Petrescu and Korgaonkar (2011) describe viral marketing as an online and offline marketing activity performed with the purpose to influence consumers to communicate commercial messages to other consumers. Whilst Montgomery (2001) explains that viral marketing is like a virulent flu virus that infects customers with an advertising message that passes onto another customer. Phelps et al (2004) simply states it is the process of honest communication among consumer networks – similarly to word-of-mouth. Though all three definitions share the notion that viral marketing is a consumer-to-consumer process, Modzelewski (2000) differs the true meaning of viral marketing from word-of-mouth in that “the value of the virus to the original consumer is directly related to the number of other users it attracts” (p.30).

Brands can maximize its reach if they successfully produce content that consumers will share. Consequently, shares have become an increasingly useful advertising metric. How do marketers ensure their campaigns will have this affect?

What is considered as valuable virality? The drivers…

Emotional Connection

Campaigns that portray physiological arousal by evoking emotions increase the likelihood of content going viral, this is supported by Akpinar and Berger (2017) whom also suggest emotional appeals are more likely than informative appeals to be shared. Your behaviour can be influenced by emotional triggers such as feelings experienced after seeing, hearing or reading some information. As a result, brands need to integrate this into their content, as it will help the message to resonate more effectively with the target audience and compels the consumer to take action. To understand the best emotional drivers, Robert Plutchik’s ‘Wheel of Emotions’ can be applied. Libert and Tynski (2016) explored emotions that make marketing campaigns go viral and found Curiosity, Amazement, Interest, Astonishment, Uncertainty and Admiration provoked to increase impact. However if the Ad is perceived as nothing more than a blatant sell attempt, the lesser the virality (Berger 2014; Tucker 2015).

Click here to find out more on creating emotional viral content

Example: Dove – Real Beauty Sketches Campaign 2013

An emotional connection was made effectively throughout viewing the video by establishing a powerful message inspiring women to feel good about themselves; this influenced behaviour and compelled people to take action. The campaign went viral and received a positive reaction: 7,244 Retweets.

User-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) refers to any form of content or media (such as blogs, tweets, videos, etc.) and other forms created by users online, made available via websites and/or social media platforms (MultiLingual, 2016). Social media allows the creating and exchange of UGC – usually someone with an interest in the brand (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Not only is it entertaining, it makes the audience feel apart of the campaign. Implementing this into your campaign will increase engagement rates and more people will share it if it is interactive.

Example: Starbucks – White Cup Contest Campaign

Asking fans to doodle away on their reusable cups, paying the best with $300 gift cards in exchange for UGC rights. Starbucks reaped the rewards of the contest, by generating 4,000 submissions in just three weeks. They proved they understood the importance visions, art and voices – and that the brand is listening.

Put simply, user generated content is the perfect opportunity to promote your brand and share knowledge about the product on a global scale. According to Kissmetrics (2015) 25% of search results for the world’s largest brands are linked to UGC. Brands can significantly reap the rewards in terms of brand awareness and customer loyalty.

However, there are also risks of launching UGC campaigns to increase valuable virality. Ultimately, you’re providing a platform for the consumers to speak about your brand – good or bad – some campaigns can spiral out of control and have adverse effects for a company. Here’s how to avoid UGC backlash!

Does it really make a difference to your sales?

According to Akpinar and Berger (2017) although emotional content and UGC increase the likeliness of the campaign to be shared, Tucker (2015) explains that ad persuasiveness decreases by 10% for every million views a video ad reaches. However, informative appeals boost the perception of the brand and purchase because ultimately the brand is an integral part of the ad content. Therefore, by combining emotional content that boost sharing and bolstering brand-related outcomes, brands can create a valuable virality campaign.

Example: Evian’s Roller Babies

The Evian’s Roller Babies Campaign is the highest shared ads of all time with 55 million views, however they made little impact on sales.

Informative Appeals

Informative advertising supplies factual, verifiable information, or logically relevant to the product to an extent that consumers will assess the products attributes after screening this kind of advertisement (Puto and Wells, 1984; Puto and Hoyer, 1990). According to Royo-Vela, (2005) emotional integral and informative ads create a favourable interpretation about the persuasive attempts. Brands can implement this in a way that allows them to increase brand knowledge for the customer and in turn boost brand evaluation and purchase intent.

