An easy-to-follow recipe of Seth Godin's "Unleashing the Ideavirus". Techniques for choosing influencers and making it easy to spread your message.

1. A recipe for
spreading your ideas virally
Vishy Poosala
http://innovation-edge.blogspot.com
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2. Is this for you?
• Do you have an innovative idea for
a product or service?
– See how you can insert “viral”
marketing hooks right from the start
• Do you already have a product or
service, and want to grow your
user base at a low cost
– Add new web 2.0 elements to your
marketing plan
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3. How to use this recipe?
3 Simple Steps
1. Read the fundamentals
2. Follow the recipe flowchart and plug in the
specifics of your marketing
3. Start implementing them, ASAP
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4. What this is and What this is not
It helps you start spreading your idea worldwide at a low cost
– It applies best if your idea is something that can be spread online
– It applies even better if your idea deals with communication
services (but not necessary)
It’s a presentation of stuff I’ve read and heard from others
– It’s not original work by me
– Much of it from “Unleashing the Ideavirus”, by Seth Godin
Use this along with other sources and your best judgment. Wish
you good luck!
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5. Ok, one reason for viral marketing
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6. What?
• Ideavirus, Meme: an idea the spreads
quickly from one person to many people,
almost like it has life
– VW Beetle, online greeting cards, social
networking, macarena!
• Viral Marketing: the usage of the product
itself makes it viral
– hotmail, FB Like
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7. Basic idea
1. Focus on dominating a tightly-knit subgroup of users
(“hive”), rather than the entire world
2. Start with the key influencers in the community
(“sneezers”)
3. Make it worthwhile and really easy for them to spread
the idea (“smoothness”)
4. Put in hooks that help the ideas spread fast and for
long (“velocity”, “persistence”)
5. Have a direction for the first hive, and then the world
(“vector”)
6. All of this is easier if the idea can fill a vacuum
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8. Sneezers
• Powerful people on the topic
– Do it to help others, grow reputation,
tweet/blog
– Will only work if the idea is worthwhile
• Promiscuous: will sneeze for a reward
– Offer meaningfully big rewards ($1000 if
you are lucky, rather than $1 for each)
– Show how volume of spreading improves
gains
– Path to rewards should be clear and not
change in the middle
– When one succeeds, tell the rest of them
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9. Plan to go viral
Stands out, START with
a purple cow the idea People know
others
Idea fills a
vacuum People
Choose the hive mingle often
reputation
powerful Rewards that grow
Identify sneezers & promiscuous
benefits
altruistic look helpful
by sharing invites Automatic with
Create a smooth usage
FB Page, FB
way to share Slogan,
Like, retweet
handout
Help the hive talk
Tell sneezers how Create events,
others are doing mailing lists
Track & Refine
Dominate Hive

10. Credits
• Unleashing the Ideavirus, by Seth
Godin
– You can buy the book or download it for
free
– Recommended: Purple Cow
• Personal experiences running a library
(Just Books, Yelahanka), a website
(alertpedia.com)
• Sources of images in this manual
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11. Thank you for reading and good luck!
• Liked it? Have any suggestions?
– Please leave me a note on my blog
http://innovation-edge.blogspot.com
• Share this presentation with others who may find it useful
http://twitter.com/vishyp
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