7 Viral Marketing tactics for mobile sites

[*james*]

Hey all - as a follow up to 12 ways to promote your mobile site (http://mobility.mobi/showthread.php?p=90483#post90483) I've come up with 7 Viral Marketing Tactics for Mobile Services (http://blog.mjelly.com/2009/01/viral-marketing-on-mobile.html) reposted below:

7 viral marketing tactics for mobile services

1. Link to contacts/ address book

Linking into your email address book/ contact list has been the key way that sites like Bebo (http://www.bebo.co.uk/) and Facebook (http://facebook.com/) and others have grown traffic and users virally. Until recently, this hasn't been something that mobile social networks have used (or any other types of mobile sites for that matter). However, this is no longer true - Heysan (http://heysan.com/), a mobile messaging service and mobile chat community have developed a fantastic mobile implementation of this feature - check it out in the mobile screenshot below:

http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536a4c301970b-800wi (http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536a4c301970b-pi)


This functionality is not without its critics - whenever we cover Heysan people complain that they are "spamming" using this feature. However, without out it, we would never have achieved critical mass in services like facebook. Heysan (http://www.mjelly.com/site/3390-Heysan-mobile-messaging) also follow good practices like asking permission before using your address book in this way. Plus - the traffic that Heysan (http://www.mjelly.com/mobile/site/3390) is building says it all - amazing growth to 100m page views a month and 600k users (http://blog.mjelly.com/2008/11/heysan-usage-statistics-show-it-is-really-rocking-the-mobile-web.html).

2. Integrate with Facebook

Another viral mechanism that the web guys have been using recently is integrating with Facebook, mainly through developing a facebook application which can be promoted within the newsfeeds or through mass invites. Again, this isn't something mobile services have made much use of - until now! Locle (http://locle.com/) - a fantastic Irish mobile LBS startup has managed to integrate its service with the facebook mobile extension of the developer platform - allowing them to promote their mobile app and site through the social network. This is the first time I've seen anyone doing this on mobile and it's potentially incredibly powerful.

http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536ad122a970c-800wi (http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536ad122a970c-pi)

3. Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/) blasting

Twitter is a great fit with mobile as a lot of users are mobile savvy and people often get twitter messages fed to them via mobile either through SMS or mobile web on m.twitter.com (http://www.mjelly.com/site/3340-Twitter-mobile-site) or a third party client like m.slandr.net (http://www.mjelly.com/site/3333-Slandr-mobile-twitter) or dabr.co.uk (http://www.mjelly.com/site/3400-Dabr-mobile-twitter). Twitter have made it easy for mobile sites to be shared over their network through their API - you can easily create a form on your mobile site to allow a user to login to twitter and share the site to their followers.

http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536ad1420970c-800wi (http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536ad1420970c-pi)

A slightly more complex version of this is an auto-ping using twitter where twitter is automatically blasted when you use the service. The best example of this is Qik (http://mjelly.com/app/3423-Qik-Live-Video-Streaming) which sends out a customized message to your twitter followers when you start streaming.
http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536b4d422970c-800wi (http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536b4d422970c-pi)


4. 'Tell a friend' - via SMS
SMS is the obvious viral channel for mobile, as unlike email, 99.9% of people have it right on their phone, and you can click straight through from an SMS to a mobile internet site or to a download. Some mobile sites like mippin, have experimented with providing users with free SMS to tell friends with - but they found that some users were abusing the feature as a way of sending free SMS (http://blog.mippin.com/2008/03/amusing-but-cautionary-sms-tale.html) ! However, if the user is willing to pay to send the text (not unrealistic if they are on a text bundle - or feeling generous) it is quite easy to enable someone to text their friends about a mobile site.
You just use the following XHTML code to automatically create an SMS with your URL and message filled in when the users clicks on it:
<a href="sms:?body=Check out the X at http://m.domain.com (http://m.domain.com/)"> <b> Sharethis site</b></a>


See the screenshot below - which was fired up through a text link on the taptu (http://mjelly.com/site/3328-Taptu-Mobile-search) (mobile search startup) home page:
http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536a4c0f2970b-800wi (http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536a4c0f2970b-pi)

5. IM status 'hijacking'

This is quite a neat trick being used by some of the messaging aggregators including Fring (http://www.mjelly.com/app/3353-Fring-free-calls-and-IM). When a user signs into its mobile instant messaging platform it changes your status message to include its URL e.g. "on mobile by www.fring.com" - see below - a great way of giving a mobile app visibility to anyone logged into a messaging service.
http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536ad1d0c970c-800wi (http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536ad1d0c970c-pi)