Example: Chipotle – The Scarecrow

Gaining just a little over 17.7 million views on YouTube alone, Chipotle initiates important conversation about our food system and their commitment to sustainability. They have done this through dark and eerie visuals to the uplifting scenes towards the end that leaves the viewer feeling joy when the scarecrow brings his fresh products to the market. Whilst the emotive appeals has increased its virality, Chipotle have managed to produce informative appeals about where their food comes from that leave the consumers to assess the products and make decisions on purchase based on this information.

References

Akpinar, E. and Berger, J. (2017). Valuable Virality. Journal of Marketing Research, 54(2), pp.318-330.

Berger, J. and Milkman, K. (2012). What Makes Online Content Viral?. Journal of Marketing Research, 49(2), pp.192-205.

Berger, Jonah (2014), “Word of Mouth and Interpersonal Communication: A Review and Directions for Future Research,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 24 (4), 586–607.

Jones, K., Libert, K. and Tynski, K. (2017). The Emotional Combinations That Make Stories Go Viral. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2016/05/research-the-link-between-feeling-in-control-and-viral-content [Accessed 6 May 2017].

Johnston, C. (2017). Creating emotional viral content – Adoreboard. [online] Adoreboard. Available at: https://adoreboard.com/creating-emotional-viral-content/ [Accessed 6 May 2017].

Kissmetrics. (2015). [Blog] A Blog About Analytics Marketing and Testing. Available at: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/social-media-statistics/ [Accessed 6 May 2017].

Liu, X., Burns, A. and Hou, Y. (2017). An Investigation of Brand-Related User-Generated Content on Twitter. Journal of Advertising, 46(2), pp.236-247.

Modzelewski, M. F. (2000). Finding a Cure for Viral Marketing Ills. [online] DMN. Available at: http://www.dmnews.com/dataanalytics/finding-a-cure-for-viral-marketing-ills/article/68355/ [Accessed 6 May 2017].

Montgomery, A. (2001). Applying Quantitative Marketing Techniques to the Internet. Interfaces, 31(2), pp.90-108.

MultiLingual (2016), ‘Multilingual User Generated Content Expands Your Global Reach’ 2016, Multilingual, 27, 8, pp. 24-27, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 26 April 2017.

Petrescu, M. and Korgaonkar, P. (2011). Viral Advertising: Definitional Review and Synthesis. Journal of Internet Commerce, 10(3), pp.208-226.

Phelps, J., Lewis, R., Mobilio, L., Perry, D. and Raman, N. (2004). Viral Marketing or Electronic Word-of-Mouth Advertising: Examining Consumer Responses and Motivations to Pass Along Email. Journal of Advertising Research, 44(4), pp.333-348.

Puto, Christopher P. and Robert W. Hoyer (1990), “Transformational Advertising: Current State of Art,” in Emotion in Advertising: Theoretical and Practical Explorations, Stuart J. Agres, Julie A. Edell, and Tony M. Dubitsky, eds., Westport, CT:Quorum Books, 69-80.

Puto, Christopher P. and William D. Wells (1984), “Informational and Transformational Advertising: The Differential Effects of Time,” Advances in Consumer Research, 11, 638-643

Royo-Vela, M. (2005). Emotional and Informational Content of Commercials: Visual and Auditory Circumplex Spaces, Product Information and Their Effects on Audience Evaluation. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 27(2), pp.13-38.

Empowered consumers, new technology and a new age of transparency have disrupted the marketing industry. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all strategy’ in the world we live in today. As a result, marketing experts have invested an increasing amount of money into understanding the youth audience’s lives, habits and attitudes to make their marketing messages as relevant as possible.

The youth population currently contributes £20bn to the UK economy annually, which is key to a number of markets such as fashion, technology and mobile (Mitchell, 2012). So it is key that marketers don’t waste money on solely investing in social media platforms, but to make their content useful, relevant and entertaining.

Millennials (AKA Gen Y)

Millennial’s (also known as the Generation Y), were born in the years 1980’s – 2000, therefore students aged 16-24 of today fall into this bracket (Gallardo-Echenique et al., 2015). They are the first generation to grow up with new technology and according to Gibbons (2004) students communicate differently via text and are characterized as tech savvy because of their need to interact with others, which is a key reason for Gen Y’s use of social media (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008).

So how does digital marketers need to address the characteristics of students through successful campaigns?

Empowerment and Perpetuity

Digital marketing campaigners should create content and campaigns to enable some type of international change. 66% of 16-24s feel that fashion brands should involve the consumers in actively backing a cause and 88% of UK millennials believe brands need to focus doing more good rather than less bad (Kemp, 2016). Marketers should therefore provide the tools that allow students to contribute and declare their support publically or promote a campaign themselves.

