H.R. College of Commerce and EconomicsParitosh Agarwal M.Com. Part 1 Semester 1Marketing Strategies Viral MarketingACKNOWLEDGEMENTI express my sincere regards to my parents and friends who have rendered their cooperation in compiling this project on Viral Marketing and conducting primary research. I would also like to express my gratitude to the subject Professor, Dr. Pooja Ramchandani for her guidance and encouragement in making this project a success.INDEXSr. No.TitlePage No.

01.Abstract02-02

02.Introduction03-05

03.Review of Literature06-07

04.Evolution of Viral Marketing08-08

05.Advantages and Disadvantages09-09

06.Marketing Mix10-12

07.Types of Viral Campaign13-14

08.Methods of Transmission15-15

09.Success Stories16-17

10.Failure Case18-18

11.Research Methodology19-19

12.Analysis of Data20-28

13.Findings29-29

14.Conclusion30-30

15.References31-31

16.Questionnaire32-33

AbstractThe following primary research was conducted to determine what the key driving force for viral marketing is and how various tools of communication are supporting the same.The aim of this research is to understand how media work on social networking sites works and in what manner can it be improved so as to touch as many people as possible.The findings from this research are rather interesting and draw the attention to various details which the marketers might be overlooking as yet. From various elements in viral marketing to how viral marketing can be made better to survive every field of communication and fulfills its purpose.

IntroductionViral marketing is essentially a network marketing technique that exploits consumers either knowingly or unknowingly to act as advertisers in spreading messages and/or promotions throughout pre-existing social networks. Viral marketing is a type of word-of-mouth advertising and while word-of-mouth advertising has been around for quite some time, information technology has enhanced the proficiency and effectiveness of an individuals ability to spread a message to others to the point where if successful viral messages have the ability to be viewed exponentially. The messages objectives are typically aimed at creating exposure and influence in an effort to increase brand awareness or to achieve other marketing related goals such as increased sales. Viral marketing is a fairly new phenomenon, and has only existed on the internet for about a decade now. The technique was dubbed viral because of its inherent ability to spread a marketing message like a virus through each customers social network, bring news of the product and service to a wide range of potential customers. Viral marketing can either target a specific group of consumers, or broad audiences. The content of viral messages typically utilizes humor, entertainment, trendy, or other related attention grabbers that will entice individuals to view and share the message. The viral objects commonly passed around include: video clips, images, text messages, email messages, blogs and web pages, branded software and apps, and so on. To date, some of the most common transmission vehicles for viral messages have been: pass-along based, incentive based, trendy based, and undercover based. However, due to the creative nature of viral marketing there are an endless amount of potential forms and vehicles the messages can utilize for transmission. (Day, 2011)The six elements of a viral marketing strategy include: gives away products or services, provides effortless transfer to others, scales easily from small to very large, exploits common motivations and behaviors, utilizes existing communication networks, and takes advantage of others resources. However, it is not hard rule that a viral marketing strategy should contain all these elements, but the more elements it embraces; the more powerful the results are likely to be. The benefits of viral marketing can be vast if utilized effectively. Some of the benefits include: low cost, far reach, and high credibility. Some of the disadvantages include: failed campaign, lack of control, and message misinterpretations.

In the late 1990s, Hotmail.com was one of the first businesss to achieve a great deal of success using viral marketing, and is now referred to as the classic example of viral marketing. Hotmail was able to sign up 12 million users in 18 months by inserting the tagline Get your free e-mail at Hotmail at the bottom of every e-mail sent out by its customers. At the time this was historically the fastest growth of any user based Media Company. By the time Hotmail reached 66 million users, the company was establishing 270,000 new accounts each day.Today, a decade after Hotmails success, as more and more businesses are having trouble reaching consumers through traditional advertising, many of them have turned to alternative marketing methods such as viral marketing. Some of these companies had success while others have failed. Studies show that fewer than one in six video ads achieve high viral viewing. A few of the successful blue chip companies have included: Old Spice, Audi, Coke, E-Trade, and Google.Old Spices latest viral marketing campaign which focused on promoting the companys body wash gained widespread popularity, and has become one of the more famous viral marketing campaigns. How it worked was Old Spice collected fan questions and then created direct video responses to the questions featuring NFL player Isaiah Mustafa that were posted on Youtube.com. Latest figures state that the video responses attracted over 35.7 million unique views, and sales of the body wash jumped 55% in the three months following the viral campaign.The future of viral marketing currently remains uncertain, although, the possibilities and potential of this tactic of reaching and marketing to consumer groups are endless. Moreover, as more forms of communication are created by technology and more of the population maintains a presence online involved in social media interactions, so will the inventiveness of marketers as they attempt to permeate these networks. Furthermore, we can be certain that marketers will continue to attempt to achieve mass marketing success by utilizing consumers as vehicles for transmitting their viral messages. (R., 2000)

Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the messages exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions. Off the Internet, viral marketing has been referred to as word-of-mouth, creating a buzz, leveraging the media, network marketing; but on the Internet, for better or worse, its called viral marketing.The concept of viral marketing is by no means new. Word-of-mouth marketing, virals forefather, has been around for ages. The Internet has radically changed the concept of word-of-mouth, so much so that the term viral marketing was coined by venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson in 1997. The term was used to describe Hotmails email practice of appending advertising for themselves to outgoing mail from their users. While email may have been the original catalyst; the advent of social networks, online communities and chat provide the ability to distribute information exponentially faster than ever before. Where word-of-mouth marketing could take weeks or months to reach a thousand people, viral marketing can reach hundreds of thousands or millions in a matter of days or hours. The spread of an effective viral marketing campaign is akin to an epidemic outbreak of a virus, limited only by the potency and relevance of the marketing message. (Web Marketing Today, 2012)

Review of LiteratureIn the research paper Success Factors in Mobile Viral Marketing: A Multi-Case Study Approach, the authors states that a prior study showed that mobile viral marketing is an important issue of mobile marketing. Using a multi-case study research approach, the authors introduced a typology of four standard types of mobile viral marketing and extract eight success factors for this new form of marketing. As a final step, the relationship between both was structured, showing success factors' significance in different standard types and deriving a success factor framework. The authors concluded with a consideration of research implications. (Pousttchi & Wiedemann, 2007)In the research article, Mobile word-of-mouth A grounded theory of mobile viral marketing, the authors mention Mobile devices as personal communication tools are used as platforms for viral marketing within existing social networks. Although there is some evidence on the usefulness of mobile viral marketing from the marketers perspective, little is known about the motivations, attitudes, and behaviors of consumers engaged in this marketing instrument. The purpose of this research is to better understand the motivations behind a consumer's decision to engage in mobile viral marketing strategies. The outcome is a grounded theory of mobile viral marketing with respect to the consumer and his social network, decomposing the mobile viral effect and identifying the determinants of reception, usage, and forwarding of mobile viral content. This result helps researchers and marketers to better understand the critical components of mobile viral marketing strategies and prepares the ground for further research in this emerging field. (Palka, Pousttchi, & Wiedemann, 2009)Sabrina Helm in her research article, Viral Marketing - Establishing Customer Relationships by 'Word-of-mouse' shares her views that newcomers to electronic markets are forced to accumulate customers as rapidly as possible. One strategy to fulfil this aim is so called viral marketing, which seems an appropriate term for describing the pattern in which Internet companies spread by making use of customer referrals. The aim of this article is to describe and explain common features of viral marketing strategies and to outline chances and risks associated with using Internet word-of-mouth in consumer settings. (Helm, 2000)

