Microsoft Goes Viral with the Help of Brickfish - Part Two - Page 2

One of our hopes for the future is for brands and advertisers to move past industry resistance and let go of old modes of media advertising solutions. These methods are not as effective as social media however, some still have difficulty letting go and trusting the new media (and their customers).

This seems to be a common occurrence all around the Internet. Various sites, blogs, and online magazines (like Blogcritics) seem to be left out due to the fact that companies are hesitant to move to the new medium. Do you see that changing in the near future? What is the catalyst you see for this change?

The advertising landscape has already begun to change. We attribute this change to a couple of things; advertisers understanding that their consumers are living online and Big Brands using online advertising successfully, which influences other brands to incorporate social media advertising into their marketing mix.

Tell us something about viral marketing. How does it work? What do you think the future advertising and viral marketing is?

Viral marketing is the spreading, or sharing, of content created across the Internet.
Viral marketing works best when the focus is on creating an ongoing dialogue with consumers. It encourages consumers to share content with their peers and enables brand evangelists to easily get the word out to others about their favorite brands. Consumers are more likely to participate with content that has been virally shared with them from their trusted friends.

Viral marketing allows a brand to communicate and connect with their audience in a way that develops strong, long-lasting relationships. We predict more and more brands will be looking to utilize viral marketing in the future. It is time for them to go where their consumers want them to be: the social Web.

How exactly does your service work? How do you monitor the viralness of all of the submissions? How do you make sure that all viewings and all postings of a specific entry count towards the creator?

We invite consumers to participate with a brand campaign by creating personalized User Generated Content (UGC) around a specific brand and their message. Once a participant creates the UGC, they can then share it with their peers, who can in turn share it, vote on it, review it, or just view it.

Our ViralMap technology allows brands to see where this branded UGC has landed, who saw it, which sites the content has spread to and how many people have interacted with the content by viewing, reviewing, or voting.

Article Author: Robert M. Barga

Robert M. Barga is a student at The Ohio State University (Go Bucks) and is majoring in Political Science, with an American Policy focus, and minoring in English. He is an avid blogger on Whalertly, technology guru, and gamer (computer, table-top, and console). …

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