What is viral marketing?

That someone would, generally, be me.

Viral marketing on A2K often takes the form of so-called amazing discoveries by people who only joined on the same day they reported said amazing discoveries. Or one person says "I need xyz" and then miraculously someone else joins on the same day with a magical reponse (and website) where they have found xyz.

It's a form of spam.

We don't pull it immediately because the loop isn't yet closed, e. g. we aren't 100% sure because the second post has not come in yet. After all, there is the possibility (albeit it may be a slender one) that the initial request is a legitimate one.

Hence I tag these items as viral marketing and then go back to them later. If the loop is closed, the entire topic is pulled. If not, I continue to wait. I have also changed my mind on occasion and deleted the tag in favor of something else, when it turns out not to be a setup for spam. But it generally is (I have been doing this for 8 years and can spot it but of course I make errors like everyone else can).

This does not mean people should not report spam. I do, after all, not see every single thing out there because I actually have a life outside of A2K.

But if you see what might be a spam setup, and you tag it as viral marketing, that's fine. You may be right, you may not, but I will take a look, of course.

Hope this helps.

The "wine" and "Indian railways" postings of recent weeks do not conform to your description. They seem to be based on buzzword conditioning. Googling the poster reveals multiple forum blitzing.

ok, but why is it called viral?

Like when someone says "this video has gone viral"?

yeah, I got no clue.

..because a virus is passed from person to person....a buzzword infection/fashion spread through social networks.

I'm sticking with the bimbo chai2 on this and your explanation doesn't help.

I find this revelation to be appalling indeed!

I always thought it had to do with the speed that virii can explode their population. They grow geometrically, then logarithmically until they reach a max expansion rate.
I dont know but it always wprked for me since the goddam dweeebs who abscond with the english language to use it in puter talk, never ask fuckin permission.
If I ever meet somebody who adopted a perfectly good word for some dumass puter app(see?) , Im gonna ring their necks and bury them in a pile a swine droppings.






Im stressed

Ha, you only saw my hologram last weekend.

Fresco -- we are trying to not look all over the Internet for proof of spam (mainly because there just aren't enough hours in a day). If you're spotting the closed loop outside of A2K, feel free to send us a ticket, reporting the spam, with a link to the spammy end of things, thanks.

And, yes, that's what viral means. It's intended to be spread from person to person. It is a cheap form of marketing and when it's not done crassly (e. g. it really is people who discover something and just like it, like the Old Spice guy), it's great fun to watch, and it works like a charm. But a lot of these tiny sites try to get the viral aspect started by spreading this "info" on large, well-trafficked sites with great SEO, such as A2K. They want us because they think we aren't vigilant and so their crap will stay on A2K long enough for them to get good page ranking on Google. But we pull very quickly (usually) so it doesn't give them a page rank bounce.

Why cant they use some underutilized ancient phrase to adopt, Something like FLUXION, or HOGSWALLOP.

or pig ****.

Target networks are selected for infection I believe. We are obviously seen as a community of potential wine swiggers and tourists to India.

It is basically electronic word-of-mouth or buzz info. Since it is via the Internet it can spread really fast. The thing has to appear natural or spontaneous.

Yeh, whenever some youtube thing takes off and is viewed by gazillions in a quick fashion, its called "viral".

Good definition, yep.

When I first heard about it (not sure when, a while ago), it was an article about some company that would identify "trendsetter" kids and then give them free stuff. Skateboards, something like that.

So the cool kid would have a certain skateboard and that would make the other kids want it too. Then they'd go out and buy it.

They didn't realize they were the subject of advertising, but they were. (And it was more powerful for that.)

And if the cool kid was cool enough, it'd have an exponential effect. 25 kids would see him and say "I want that." 10 kids would see EACH of those 25 kids and say the same. 10 more kids would see EACH of those 250 kids... so 2,500, then 25,000, etc, etc. (It has to get kicked off right though. If the first kid to have it is a doofus nobody wants to emulate, it'd be more likely to harm the brand than help it.)

That's just one example though. Usually it's just: advertising that is masquerading as genuine peer advice on products or services.

who's the old spice guy?

farging skateboarder kids

http://www.youtube.com/user/OldSpice#p/c/484F058C3EAF7FA6/0/nFDqvKtPgZo

I sometimes tag something 'viral marketing', especially if it's a repeat poster whose few threads have all been previously so tagged by Jes or others.