to make decisions and act for themself is called the contagion effect.
This psychological effect often appears when everyone cannot identify the proper factors and behaviours influenced by the behaviours of the people around them, leading to believing that the solution of the crowd is correct.
2. The role of the contagion effect
In Marketing, the viral effect has a particular role in contributing to the success of the campaigns.
The viral effect helps businesses spread the hidden messages in the marketing campaigns that the company wants to show. Valuable information about products, quality and brands is also accessible to customers in a close way.
That will help the conversion rate rise and enhance sales potential. And to a certain extent, the business’s products and services will capture a customer’s attention, love and trust.
The viral effect is a significant factor that businesses should take advantage of and develop.
3. Types of spread effects
3.1. Bandwagon Effect
It is the psychological effect on people inclined to do or believe something just because the people around them do it, even if what they do is consistent with or different from their original beliefs.
In a word, a training effect is an unconscious act of imitation.
When combined with Marketing, the training effect will bring popularity and prestige to the product when appearing in public. For Bandwagon Effect to achieve the best results, we can follow these steps:
- Step 1: Synthesize and make statistics of information and data about products and services to be promoted and select appropriate distribution channels.
- Step 2: Research and analyze business target customers.
- Step 3: Build events that contain vital and curious elements about products/services to attract customers.
- Step 4: Cooperate with experts, KOLs, use seeders, etc. to share and spread information about the products and services of the business.
Case study on training effect: OPPO & singer Son Tung MTP – the perfect cooperation in dominating the market.
When launched, OPPO with the “Made in China” label faced apathy from the Vietnamese market. Therefore, OPPO must become popular with as many customers as possible.
Aware of this, OPPO immediately cooperated and selected singer Son Tung – the famous popular singer at that time to become the brand ambassador for its advertising series.
And as expected, under the influence of Son Tung, the number of OPPO products quickly captured the attention and love of many people. OPPO F11 Series has up to 48,299 orders after a few days of launch, setting a record for pre-order sales. OPPOReno4 Series reached the number of machine piles up to 15,000 after five (5) days of launch.
3.2. Default effect
People often need help to follow what is already nonpayment because it is an easy choice without thinking. And for the brain, the default choices are always the safest and better option. And it’s called the default effect.
A clear example of a default effect is Google’s search engine.
We are all familiar with the Google search engine. Whenever we need to find out something, we default to Google to search. However, besides Google, there are many other search engines.
It is a marketing strategy of Google. The company has spent money on web browsers to become the default search engine. And, of course, you can see it was successful beyond expectations.
3.3. Herd effect
The herd effect is a term used to refer to people’s behaviours and thoughts frequently affected by others. In other words, running after what the crowd thinks is good, right without your views, is the herd effect.
However, the opinions and actions of the crowd are only sometimes correct, so it is necessary to be cautious when participating to avoid an unfortunate situation.
Compared with the above two effects, the herd effect creates unpleasant and pessimistic public opinion, so businesses must pay attention when using it.
We can see the presence of the herd effect anywhere: Catching the “trend” of young people on social networks, the fact that people rush to hunt shoppe sales on holidays just because the product is deduced to 0 VND rather than out of need.
4. Viral effects on marketing
It can be utter that the contagion effect is always present and occurs in our lives. Besides, this effect is also easy to apply, so it is popular in marketing for business. Businesses often use this effect in the following three (3) ways.
Rating and Review:
When there is a need for a definite issue, we discover information about it for reference and consideration. The higher the rating, the more secure we are about the product or service being analyzed. Especially on e-commerce platforms, the more stars and effective
feedback businesses receive, the more trust, trust and love they receive from customers.
Show views:
Displaying views makes the content product more attractive and creates a high viral effect.
The higher the view, the more interconnection and content will spread to a broad audience. So this is also an effective way to be used.
Create similarity:
The similarity effect induces empathy for customers, thereby promoting their decision-making to choose products. It is an excellent way to apply the viral effect in Marketing.
We can quickly identify e-commerce platforms. Businesses and stores place products with similar characteristics with content such as “product recommendations” and “maybe you will like” that makes users click.
5. Conclusion
Viral effects have a unique role in contributing to the success of marketing campaigns. If the result of spreading brand reputation is well used, the awareness and revenue of the business will thrive.
