I read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell before I was familiar with viral marketing or social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.
As my Facebook addiction grew, I realized that Gladwell’s ‘Law of the Few,’ and how it related to Paul Revere’s Ride, applied to a recent article I read in AdAge about Coke’s Facebook success.
In his book, Gladwell uses Paul Revere as one of the earliest and most successful examples of viral marketing. What made him more successful than William Dawes (a man tasked with the exact same mission as Mr. Revere) is that Revere was ‘connected’ to a large and varied social circle of ‘friends’. This connection enabled him to get his message to a wider variety of people, and therefore, the British military met surprisingly organized resistance all along Revere’s route.
The article in AdAge noted that Coke’s Facebook page, which ranks 2nd behind Barrack Obama’s, was able to get over 3 million Facebook ‘fans’ while having nothing to do with the creation of the page (financially or creatively). The Coke page was actually the work of a couple guys in Los Angeles who liked Coke, couldn’t find a Facebook page, and created their own. The rest, as they say, is history.
Just like in the case of Paul Revere, it showed what a few people (in Coke’s case too) with a catchy message and the right network of ‘friends’ can accomplish if they are ‘connected’ to the right people. Here is a link to the article: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=135238
Allebach Communications is a big believer in the potential for success that viral marketing and social networking offers. In today’s economic climate, the amount of ROI you get from a successful viral campaign can no longer be ignored.
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