Last week we concluded a three-part overview of Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing. Permission marketing was written in 1999. Two years later, Godin followed up with Unleashing the Ideavirus. The subtitle reads: “Stop marketing at people! Turn your ideas into epidemics by helping your customers do the marketing for you.”[i] Wouldn’t you like to know how to do that?
Godin picked up on his previous theme from Permission Marketing, explaining that traditional marketing doesn’t work like it used to. He wrote,
Marketing by interrupting people isn’t cost-effective anymore. You can’t afford to seek out people and send them unwanted marketing messages, in large groups, and hope that some will send you money. Instead, the future belongs to marketers who establish a foundation and process where interested people can market to each other. Ignite consumer networks and then get out of the way and let them talk.[i]
How Does An Ideavirus Work?
An ideavirus works like all viruses. You have gotten a virus before. You hate getting a virus, but you can’t help it. Someone close to you had the virus and sneezed on you. Now you have the virus and you pass it along to those closest to you.
An ideavirus works the same way. The difference is that it is something that you want to spread.
When you find a great product or service, do you try to keep it a close-guarded secret or do you tell others about the great deal you found? If you are like most other people, you tell others about it. That is a natural human response.
Now, Godin asks what would happen if a business could harness that natural response so that, like a virus, people would naturally spread the good news of a particular product. If they could tap into that response, the business would have a small army of marketers who work for them for free. They will naturally promote the product because it increases their status and power as they “sneeze” on others. Wouldn’t that be great?
The problem is that most companies simply do not have a product worth sneezing about. Nevertheless, some companies have created ideaviruses. Godin offered a few examples:
- Polaroid did it. Every time someone took an instant photo, the very use of the camera spread the message.
- Hotmail did it. They included a little message at the bottom of every email that invited people to get their own Hotmail account for free.
- You can do it. But you need to add so much value to the lives of others that they can’t help infecting others.
It Can’t Be That Simple or Everything Would be Viral
Your right. Not everything goes viral. But it is that simple. The problem is that our ideas, products, or services are simply not powerful enough to become viral. Viruses need to be amazing.
I am willing to bet that you have passed along a funny meme or YouTube video or bit of office gossip at some point in your life. Consider YouTube. That video you made of you ranting about your homeowners association is simply not that interesting to 99.99% of the population. On the other hand, the Evolution of Dance, at the time of this writing, has over 303,000,000 views.[i] Why? Because it was clever, interesting, and people were happy to sneeze something amazing on others.
I am happy to share the video because it is a really impressive performance (while your rant about the HOA is kind of boring). The Evolution of Dance was impressive. It was a virus waiting to happen. When sneezers caught the virus, they did what sneezers do—they shared it with others. Social media make it easy, and it cost the sneezers nothing.
Godin goes into greater detail about how the ideavirus works. He talks about different kinds of sneezers, principles to make an ideavirus spread, and even a mathematical formula to spread a virus. It is too much to cover here, but the book is a short read and if you think you have a spreadable idea, it will be worth the time.
What About You?
Do you have an idea worth spreading? Is it so incredible that people will sneeze it on your behalf? If so, maybe you can unleash an ideavirus.
References
[i] Laipply, J. (2006). The evolution of dance. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg
[i] Godin, S. (2001). Unleashing the Ideavirus. New York: Hyperion.
[i] Godin, S. (2001). Unleashing the Ideavirus. New York: Hyperion.
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Dr. Darin Gerdes is a Professor of Management in the College of Business & the Director of Educational Technology at Charleston Southern University. All ideas expressed on www.daringerdes.com are his own.
This post was originally created for Great Business Networking (GBN), a networking organization for business professionals where Dr. Gerdes is the Director of Education.
