33 Comments »The dynamic of Facebook application marketing is rapidly changing. What once was an environment in which your application was practically guaranteed to go viral has shifted to one in which you need to come up with creative ways of marketing your application. The MyBucks application is a perfect example of this. After Aryeh Goldsmith (the creator of the MyBucks application) added the “Top Referrers” feature, the application immediately turned viral. After seeing all the applications go viral I have decided to do a brief overview of a few key features that help your application go viral. While this is not an exhaustive list, it covers the majority of tricks of the trade that are currently being used.
- Forced Invite - The first instance that I saw this implemented was by David Gentzel when he launched the Happy Hour application. Within a matter of weeks the application has already become the 13th most popular application on Facebook, which is no easy feat. This method was duplicated by other applications with varying success within a matter of hours. What exactly is this method you ask? As soon as someone decides to add the application they are forced to invite 10 friends. This is a risky tactic but David Gentzel was able to leverage his other highly popular applications to drive traffic to this application. Personally, I don’t recommend this tactic. It is a brute force method that can be used by those with popular applications that don’t have rich feature sets. I have a feeling that most happy hour users don’t return to the app on a daily basis, but then again I don’t have statistics to back that up.
- Invite after action - When the Facebook platform first launched there were no restrictions as to how many people an application user could invite per day. As a result many of the initial applications that took advantage of the checkbox invite forms grew rapidly. Since the launch, there is now a limit of 10 friends per day by each application user. While it has been significantly limited by Facebook, it is still a useful form of marketing. When building your application you should definitely come up with an effective way of allowing users to invite other people.
- News feed - The news feed is the most powerful component of Facebook. Period. There are two ways that applications can leverage the news feed. The first is naturally built in. Most of the time, when a user adds an application it is displayed in their friends’ news feeds. While it is not a guarantee that it will show up in other people’s news feeds (due to a number of factors pertaining to news feed optimization), this is the primary thing that helps applications spread virally. When I launched my Bush Countdown clock I added no viral components and relied completely on people’s news feeds. This has spread the application to close to 8,500 users. While not spectacular, it is hardly something to sneeze at. The second way of using a news feed is by leveraging the news feed API calls that Facebook has provided. Within reason, you can regularly post news items to a user’s mini-feed within their profile. A small percentage of the time that item will end up on their friends’ news feeds. While this is severely limited, at least you can get it on to your users’ mini-feeds. Every form of exposure you can get (within reason) for your application, you should strive for.
- Referrals/Giveaways - This is the most recent form of viral marketing on Facebook. I am seeing a number of applications adopting this technique. The referrals tactic is to come up with an effective way of encouraging your applications users to market your application for you. They can market your application on blogs, websites, forums, Facebook walls, messages to friends and more. The bottom line is that you end up with your application users being the ones that get scrappy with the marketing, not you. Giveaways are usually combined with this to provide an incentive for users to promote your application. There is a risk though in making your application look cheap, but for now I think this is a great technique.
- One-on-One - Used alone, this technique may not result in viral growth of your application but combining this technique with one of the others I have listed can result in exceptional results. The concept is straight forward. Reach out to people that you think will find your application useful. This technique is more for targeted applications, not for generic applications such as poke wars or zombie biting or any of the other generic applications out there. Reach out to those individuals that you think will benefit from your application and then follow-up with them once they’ve added it. The result is passionate users that become your own brand evangelists. This technique has been used by countless communities to help generate passionate users. If you nurture your application users you will see positive results in the long-term.
While each of these techniques can provide varying results, all of them are targeted at creating the viral effect. Ultimately that is what makes the Facebook platform so appealing currently. You can rapidly reach thousands to millions of individuals in a short span of time at minimal cost. The problem with these viral techniques are that many of them will become practically useless soon after I release this post. That is the nature of viral marketing. Viral marketing techniques lose their appeal after they become adopted by the masses. While the techniques that have been used until now are far from revolutionary, I have a feeling that we will begin to see truly creative techniques in the coming months.
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Great post, this is a great resource for new tools.
I believe there’s a way of adding value by assembling a great group together, and letting folks opt in and join.
6) I created the Web Strategy Group, which is a collection of Web Managers for the modern website (like yourself) and it’s a great place to learn and meet other folks. While initially I invited a few key folks to get it kick started, one of the ways it continues to grow is by the high quality conversations in the discussion forum.