Viral Marketing: The use of surprise states Viral Marketing involves consumers passing along a companys marketing message to their friends, family and colleagues. It reviews viral marketing campaigns and argues that the emotion surprise often is at work and that this mechanism resembles that of word-of-mouth marketing. The article also talks about the emotion of surprise that attracts many. It is simple to plan as well. It also speaks of how surprise can be a useful tool. (Lindgreen & Vanhamme, 2005)Robert E. Moore talks about Viral Marketing in his article From genericide to viral marketing; on brand. The contemporary phenomenon of brand is addressed within a Peircean semiotic framework, showing brand to be an inherently unstable composite of tangible (e.g. product) and intangible (e.g. brand name) values. The professional literature of brand strategy is drawn upon for definitions, and branding work in an Internet-focused New Economy consultancy is described. Three phenomena of brandinggenericide, ingredient branding, and so-called viral marketingreveal the vulnerabilities of brands, and show that it is not only material things, but events, experiences, and acts of communication that can be branded. The wider macroeconomic implications of these semiotic vulnerabilities are briefly explored in conclusion. (Moore, 2003)The rapid diffusion of the Internet and the emergence of various social constructs facilitated by Internet technologies are changing the drivers that define how marketing techniques are developed and refined. This paper identifies critical factors for viral marketing, an Internet-based 'word-of-mouth' marketing technique. Based on existing knowledge, five types of viral marketing factors that may critically influence the success of viral marketing campaigns are identified. These factors are the overall structure of the campaign, the characteristics of the product or service, the content of the message, the characteristics of the diffusion and, the peer-to-peer information conduit. The paper discusses three examples of viral marketing campaigns and identifies the specific factors in each case that influence its success. The paper concludes with a viral marketing typology differentiating between viral marketing communications, unintended viral marketing and commercial viral marketing. This is still a rapidly evolving area and further research is clearly needed to monitor new developments and make sense of the radical changes these developments bring to the market. This is what is addressed in Internet-Induced Marketing Techniques: Critical Factors in Viral Marketing Campaigns. (Woerdl, Bourlakis, & Michael A. and Li, 2010)Evolution of Viral MarketingThe proliferation of marketing and advertising, coupled with the onslaught of millions of media channels in todays world, has given cause for consumers to tune out and effectively avoid a great deal of traditional supplier driven messaging. The creation of technologies such as PVRs, satellite radio and Internet ad blocking software are driving a fundamental shift in the way the public consumes media and the advertising often tied to it. Television ads, radio spots, online ads and even emails are facing increasing competition for effectively capturing the viewers attention and provide positive ROI for the marketer. This competition, coupled with the rising cost of media buys, has caused marketers to search for an alternative means to reach the customer. Viral marketing is an attractive solution because it utilizes the free endorsement of the individual rather than purchase of mass media to spread the word. Because the distribution model is free, viral can potentially be lower cost and more effective than traditional media. More than 90% of consumers said they told at least one other person about a Web site when the original recommendation came from a friend, according to Jupiter Research.

Viral marketing, like all marketing is a hit or miss. However, viral marketing by nature is often riskier or controversial than traditional marketing. If done improperly then viral marketing can backfire and create negative buzz, otherwise it creates a positive wild fire.Advantages 1. Cuts through the clutter of traditional advertising, allowing marketers to effectively reach the audience.2. Doesnt require a product with a wow factor in order to raise awareness, generate buzz, and kick-start peer-to-peer spread. Instead, the viral campaigns communication agent is the element that needs a wow factor or element of interest.3. Unlike traditional advertising viral is not an interruptive technique. Instead, viral campaigns work the Internet to deliver exposure via peer-to-peer endorsement. Viral campaigns, whether ultimately liked or disliked, are often welcomed by the receiver. The focus is on campaigns with material that consumers want to spend time interacting with and spreading proactively.Disadvantages1. Size: If viral content is a video clip or streaming video then it may be too large for the recipient to receive. However, newer technologies are eliminating this problem, as internet connections grow faster and e-mail inboxes become more capable of receiving large files.2. Media Format: A viral marketing campaign will be unsuccessful if the message is in a format that most people can't use, like a media requires installation of special software.3. E-mail attachment: Many people receive viral marketing messages while at the office, and company anti-virus software or firewalls can prevent people from receiving or viewing such attachments.4. Cumbersome Referral Mechanism: For a viral marketing campaign to be successful, it must be easy to use; like if the promotion is a type of game or contest then asking for referrals should be an option immediately after the game, not as a condition to play.5. Sabotage: Especially in the case of Undercover style marketing campaigns, the discovery of the marketing nature of a popular campaign may cause the same social networks to inform people of the commercial intent of the meme, and promote a formal or informal boycott of the company or product in question.Marketing MixViral marketing is by no means a substitute for a comprehensive and diversified marketing strategy. In employing viral marketing to generate peer to peer endorsement, brands have also learned that the technique should not be considered as a standalone miracle worker. James Kydd, Brand Director for Virgin Mobile who sometime back launched the 11th release in their successful series of viral marketing campaigns, states, viral marketing is best used not as a one-off tactical end in itself, but as an integrated strategic part of the overall marketing mix. It is a means to an end whereby it not only generates buzz, but also provides ongoing, quantifiable brand benefits, such as increased awareness, peer-to-peer endorsement and ultimately more sales.While the messaging and strategy ranges radically from campaign to campaign, most successful campaigns contain some commonly used approaches. These approaches are often used in combination to maximize the viral effect of a campaign.Free Products and ServicesMany viral marketing programs utilize free products or services to spark interest. Giving away low-cost items such as t-shirts can often lead to the sale of much higher cost items. Marketers often use low cost items as a method of collecting consumer data and building a database of potential customers that are already familiar with the brand.Compelling ContentFrom hilarious to raunchy to controversial good content and concepts can often make or break a viral campaign. Creating quality content can often be more expensive than simply offering a free product; however the results are often better. The general rule of thumb is that the content must be compelling; it must evoke a response on an emotional level from the person viewing it. This fact alone has allowed many smaller brands to capitalize on content based viral campaigns. Traditionally larger brands are more reserved and risk adverse to the possibility of negative reaction.