It is important that any campaign provides level of endurance so that the message delivered isn’t limited to the exposure of a short-lived social post or email. To enable international change or any positive change for that matter, the content must have potential to stay with the user and remind them of the initiative and message (Powers, 2015).

Example:

Urban Outfitters enabled its audience to get involved in their latest campaign empowering Transgender and Plus-size models. To show their support, each influencer designed a Hanes T-shirt including personal empowering messages and slogans. The statement overall ‘Be true to yourself and love one another’ is an uplifting message allowing the millennials to be part of an international change and publically support this.

Sociability

Millennials are said to focus on social interaction and connectedness through social activities. Marketers should influence to share content on social media to increase consistency of the message by including a hash-tag (Powers, 2015). The campaign should illustrate collective social activity to persuade the young people to share. 94% of millennials today feel it is important to have a unique identity thus, to increase portability it may be effective to create individual content and rewards for sharing (Jefford, 2016).
Example:

#Shareacoke – this hashtag is integrated for its phatic function as it serves as language for the sake of social interaction (Joos, Jakobson and Halle, 1957).

Instant gratification

Convenience is heavily gravitated by the millennial generation as 70% of students expressed they’re impatient and expect everything to be available when they want it (Jefford, 2016).

In other words, “instant gratification is a by-word of the digital age”.

According to Lauterborn’s 4 C model (1990), an efficacious marketing plan should focus on Convenience; this correlates with the 70% of millennials that care most about convenience when it comes to purchasing decisions (Jefford, 2016). Marketers have to ask themselves, why buy? When you can stream for free, why wait? When same-day delivery is available.

Example:

This characteristic is key to address because the student segment serve as powerful brand ambassadors through word-of-mouth activism with their peers. If they’re not satisfied, millennials will look elsewhere for something that benefits their needs – creating an emerging shift in the retail landscape.

Highly Skeptical and Informed

81% of 16-24yr olds connect with brand campaigns increasingly if they use YouTubers, vloggers and creative individuals with an online cult fan base to represent their brand (Jefford, 2016). Marketers need to shift away from using celebrities as brand advocates and use real people due to millennials becoming increasingly skeptical and highly informed, thus trusting ‘people’ over brands.

Example:

ASOS Insiders interprets influencer marketing that knocks out the traditntal marketing approach; this theory explores that most people are influenced by opinion leaders and secondhand information and perceive it as genuine (Buttle, 1998). Influences have the power to strengthen the brands relationship with loyal followers and ultimately boost customer lifetime value.

The attitudes, habits and behaviours of Millennials have become the focus group of the modern world of marketing. Digital marketing campaigners benefit from targeting Milennials due to their preference for certain forms of online advertising (Taken Smith, 2012). However, the marketing strategies aimed at Millennials must be perceived positively by this generation (Lukina, 2016). Hence the importance of understanding the characteristics of this segment to express relevant, useful and shareable content. Whilst Marketers see the benefits of digitally targeting Millennials, the risks of getting it wrong can be more damaging to the brand’s reputation. This is due to their skeptical and demanding characteristics and effectively fast WOM. Overall, this generation needs marketing that speaks to them, helps them grown their own brand image and help make a change.

Click here for more information on marketing to millennials. 

References

Bolton, R., Parasuraman, A., Hoefnagels, A., Migchels, N., Kabadayi, S., Gruber, T., Komarova Loureiro, Y. and Solnet, D. (2013). Understanding Generation Y and their use of social media: a review and research agenda. Journal of Service Management, 24(3), pp.245-267.

Buttle, F.A., 1998. Word of mouth: understanding and managing referral marketing. Journal of strategic marketing, 6(3), pp.241-254.

Gallardo-Echenique, E., Marqués-Molías, L., Bullen, M. and Strijbos, J. (2015). Let’s talk about digital learners in the digital era. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16(3).

Gibbons, S. (2007). Redefining the roles of information professionals in higher education to engage the net generation.

Jefford, M. (2016). 9 youth trends brands need to know about in 2016 – Factory Media. [online] Factory Media. Available at: https://factorymedia.com/insight/9-youth-trends-brands-need-know-2016 [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].

Joos, M., Jakobson, R. and Halle, M. (1957). Fundamentals of Language. Language, 33(3), p.408.

Kemp, N. (2016). Do the right thing: how brands are embracing humane capitalism. [online] Campaignlive.co.uk. Available at: http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/right-thing-brands-embracing-humane-capitalism/1407191 [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].

