Social media ‘to become more important for viral marketing’
Social media platforms will become more important to businesses looking to expand their viral marketing campaigns, according to one expert.
Mike Hare, research director at consultancy DataTalk Research, explained that the growing popularity of social networking as a way of communicating with others means it holds much promise for viral marketing.
This is partly because other forms of social media advertising, such as pop-up ads, have been found to be relatively ineffective, he commented.
However, he went on to note that some social media users are becoming increasingly wary of material that is blatantly promotional.
"The more advanced the social communities that use the community websites become, the more cautious they become and the easier it is for them to spot deliberate attempts at viral marketing - and a lot of the sites do attempt to militate against that sort of thing," Mr Hare said.
Recent Gartner research showed that while more Fortune 1,000 businesses are likely to deploy social media campaigns by 2010, half of these will flop unless organisations can overcome obstacles such as a lack of game design skills.