ExclusivityThis form of messaging is designed to appeal to our natural tendency to desire things we cant normally have. This messaging includes invitations to join V.I.P clubs, access to products or services before they are released to the public and the ability to choose the fate of others within a peer group. While this tactic can be extremely successful, there is a built in cap to its success. If the offer spreads too wide it will lose its exclusive appeal.Get PaidRewards and financial incentives often play a role in viral referral campaigns. Marketers can incent users to pass along a message in exchange for compensation ranging from points, special offers and in some cases cash.Making it ViralSuccessful viral campaigns are easily spread. When creating a campaign marketers should evaluate how people will communicate the message or campaign to others. Marketers should ask themselves the following questions when developing a viral strategy: Does the content require special plug-ins? Will an attached file in email be too big? Does the Web site require broadband? Is the URL easy to remember? Is the referral mechanism easy to use? Is the barrier to entry too high?The easier a campaign can spread the more successful it can ultimately be. A large majority of campaigns miss the mark because they fail to take this into consideration.Campaign SeedingSeeding the original message is a key component of a viral campaign. Seeding is the act of planting the campaign with the initial group who will then go on to spread the campaign to others.

The Internet provides a wide array of options for seeding, including: Email Online Forums (Google groups) Social Networks (MySpace.com, Facebook.com) IM (AIM, ICQ, MSN, Google) Blogs PodcastsWhen determining where to seed it is important that marketers consider the audience you are seeding for. If a campaign is skewed towards a certain audience marketers should make sure they seed towards that audience. Failure to do so may kill a campaign before it ever gets off the ground, Marketers should leverage existing media buys by incorporating the promotion of the viral campaign. This can range from a simple reference at the end of a commercial or in print to a fully integrated approach using mass media to directly promote the viral activity.The goal of a viral campaign is explosive reach and participation. Marketers should be adequately prepared to meet the needs of participants in the event that the campaign is successful. Server space, bandwidth, support staff, fulfillment and stocking should be taken into consideration well in advance of campaign launch. The marketer should have the ability to capitalize on the full success of the campaign. (Mind Comet, 2008)

Types of Viral CampaignsThe following are the types of Viral Campaigns:1. Pass-along: A message which encourages the user to send the message to others. The crudest form of this is chain letters where a message at the bottom of the email prompts the reader to forward the message. More effective are short, funny clips of video which people spontaneously forward. Many of these, such as the Cog (television commercial) from Honda began life as TV commercials and have since circulated on the web by word of mouth. The number of people reached in this way is often much greater than the number who viewed the original Ad. 2. Incentivised viral: A reward is offered for either passing a message along or providing someone else's address. This can dramatically increase referrals. However, this is most effective when the offer requires another person to take action. Most online contests offer more chances of winning for each referral given; but when the referral must also participate in order for the first person to obtain that extra chance of winning, the chance that the referral participates is much greater.3. Undercover: A viral message presented as a cool or unusual page, activity, or piece of news, without obvious incitements to link or pass along. In Undercover Marketing, it is not immediately apparent that anything is being marketed. Particular effort is made to make the discovery of the item seem spontaneous and informal, to encourage natural mimetic behavior. Outside world "clues", such as graffiti appearing in cities with key viral words is often used to direct people to search out the presented "mystery". Because of the large amount of unusual and entertaining content on the internet, this can be the hardest type of viral to spot, especially as companies try to imitate the style and content of amateur websites and authentic underground movements.4. Edgy Gossip/Buzz marketing: Ads or messages that create controversy by challenging the borders of taste or appropriateness. Discussion of the resulting controversy can be considered to generate buzz and word of mouth advertising. Prior to releasing a movie, some Hollywood movie stars get married, get divorced, or get arrested, or become involved in some controversy that directs conversational attention to them. An alleged example is the publicity campaign about the dubious love affair between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes that came out just before each of them released a movie.5. User-managed database: Users create and manage their own lists of contacts using a database provided by an online service provider. By inviting other members to participate in their community, users create a viral, self-propagating chain of contacts that naturally grows and encourages others to sign up as well. Examples of such services include anonymous matching services like eCrush, business contact management services like Plaxo, and other social databases like Evite and Classmates.com.