Lopez, M. (2017). 10 digital ways to reach Millennial students – eCampus News. [online] eCampus News. Available at: http://www.ecampusnews.com/featured/featured-on-ecampus-news/digital-marketing-millennials/ [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].

Lukina, A., 2016. BUYING BEHAVIOUR OF MILLENNIALS CHANGING TRADITIONAL MARKETING PRACTICES.

Mitchell, L. (2012). The future of marketing according to youth: what 16-24s want from brands. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2012/oct/25/future-marketing-youth [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].

Palfrey, J., Gasser, U., Simun, M. and Barnes, R. (2009). Youth, Creativity, and Copyright in the Digital Age. International Journal of Learning and Media, 1(2), pp.79-97.

Powers, K. (2015). Five Characteristics (and Examples) of Successful Digital Campaigns | Viget. [online] https://viget.com. Available at: https://www.viget.com/articles/five-characteristics-and-examples-of-successful-digital-campaigns [Accessed 17 Apr. 2017].

Taken Smith, K. (2012). Longitudinal study of digital marketing strategies targeting Millennials. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 29(2), pp.86-92.

Thau, B. (2013). Changing of the Guard: the Millennials. Chain Store Age, 89(8), pp.10-12.

Love it or hate it, social media has become the power tool of communication for many fashion brands to influence consumer spending and buying habits – if used correctly. Many brands have embraced social media by acquiring more fans, followers, likes and shares. How? Simply by sharing content that is creative and specifically targets their audience. Ultimately, online fashion brands that want to improve web presence and brand recognition in the market need to implement social media into their strategy (Bowen and Ozuem, 2016).

Brands are either part of the conversation or they’re not and as a result, they’re either part of the decision-making cycle or they’re absent from the heart, mind, and actions of the connected customer. Solis (2011a)

So how does fashion brands use social media to make sure they’re part of the decision-making cycle?

Choosing the most effective social media platform to increase brand engagement

Engagement with Brands on Instagram is 10 times higher than Facebook, 54 times higher than Pinterest, and 84 times higher than Twitter (Brandwatch, 2016).

According to eMarketer (2016), 50% of brands are on Instagram, as a result, Instagram is the ‘King of Social’ with the highest engagement of 2.3% per follower as opposed to 0.2% engagement on Facebook. Engagement rates are crucial for fashion brands because it’s an excellent metric for brands to gauge as it takes into account consumer interactions and the number of followers. Brands are able to benchmark their performance against its competitors. Furthermore, engagement rates show that you as a brand are having meaningful communications with your target audience (Yang et al., 2016).

Top 200 Instagram brand channel accounts with the highest follower count: Fashion industry (51.5%). Source: (Mediakix, 2016)

Fashion brands that share content on Instagram are able to enjoy the benefits of being able to pull in a larger audience of 400m active users, versus Snapchat’s 100m. Additionally, Instagram also attracts a broader age range (Handley, 2016). It’s a no brainer, Instagram is the best platform to achieve high levels of engagement, especially when fashion brands rely on visuals!

Sharing creative content – What content works?

Chaffey and Smith (2013) explain that the first step to engaging a community of potential customers is sharing content. So a simple update on Instagram will not necessarily engage your customers to your brand. The key is to include links with each post, make it fun and creative and most importantly co-creating value between your fashion brand and your followers. Its important that fashion brands utilise the platform by learning what the target audience responds to thus creating an effective content mix.

1. Making Instagram Shoppable

Zara and Topshop have both included product reference numbers and links attached in the bios when posting content to entice active users to purchase their products and as a result this may increase web traffic.

2. Creating inspiration

Fashion brands have reaped the benefits of turning to socially sourced images of fans posting about their products, generating high community engagement. ASOS have a separate Instagram account ‘ASSEENONME’ using the #asseenonme to inspire its followers to engage with the brand and creates an opportunity for them to be featured on the page encouraging them to share their style.

3. Behind the scenes

The new function ‘Instagram stories’ has this amazing juxtaposition that allows fashion brands to tell a story besides the ‘polished visuals’. It provides a more authentic experience as it enables fashion brands to post what goes on behind the scenes. This allows followers to get close and personal, giving them a perspective of life at the brand.

Read more about Instagram Stories and watch Giovanna Battaglias Instagram story of Tom Ford’s fashion show:

How Instagram stories is putting the see now in Fashion month.

