I believe all of us that use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or YouTube have definitely come across a viral video, photo or meme. Viral is an image, video or a piece of information that is spread rapidly and widely from one internet user to another, could be intentional or accidental.
Viral Marketing is a business strategy that makes use of the internet to promote or spread information about a company’s products and services to others. It has become so successful due to its ability to create desire and curiosity which generates a demand for products and services. Sometimes, it even generates excitement over nothing! It can be built upon itself by word of mouth and it is vital in businesses nowadays.
However, don’t you find it amusing how we humans distinguish what is worth sharing and what is not? One minute it can be a video of dogs doing funny stuff, next moment it is a video of the rapid spreading of the virus in Wuhan and deaths that frightened the rest of the world.
Source: Mothership
Most recently, a video shared by Xinhua News of a nurse and her daughter exchanging ‘air hug’ after not meeting for over a week’s time due to the recent outbreak of COVID-19. This heartfelt video has gone viral on Twitter as users started to share on their page and many people were touched by the video and cheered the nation on. Ever since, the public begins to show appreciation to healthcare workers for their sacrifices, courageous and dedication.
Source: The Straits Times
Singaporeans also pen notes of encouragement for the healthcare workers amid the outbreak and take pictures of it and upload onto social media with the hashtag #braveheartsg and these images will be printed out and distributed to the healthcare staff islandwide. These gestures have drawn the attention of more than 800 response! Isn’t that amazing??
Source: The Straits Times
Furthermore, companies such as GrabCar have now stepped up to do their part and implemented a new 24-Hour transport service “GrabCare” exclusively for Singapore healthcare workers only, to support their battle against COVID-19. Many feel that we should all stand together and do what we can to support the workers for their courageous actions to continue their battle against the virus despite the consequences.
It is astonishing how one post that went viral and triggered emotions of many can help create awareness about the day to day struggle of many healthcare workers and i hope that this worthy gained attention should continue to spread the message to support the workers to fight on.
Source: Facebook
Even Singapore’s Prime Minister, Mr Lee Hsien Loong have written a valentine’s Day card to thank the healthcare workers which bring upon awareness as well.
All these heartfelt videos and genuine gestures from the public supporting the healthcare workers are remarkable. Social media is such a powerful tool that connects people all over the world, just one post shared by one person can be seen by hundreds or thousands of people and impacted many. Therefore, let’s all bring awareness to the issues that our country are currently facing and band together to support the healthcare workers, shall we?
That’s all for today, thank you for reading! Do leave a comment and share with me your thoughts on this 🙂
Angela's Digital Marketing Blog 
Many thanks for the great blog post. Viral marketing is indeed a substantial way to promote a service or product or even spreading awareness to the public. With the advances of technology, most information can be found online and what can be deem useful depends on the audicity of a post.
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Hey Junior, thanks for taking the time to read my blog and i’m glad that you agree with my point on viral marketing and how it helped company to create awareness!
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I do think that viral marketing
can be used to create awareness especially in times of need, like the COVID-19 epidemic. It helps to educate people and create conversations on how to better protect ourselves and others. Great blog post! Looking forward to more!
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Hi! Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me! Totally agree with your point about viral marketing 🙂
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UGH These heartwarming posts and stories about the epidemic has got me feeling things. I’m glad it’s these things that are going viral over the xenophobic or mean ones that’s been going on.
Sometimes things go viral for the wrong reasons and makes everyone worse, mean to each other and not even remotely useful. People should really take the phrase “If you’ve got nothing good to say, don’t say it” seriously.
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Hi! Thanks for sharing with me your thoughts on this! In the age of sharing, sometimes its’s hard to draw the line… What we can do is only share things that are useful~ 🙂
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Similar thoughts, I do agree that viral marketing can be used to educate people and create greater awareness! Using emotions to make something go viral definitely gets to people easily! To put this concept in a marketer’s point of view, what kind of content do you think needs to be created to go viral? In addition, there is also influencer marketing. Do you think influencer marketing would be better than viral marketing or combing both would complement each other and bring about even greater results?
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Hey Jarrett! Thank you for leaving me a comment! I feel that content has to firstly, evokes emotions as the audience likes to share content that evokes a passionate emotional response. Next, it has to be practical to give your readers a clear strategy that they can immediately apply. Also, your viral content has to be readable in order to appeal to a larger audience. Your content has to be credible as well, to increase the chances of going viral, also, it has to visually appealing. Visuals are often overlooked when it comes to creating content. Lastly, publish the viral content during peak hours, so that your content will be able to reach more human traffic.
I think that both influencer marketing and viral marketing are equally effective and they certainly complement well with each other! For instance, if your viral marketing failed to spread widely, then at the moment, influencer marketing can step in to add credibility to the campaign. For example, ASL Ice Bucket Challenge, many famous influencers and celebrities took part in recording the video as well, which inspired many followers and fans of their to take part in the challenge that their idol did!
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Personally, I feel that combining traditional and digital marketing combined would bring about greater success! Coupled with a good sense of humour and creativity, it would definitely be a successful campaign! Nevertheless, I do agree that emotional campaigns do get to me as well. Since word-of-mouth is rather credible coming from someone who has experienced it, do you feel viral marketing would be more effective or word-of-mouth?
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Hey Yui! Thanks for sharing with me your thoughts! Viral marketing, unlike WOM, has a compounding effect, for instance, when a consumer tells 4 people to 10 people, those of the four to ten people will tell another four to ten people, the driving force behind most viral campaign is the passion of a consumer carries. It is just like a VIRUS! spreading without requiring much marketing effort. And WOM is when a company has done something that the consumer is pleased with, their consumer will tell four to ten friends, the initial sound will be loud and eventually fade into the background just like an ECHO effect. I would say both are equally effective and if it can be combined it will be the best!
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