Methods of TransmissionTransmission of viral marketing can occur in various ways:1. Word of Web: Typing into a web-based form that converts that information into an e-mail, sends to recipients. An example of this is any article at MSNBC.com. In the article, there are links that encourage readers to send the article to a friend; this brings them to a web-based form to be filled out. This form converts all of the information to the recipient in an e-mail.2. Word of E-Mail: A very common type: forwarding e-mails, such as jokes, quizzes and 'compromising' pictures.3. Word of mouth: Word of mouth is the oldest and still very effective form of Viral Marketing. In this method, the information is passed from one person to another via physical conversation.4. Word of IM: Perhaps the fastest-growing mode of transmission, hyperlinks are sent over instant messaging servers such as Jabber, AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo!, or Google Talk. This method is popular with many young people who are arguably more likely to trust a link sent by a friend via IM than by that same friend through e-mail.5. Reward for Referrals: Sometimes, the marketing company offers a reward for referring customers, encouraging them to use any of the above methods.6. Communications Protocol: In amateur radio, the ham operators on each end of a conversation generally exchange QSL cards. The communication protocol generally expects each person to transmit their QSL information to the other person. If that QSL information refers to an electronic QSL card exchange, then the subscriber base of the exchange will grow exponentially.7. Bluetooth: The widespread use of mobile phones which support free Bluetoothing has enabled promotional videos to be distributed virally between handsets.

Success StoriesOne of the most successful viral marketing campaign of all time was the original, Hotmails, simple text advertisement appended to each users email. The free e-mail service spent a mere $50,000 on traditional marketing and still became the worlds leading e-mail provider almost overnight, with 75 million users. Since that time there have been thousands of failures and successes, a few of those are highlighted below.The Trojan Games The Trojan Games viral marketing campaign, with its award-winning sex-and-games spoof video content, has been seen by over 38 million people globally since the site launched in October 2003. In its first month alone, over 6 million people visited the site. Only sites such as Google and Yahoo reach more people over such a time period. The following brand benefits were revealed in a consumer survey: 77% recalled the Trojan brand after seeing the campaign 73% positive rating of the overall impression of the campaign 80% perceived the campaign to be unique 50% would be more likely to consider the Trojan brand after seeing the campaign (Trojan Games, n.d.)Mazdas parking campaignMazdas parking campaign is another example of a viral campaign delivering tangible brand benefits. The campaign used an online video to strike a chord with online users, sparking global debate on blogs and forums about male and female parking capabilities. Globally the campaign generated over a million quantified clip views in less than a month and helped sell a product that is very similar to many others in its class. As Steve Jelliss, CRM Manager for Mazda Motors stated, Our ongoing series of viral marketing campaigns have proven their value in providing high brand exposure to a wide-as-possible audience, and ultimately contributing to car sales. (Mazda, n.d.)

Small brand, big resultsThe 2004 online viral campaign for Bullguard proves that you dont need to be a big brand to make viral marketing work. Bullguard makes anti-virus and firewall software and distributes their product only online. They created a viral campaign using a home-video style clip and specialist viral site seeding. The campaign generated over 6 million clip views and over 30,000 post-view trial products download globally in less than seven months. On the brand benefit front, it has doubled Bullguards Google search results, increased the number of dealers endorsing and selling their products (offline now as well as online), and repositioned the brand as the young rebel in the security software industry. (Bullguard, n.d.)