4. Inspired Influencer Outreach

Many fashion brands such as ASOS have a personal stylist team made up of successful fashion and beauty influencers. ASOS have strategically managed to get their brand in front of thousands of potential customers. Influencers usually appeal to many potential customers as they are perceived as genuine and are much more receptive to recommendations. This is crucial because in the new world of digital, WOM is one of the most valuable forms of marketing (Kozinets, De Valck, Wojnicki and WIlner, 2010).

5. Framework of online engagement

Brodie et al. (2013) developed this model to reveal the emotional, cognitive and behavioural aspects of engagement:

(Click the image to read more: Consumer engagement in a virtual brand community: An exploratory analysis)

• Emotional – Feelings of gratitude, sense of belonging to the group, thus highlighting the significance of the social aspect of consumer and brand engagement
• Cognitive – Followers build value-laden relationships by sharing posts and their own experience with the brand
• Behavioural – Supporting the brand if perceived as positive, however, negative expressions speak high volumes if the consumer is given misleading impression of the brand

A positive engagement depends on the content of the themes (shown in the diagram) and how it is perceived. The aim for fashion brands using Instagram is to build established relationships and possible relationships comprising cognitive, emotional and behavioural dimensions, that overall support brand and consumer engagement

Furthermore, despite the ways in which fashion brands are using Instagram to boost brand engagement, it is difficult to sell from due to the absent click-through mechanism. Therefore retailers that put time and effort into creating brand engagement may fall into the trap of simply replicating content simultaneously to other networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Brand marketers are beginning to question what is the ROI of social marketing?

Read more: Does “Liking” Lead to Loving? The Impact of Joining a Brand’s Social Network on Marketing Outcomes

The danger here is this platform could simply be a mere trend and as every company uses Instagram this social marketing strategy could quickly turn from unique to clichéd. Secondly, it can be quite easy to over modify a picture for a marketing campaign, however this may do more harm than good and appear to be obtrusive and clumsy.

Nevertheless, fashion and Instagram make a perfect fit as the industry relies heavily on visuals and graphics. Since its launch in 2010, Instagram has revolutionized the fashion industry from an exclusive one to becoming accessible to the public. Regular engagement through sharing content is the most effective way to increase the awareness of a brand and the story behind it. Sharing posts regularly helps Instagram users generate a greater interest for the brand, and increase their likeliness to engage with this further.

References

Bowen, G. and Ozuem, W. (2016). Competitive social media marketing strategies. 1st ed. Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference.

Brodie, R., Ilic, A., Juric, B. and Hollebeek, L. (2013). Consumer engagement in a virtual brand community: An exploratory analysis. Journal of Business Research, 66(1), pp.105-114.

Chaffey, Dave;Smith, PR. 2013., Emarketing Excellence. [online]. Routledge. Available from:<http://www.myilibrary.com?ID=459190> 28 February 2017

Forbes.com. (2016). Forbes Welcome. [online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/the-top-10-benefits-of-social-media-marketing/2/#10ab53c95232 [Accessed 28 Feb. 2017].

Handley, L. (2016). What does Instagram Stories mean for brand engagement?. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2016/sep/22/instagram-stories-brand-engagement-loreal-ted-baker [Accessed 28 Feb. 2017].

John, L., Emrich, O., Gupta, S. and Norton, M. (2017). Does “Liking” Lead to Loving? The Impact of Joining a Brand’s Social Network on Marketing Outcomes. Journal of Marketing Research, 54(1), pp.144-155.

Kozinets, R.V., De Valck, K., Wojnicki, A.C. and Wilner, S.J., 2010. Networked narratives: Understanding word-of-mouth marketing in online communities. Journal of marketing, 74(2), pp.71-89.

Mediakix | Influencer Marketing Agency. (2016). Instagram Engagement Rates Of The World’s Best Brands. [online] Available at: http://mediakix.com/2016/06/best-brands-instagram-engagement-rates-case-study/#gs.f3c_0m8 [Accessed 28 Feb. 2017].

Solis, B. (2011). 16 Quotes Visualized from The End of Business as Usual – Brian Solis. [online] Briansolis.com. Available at: http://www.briansolis.com/2011/11/16-reasons-why-you-should-read-the-end-of-business-as-usual/ [Accessed 28 Feb. 2017].

Yang, S., Lin, S., Carlson, J. and Ross, W. (2016). Brand engagement on social media: will firms’ social media efforts influence search engine advertising effectiveness?. Journal of Marketing Management, 32(5-6), pp.526-557.