Facebook: As a Viral Vehicle

Let's take a look at one of the most popular social networking sites out there from a viral marketing perspective.

Have you heard of or used Facebook?

I kept getting emails from all my friends inviting me to join facebook. You know what went through my head everytime?

"Not another frickin' Social Networking site!!"

I mean really, how many of these things are we expected to sign up for and start profiles in?

Well along came my sister, and she said "You gotta join it, it's incredible, it's NOT like the other social networking sites!" I was certainly skeptical, but she kept insisting that it was so amazing that she was meeting up with all her old classmates from high school, university, old groups of friends she hadn't seen in years etc...

So I signed up for it, and the first thing that amazed me about it, was the fact that it'll go through your address books on Yahoo, MSN, Gmail, etc.. if you let it, and invite everyone automatically. Ok, so this isn't entirely a new feature, I've seen it before, but it's still an incredibly effective way to get a lot of users real quick through simple word of mouth marketing.

Once I started using it, I realized what's so special about it. It really is different than the other social networking sites. It allows you to see an RSS feed of all your friends daily activities, including new friends that they make. This last part is important, because when you see a friend befriend a friend of yours that you're not currently friends with on Facebook, then you'll be able to go add them too. (Did you follow that?) This really grows your network real quick and easy.

It also keeps you in the loop on whatever your friends are up to. What parties they're going to, whose wall's they're posting on, and let's you see the latest pictures people are posting. Now the pictures are an interesting feature, because you can tag other friends when you see them in a picture and then that picture shows up on their profile pics. Interesting isn't it. I certainly thought so.

Another thing is the groups. There are groups for different schools and educational institutes so you can meet up with all your old friends from highschool and any other groups of friends that find their way to Facebook and start their own groups.

So where am I going with all this?

First of all, this site is growing virally by being arguably the best social networking site online for keeping in touch with friends.

Secondly, because it makes keeping in touch with people as easy as pie, it also means that it's ripe and ready to be utilized as a viral vehicle.

A viral vehicle is something that can carry your viral marketing message to others who can then use the vehicle to spread the message further on to others, etc, etc, etc,...

So all one has to do is find a way to seed your viral message in Facebook, and watch it grow.

I've already seen this working with chain-letter type of messages being posted on peoples walls (Each user has a wall which comments can be posted on by friends). Someone will post a message which has a note to post on 5 friends walls or suffer the consequences.

Now I don't recommend posting such chain-letter style posts. But certainly if you have some incentive to encourage others to spread your message, then they most certainly will, and Facebook will make it a very easy task for them.

They can just pick and choose which friends would be interested in your message and easily send the message along.

Anyways, i just wanted to introduce you to Facebook, if you haven't already discovered it, and get you to start thinking of ways in which it can be utilized as a powerful viral vehicle.

Peace and Prosperity,

Jambhala Rinpo
ViralMarketingBuzz.com
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