Sphinn - Viral Marketing is NOT the Same as Word of Mouth

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Viral Marketing is NOT the Same as Word of Mouth

Went Hot: October 19, 2007 - 6:14 pm
Posted By: DavidWallace 625 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.searchengineguide.com)
Category: Other Online Marketing

Jennifer Laycock writes, "I can't tell you how many times I've heard an old school marketer say viral marketing is just the fancy new name for word of mouth marketing. In their mind, the two work exactly the same way. When I teach viral marketing courses, I try to explain that viral marketing is similar to word of mouth marketing, but not the same. The phrase I often use is 'Viral marketing is like word of mouth marketing on crack.'"

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from planetc1 625 days ago #

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Happy to see someone writing about this and clearing things up.

from jellymeli 625 days ago #

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Cheers to this. I've had clients tell me they 'know' marketing, but still view it the same way they did 15 years ago. The times have changed buddy, time to get onboard. Great post.

from Jill 624 days ago #

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I found this article interesting as I had never thought about the distinctions between these two forms of marketing.

from maximizer 624 days ago #

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While I thought the article was very good in highlighting the difference between viral marketing and word of mouth and also guiding one on how to go about viral marketing, I feel a few examples would've helped. But overall, a useful article.

from Gamermk 622 days ago #

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I have to disagree. They are identical. The only difference is viral is online and word of mouth is not.

Viral Marketing spreads because its easy to spread. It's one click of a button to forward it onto 10 friends. It's easy to do. Word of Mouth is hard to do. We don't have the ability to press a button and suddenly talk to 10 people and they don't have the ability to do the same and so on.

But make no mistakes, just because its harder to go "viral" with word of mouth in the real world does not change the fact that its still viral marketing. Word of Mouth decays because the message is harder to spread. Think of it as a virus within a contained area. There are less exits, but its still the same beast.