Failure CaseRaging cowSome high profile campaigns illustrate the risks brands take when venturing to use online viral marketing without fully understanding the factors of success. For example, the infamous Dr. Pepper Raging Cow online viral campaign generated a backlash from the blogging community for what was perceived at best as a clumsy infiltration of a tight-knit community. Dr. Pepper showered teen bloggers with gifts and indoctrinated them on how to blog its new Raging Cow beverage. The plot backfired, with a well-publicized boycott and global media covering the debacle. Ironically, online influencers may have liked the product; they just did not like being told how to blog about it.Viral marketing is a credible marketing tactic that can deliver positive ROI when properly executed as a component of an overarching strategic plan. Marketers should utilize viral marketing when the messaging can coincide and support a measurable business goal. (Mara, 2004)

Research MethodologyA primary research was conducted to understand the behavior of the market. The study was conducted in many age groups starting from 15 years and going to 50+. The respondents were asked about their general usage and time spent on accessing social media websites and the medium used for access like mobile phones, tablets or desktops. Male or female, the respondents were not restricted to any particular category and they were also open to select as many social media websites to select as they are active on. This helped in getting a comparative study on which websites are widely used and on an average how much of their time do people spend in a day on such websites. Questions were also posted on the various aspects that attracted the respondents to see or forward a message that they came across while accessing such websites. Over 70 respondents filled the survey giving a wide variety of readings to draw our conclusion. In the next section, the analysis of this data collection is processed and further later, conclusions are drawn.

Analysis of DataThe data is analysed on each and every question that the respondent had to answer.Q1. AgeParametersStatistics

15-2563

25-355

35-504

50+2

Total74

In this section, it is noted that the maximum number of respondents fall in the age group of 15-25 years.

Q2. GenderParametersStatistics

Female46

Male28

Total74

Out of the count of 74, female respondents took the lead with 46 fills, i.e. over 62% and male respondents were 28 in total.

Q3. How much time in a day do you spend on an average on social networking websites?ParametersStatistics

less than .5 hour12

.5 - 1 hour17

1 - 2 hours24

More than 221

Total74

Surprisingly here, there are a lot of respondents that said that they spend an hour or more in a day only to access social media websites. Together these two categories form 60% of the time spent on social networking websites in a day.

Q4. Which of these devices do you use the most to access social media websites?ParametersStatistics

Laptop/desktop11

Tablet8

Mobile55

Total74

As the technology advances, we see a rise in the number of mobile phone users and here it occupies maximum of the respondents accessing websites on mobile phones and sharing such data.

Q5. Which social media instrument do you use?ParametersStatistics

Facebook52

Instagram38

Skype16

Wordpress3

Youtube30

WhatsApp62

Twitter19

Google+13

Tumblr6

Pinterest1

LinkedIn1

Snapchat2

Total243

In this question, there was a choice to select multiple options on the websites. Note, that Facebook and WhatsApp are the most selected media instruments. They together reach nearly up to 47%

Q6. How likely is it that you will read/watch forwarded messages/images/videos?ParametersStatistics

Almost Always11

Always7

Depends on the sender of the message14

Never1

Rarely13

Sometimes28

Total74

An interesting point to study in this section is that there are very less number of respondents who opted for Never tab which states that the forwarded messages are widely and more often read.

Q7. How likely is it that you will re-post a message/image/video that you liked?ParametersStatistics

Almost Always6

Always9

Depends on the content of media14

Never5

Rarely22

Sometimes18

Total74

Here we see that who not only reads forwarded messages but also share them are very less. For most of them state that it is dependent on the sender of the message.

Q8. How likely is it that you will talk about a message/image/video to your friends/colleagues?ParameterStatistics

Almost Always14

Always4

Depends on content of media15

Never7

Rarely7

Sometimes27

Total74

Sometimes is the general selection for respondents to talk about a message that they liked followed by those who talk about a message depending on who sent them.Q9. How likely is it that you will watch advertisements or promotional banners on display on these social websites?ParametersStatistics

Almost Always4

Always4

Depends on the content/marketer8

Never11

Rarely22

Sometimes25

Total74

We notice a contradictory response here as rarely and sometimes have been selected the most of the times.