Perhaps this technique could be consider yet a 6th way of getting folks to volunteer to join –they get value and add it!
This link below shows how I promote it, with 47% growth in four days!
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/07/26/w...
Thanks for the overview. It’s interesting to see how the techniques of a successful app evolve as this application space matures.
Great post, this is a great resource for new tools.
I believe there’s a way of adding value by assembling a great group together, and letting folks opt in and join.
6) I created the Web Strategy Group, which is a collection of Web Managers for the modern website (like yourself) and it’s a great place to learn and meet other folks. While initially I invited a few key folks to get it kick started, one of the ways it continues to grow is by the high quality conversations in the discussion forum.
Perhaps this technique could be consider yet a 6th way of getting folks to volunteer to join –they get value and add it!
This link below shows how I promote it, with 47% growth in four days!
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/07/26/web-strategy-group-on-facebook-continues-to-grow/
Thanks for the overview. It’s interesting to see how the techniques of a successful app evolve as this application space matures.
[...] The Top 5 Viral Facebook Techniques The dynamic of Facebook application marketing is rapidly changing. What once was an environment in which your application was practically guaranteed to go viral has shifted to one in which you need to come up with creative ways of marketing your application..While this is not an exhaustive list, it covers the majority of tricks of the trade that are currently being used. [...]
[...] The Top 5 Viral Facebook Techniques - The Unofficial Facebook Blog Analyse des 5 meilleures techniques virales sur FB (tags: facebook virality) [...]
[...] The Top 5 Viral Facebook Techniques (tags: facebook viral marketing invite) [...]
Nice post,
It’s incredible to see how quickly this is all happening.
Because Facebook is all about friends, I think the apps that deliver true value to friendship networks (like the carpool and couchswap apps) are the ones to watch.
Nice post,
It’s incredible to see how quickly this is all happening.
Because Facebook is all about friends, I think the apps that deliver true value to friendship networks (like the carpool and couchswap apps) are the ones to watch.
Great article. Recognition goes a long way, so do soft along with hard incentives. This is especially true when coupled with one-on-one because the pro bloggers are always on the lookout for the first scoop. Forced invite will just get people pissed off.
Great article. Recognition goes a long way, so do soft along with hard incentives. This is especially true when coupled with one-on-one because the pro bloggers are always on the lookout for the first scoop. Forced invite will just get people pissed off.
[...] The Top 5 Viral Facebook Techniques The dynamic of Facebook application marketing is rapidly changing. What once was an environment in which your application was practically guaranteed to go viral has shifted to one in which you need to come up with creative ways of marketing your application..While this is not an exhaustive list, it covers the majority of tricks of the trade that are currently being used. [...]
[...] [FACEBOOK] The Top 5 Viral Facebook Techniques (allfacebook.com, 11 inbound links, 3 diggs) [...]
[...] Naturligtvis finns det sätt att utnyttja Facebook för oss som inte vill utveckla olika applikationer. Här nedan har jag listat några artiklar som kan vara värda att läsa: 6 Ways to Market on Facebook 5 Money Making Opportunities on Facebook The Top 5 Viral Facebook Techniques [...]
[...] Facebook: Top 5 Viral Facebook Techniques Its often good to look at what works with [...]
We just launched a new Facebook application called My City, and one of the things we’ve been trying to get a much better handle on is how to market it virally.
My sense is it’s more difficult now than it was even a month ago given the growing number of applications battling for peoples’ attention. That said, I think a good application (such as My City!) has a good chance of resonating with Facebook users.
Thanks for the tips; they’re excellent food for thought.
Mark
We just launched a new Facebook application called My City, and one of the things we’ve been trying to get a much better handle on is how to market it virally.
My sense is it’s more difficult now than it was even a month ago given the growing number of applications battling for peoples’ attention. That said, I think a good application (such as My City!) has a good chance of resonating with Facebook users.
Thanks for the tips; they’re excellent food for thought.
Mark
[...] Build in viral features (invites, news feed postings, catchy profile boxes … see top 5 viral techniques) [...]
[...] ideas on how to grow your Facebook application, AllFacebook is a great resource. The Top 5 Viral Facebook Techniques is a [...]
