The boom in online marketing campaigns has been nothing short of massive. Facebook apps, games and promotional microsites are popping up every day. However, the challenge of creating a campaign that goes viral is a big one, especially if the brief demands something new and unique.
You may have seen our Christmas game. It was particularly popular with clients, and also friends of Catalysis. It wasn’t a surprise to find out our clients enjoyed hammering us with an unlimited barrage of snowballs.
The delivery of online campaigns is shifting heavily towards Facebook. Ease of sharing, app/page liking, millions of users and Facebook’s open source programming platform all account for its rise in popularity.
However, with the increase in popularity, it’s becoming harder to get Facebook campaigns to go viral. Giving permission to a company or individual to access your personal information isn’t popular at the best of times. There is also an increasing trend in the spoof “liking” of pages that lure you in and end up being nothing but spam, making users more cautious.
That said, there are still many fantastic Facebook apps and pages being created. Here at catalysis we were particularly impressed with the Museum of Me Facebook app by Intel, which we’ve blogged about before.
Here are four key points to keep in mind.
- Your idea should be witty, surprising and engaging. The Museum of Me campaign worked so well due to the “wow” factor it produced, encouraging people to share with their friends.
- Keep it short and sweet. Ideally, a campaign should be quick and easy to use and need little instruction.
- Evaluate and improve. Don’t expect the campaign to be successful from the off. Take some time once it’s live to evaluate its success and see if improvements could be made. There is always room for improvement.
- Promote, and then promote a bit more. Make sure you let the world know all about the campaign, Facebook status updates, pay per click advertising, tweets and adding a link from your company’s homepage are all good ways to spread your campaign.
So that’s our challenge. We decided our next online campaign will be Facebook based. The brainstorms have been done, the designs are nailed (nearly!) and we just need a tweak or two to finalise it. We’ll be rolling out the next Catalysis viral soon! Be sure to check our Facebook page for updates.