Soci@lByte

From the Desk of Melissa Hourigan

Today’s post was inspired by the fact that I don’t currently have invites to Google Wave or to Twitter’s soon to launch, Twitter lists. I am not ashamed to admit it, perhaps my public and pathetic confession will increase my chances of possibly getting one soon and without having to pay for it.

It’s true, I don’t know the secret handshake, I don’t tweet the hashtag at the right moment or have the friends that have a bunch to give away. All this aside, I can appreciate the idea of invite-based viral marketing and find the approach to be brilliant. It plays on those who want to be a part of something new, special and exciting. Those who want to be a part of an elite group and perhaps, like me, will do what it takes to publicly beg <insert pathetic plea here>. It also plays on those who like the attention for being first, exclusive and “in the know.”

Being a fan of viral marketing campaigns and seeing what is possible if properly executed, I thought it would be interesting to put together a list of considerations before embarking on a big campaign or stunt. To be truly effective, a viral marketing strategy should do the following:

• Give something away – access, product, money or acknowledgment (I am cool, look at me)
• Strike an emotion (I love Google Wave, if only you knew how great it is)
• Be unexpected, not commercial
• Be easy to execute, sign up or promote for end users
• Leverage common interests, motivation and behaviors
• Capture interest of others to promote/self promote involvement
• Make it easy to share, embed, download across a number of networks and platforms
• Interact along the way – be a part of what you have created
• The loser effect – okay, maybe this just works for me
• Target influencers – those who have a trusted network and a solid following

(please add to the list in comments)

Of course, if you are doing an invite-based viral marketing campaign, look at what you are working with and consider the impact once you put it out there. This isn’t the first or last time Google has taken this approach, they probably knew that with a properly executed campaign that they would immediately start trending the day the invites went out. Did I mention that the interest actually averaged 1000 tweets per minute? Don’t think there wasn’t a great deal of strategy behind the people and groups that received the invites.

So in closing, who does a girl need to tweet in this place to get an invite to Google Wave or Twitter lists?

Hit me: @melissahourigan