Your suggestions might be obsolete in a few months, truly amazing,they are useful now and well thought out. But how does one spread the word about an off-site, non-widget, service to Facebook? Is it even possible?
Im an intern at SpeedDate.com and I have been trying to figure out how I can even talk about SpeedDate.com with my friends on Facebook without getting kicked off the site again.
Your suggestions might be obsolete in a few months, truly amazing,they are useful now and well thought out. But how does one spread the word about an off-site, non-widget, service to Facebook? Is it even possible?
Im an intern at SpeedDate.com and I have been trying to figure out how I can even talk about SpeedDate.com with my friends on Facebook without getting kicked off the site again.
I find “viral” Facebook application invites to be extremely annoying.
In order to find out the “message” or whatever my friend has sent me, I need to join the app. In order to join the app, I need to annoy several of my friends. I just hit “ignore” on these invites.
And for all this annoyance, the content is minimal! “You have been sent a round of drinks” “You have been sent luck” and the best one was in order to join a “circle of friends” I needed to form my own circle. Ugh!! It’s like the guilt of 92837498327 chain letters, in my inbox, every day.
Oh and though I have shut off the email Facebook notifications, there are always some cowboy facebook apps that have not realized that I have shut off the email notifications, so I get Funwall notification emails anyhow.
If I’m going to do some bad programming, I do it on my Commodore 64, and as it is not attached to anything more networked than its 1541 disk drive, it is not going to hurt anyone. It is not going to fill anyone’s facebook Home with a list of dumb requests.
I find “viral” Facebook application invites to be extremely annoying.
In order to find out the “message” or whatever my friend has sent me, I need to join the app. In order to join the app, I need to annoy several of my friends. I just hit “ignore” on these invites.
And for all this annoyance, the content is minimal! “You have been sent a round of drinks” “You have been sent luck” and the best one was in order to join a “circle of friends” I needed to form my own circle. Ugh!! It’s like the guilt of 92837498327 chain letters, in my inbox, every day.
Oh and though I have shut off the email Facebook notifications, there are always some cowboy facebook apps that have not realized that I have shut off the email notifications, so I get Funwall notification emails anyhow.
If I’m going to do some bad programming, I do it on my Commodore 64, and as it is not attached to anything more networked than its 1541 disk drive, it is not going to hurt anyone. It is not going to fill anyone’s facebook Home with a list of dumb requests.
very good techiques,you should write another part of this article
very good techiques,you should write another part of this article
Interesting article but to Lorraines point, trying to become “viral” is highly subjective and can be VERY annoying. People have sent me numerous application invites and except for the ‘very’ few, I’ve ignored them all just because I dont have the time and the energy to care about it. + I think it is spam.
I think that what intrigued me about your article is the last point on it because it is the best way to connect with your customers.
I recently developed an application and my philosophy is that following any of the “force” invites or even rather incentivizing places people in a state of dissonance. Word-of-mouth is the way to go to get ahead of the game.
Yes, ILike, Countdown to bush, etc… are all amazing apps, but depending on the quality of the application and its honest use in the marketplace, your suggestions are subjective.
Interesting article but to Lorraines point, trying to become “viral” is highly subjective and can be VERY annoying. People have sent me numerous application invites and except for the ‘very’ few, I’ve ignored them all just because I dont have the time and the energy to care about it. + I think it is spam.
I think that what intrigued me about your article is the last point on it because it is the best way to connect with your customers.
I recently developed an application and my philosophy is that following any of the “force” invites or even rather incentivizing places people in a state of dissonance. Word-of-mouth is the way to go to get ahead of the game.
Yes, ILike, Countdown to bush, etc… are all amazing apps, but depending on the quality of the application and its honest use in the marketplace, your suggestions are subjective.
Interesting.. I still wonder how applications like Zombie biting or vampire benefit from this.. Where's the advertising here.. What wud the application developer benefit from this??
Hi,
My client, http://www.altereglow.com ,has 9500 Facebook fans. The new Facebook redesign has stopped the steady increase in fans.
Anyone got any solutions to this problem?
Cheers
Ian
nice post its really helpful me. thanks dear
This is a great post, I’m always looking out for more viral marketing techniques. Thanks a lot!
I do agree with you thoroughly about taking Viral marketing.I think th with Viral marketing you can get your business to the masses. Thank you.