FindingsThe study conducted on a scale of over 70 respondents helped to determine on an average how much time in a day is spent on social media networks accessing and sharing information. It also shed light on the reasons as to why a person reads forwarded messages and on what grounds does it share further with its friend circle. An interesting finding here is that many a times a person shares messages with another party based on the content. This not only makes us understand how we can expand our marketing and spread it over a larger area, i.e. by making good content. Other findings are as follows:1. There was a majority of late teenagers and early youth who access these social networking websites to read and share information2. Facebook and WhatsApp are dominating the market with maximum number of users with Instagram slowly approaching3. Over 1 hour to further more than 2 hours is the time spent in general to access these websites4. Another interesting reading from this primary research that came out in the open was that mobile phones are now extensively used and desktops are slowly losing their hold on this segment. As the mobile phones connect the user on the move to such networking sites, its easier for the customer to stay connected5. A lot of message sharing and watching of promotional banners/videos is dependent on the sender of the message or the content of the media6. People share messages and videos over these websites as per their liking of the media

ConclusionAs per the primary research conducted on a variety of respondents, its findings and thorough analysis, we conclude that marketers looking at Viral Marketing need to focus on the content to promote through various forms of media. When the beginning of any promotional banner is creative and holds the attention of the public then there are greater chances that such promotional banner will be circulated more over the web and thus the information is automatically passed over to others.Marketers also need to look at optimizing options for mobile phones as there is a huge rise in smart phone users. This has opened a whole new segment to carry out viral marketing. In addition, while these are used as tools for marketing, promoters also need to make the content crisp and attractive accordingly to draw and hold the attention of the public. This helps in longer lasting marketing.

ReferencesBullguard. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.bullguard.com/pamelaspeakDay, N. a. (2011, January). Viral Marketing. Retrieved from Night and Day: http://ndgraphic.com/viral-marketing/Helm, S. (2000). Viral Marketing - Establishing Customer Relationships by 'Word-of-mouse'. Lindgreen, A., & Vanhamme, J. (2005). Viral Marketing: The Use of Surprise. Rotterdam.Mara, J. (2004). ClickZ News. Mazda. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mazdamovies.comMind Comet. (2008). Viral Marketing. Retrieved from CMG Interactive: http://cmginteractive.com/uploads/viral_marketing.pdfMoore, R. E. (2003). From genericide to viral marketing: on brand. Elsevier.Palka, W., Pousttchi, K., & Wiedemann, D. G. (2009). Mobile word-of-mouth A grounded theory of mobile viral marketing. Journal of Information Technology.Pousttchi, K., & Wiedemann, D. (2007). Success Factors in Mobile Viral Marketing: A Multi-Case Study Approach. IEEE Explore, Digital Library.R., W. (2000). Demystifying Viral Marketing. Web Marketing Today, Issue 70.Trojan Games. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.trojangames.co.ukWeb Marketing Today. (2012, May 10). The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing. Retrieved from Web Marketing Today: http://webmarketingtoday.com/articles/viral-principles/Woerdl, M. a., Bourlakis, S. a., & Michael A. and Li, F. (2010). Internet-Induced Marketing Techniques: Critical Factors in Viral Marketing Campaigns. Kent Academic Respirotary, 35-45.

Questionnaire*Required1. Age *a. 15-25b. 25-35c. 35-50d. 50+2. Gender *a. Maleb. Female3. How much time in a day do you spend on an average on social networking websites? *a. Less than 30 minutesb. 30 minutes - 1 hourc. 1 hour - 2 hoursd. More than 2 hours4. Which of these devices do you use the most to access social media websites? *a. Mobile Phoneb. Tabletc. Laptop/Desktop5. Which social media instrument do you use? *a. Facebookb. Twitterc. WhatsAppd. Instagrame. Skypef. Google+g. Youtubeh. Tumblri. Wordpressj. Other:

6. How likely is it that you will read/watch forwarded messages/images/videos? *a. Alwaysb. Almost Alwaysc. Sometimesd. Rarelye. Neverf. Depends on the sender of the message7. How likely is it that you will watch advertisements or promotional banners on display on these social websites? *a. Alwaysb. Almost Alwaysc. Sometimesd. Rarelye. Neverf. Depends on the content/marketer8. How likely is it that you will re-post a message/image/video that you liked? *a. Alwaysb. Almost Alwaysc. Sometimesd. Rarelye. Neverf. Depends on the content of media9. How likely is it that you will talk about a message/image/video to your friends/colleagues?*a. Alwaysb. Almost Alwaysc. Sometimesd. Rarelye. Neverf. Depends on the content of mediaParitosh Agarwal20