6. message footers
Message footers were one of the original viral tactics used most famously to help spread hotmail, which attached a link back to hotmail at the bottom of all messages sent using the email system. This tactic is already being used on mobile pretty extensively - for example all Blackberry's typically attach a footer to the email sent with them like this:
http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536abf18c970b-800wi (http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536abf18c970b-pi)
Google also does something similar with messages sent via the google mail application:
http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536ad1e7c970c-800wi (http://jamescoops.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341e2daf53ef010536ad1e7c970c-pi)
Obviously this only works for apps with a messaging system or email of some kind. However, people like igloo.mobi (http://igloo.mobi/) are ***ering a free mobile email service (http://igloo.mobi/router_module.php?type=mashup&mo=mail&pag=index) bolted on to their other services like a directory, chat sites, site builders and so on. So - it might be possible for more types of mobile sites to use this approach.

7. Adding a URL to content downloads

Last but not least, here's a trick we use at mjelly.com (http://mjelly.com/). When someone downloads a ringtone from the site the mjelly.com URL is added to the file name (e.g. mjelly.com - doorbell.mp3 click on the link here to see the example http://mjelly.com/track/download/3295-Dingdong-Doorbell (http://mjelly.com/track/download/3295-Dingdong-Doorbell) . This means that anyone that bluetooths the mp3 file to a friend will help to spread the word about mjelly. We get a lot of searches for mjelly.com on the site so this seems to work quite well!

Would be great to know any other techniques there are out there! You can read the full post here http://blog.mjelly.com/2009/01/viral-marketing-on-mobile.html

[developmy.mobi]

4. 'Tell a friend' - via SMS
SMS is the obvious viral channel for mobile, as unlike email, 99.9% of people have it right on their phone, and you can click straight through from an SMS to a mobile internet site or to a download. Some mobile sites like mippin, have experimented with providing users with free SMS to tell friends with - but they found that some users were abusing the feature as a way of sending free SMS (http://blog.mippin.com/2008/03/amusing-but-cautionary-sms-tale.html) ! However, if the user is willing to pay to send the text (not unrealistic if they are on a text bundle - or feeling generous) it is quite easy to enable someone to text their friends about a mobile site.
You just use the following XHTML code to automatically create an SMS with your URL and message filled in when the users clicks on it:
<a href="sms:?body=Check out the X at http://m.domain.com (http://m.domain.com/)"> <b> Sharethis site</b></a>


This is awesome! Learn something new every day, thanks for sharing!

rep+

[newdomainer]

Cool... thanks again James..

[miellas]

Excellent information. Thank you for sharing James.

[domainitrix]

Awesome informations,thanks!

[andymoore]

7. Adding a URL to content downloads

Last but not least, here's a trick we use at mjelly.com (http://mjelly.com/). When someone downloads a ringtone from the site the mjelly.com URL is added to the file name

People may rename files so having this in the filename isn't the most reliable way to do it.

A more solid way to get your brand into your audio downloads is to use ID3 tags and add your URL and message within the meta data of the file.

http://getid3.sourceforge.net/

It can still be edited but setting an artist, title and URL is a good addition to having your URL in the file name.

With ID3 you can set a title and that will sometimes show in the media player so you could have it say "Doorbell Ringtone from mjelly.com"

Graphic meta data is managed through EXIF.

As for video downloads it's a good idea to 'top and tail' your videos with a few frames promoting your URL and your message.

:)

[GijsZePa]

:adore::adore:

Thank you very much James !!!!!

Martin (repped)

[Scrapman]

Tip 8

Allow your users to have a subdomain to build a mobile page/site with email.

So AndyMoore has LedZep.mobi. User gets: oldhippy.LedZep.mobi Puts up his links creates his own affiliates from your aff list, you share revenues with your users. The user shares with all his friends. They can; like admob; use credits for buying apps etc.

There are so many great generic .mobis owned by our members we could create a utility.

If this makes sense PM.

By the way *James* have you been to the Affiliate Summit conferences.

I went to the last one in Boston and made great headway. Thanks for all your posts.

[andymoore]

@scrap - ledzep aint one of mine, it's just a gem which has been parked on the network.

so you mean tip 8 would be user generated content?

[Scrapman]

I know you don,t own LedZep

That was an example, just didn't want to spell the whole thing out.

But ya, UGC Give away subs to users.

I believe this will work huge in a viral manner.

I own rocker.mobi, so my user gets oldhippy.rocker.mobi I supply a wysywig for him from one of the providers. mobisitegalore or what ever.

I own mobisitegalores enterprise software.

By the way I love your sites, vision, and work ethics.

[*james*]

@andymoore - thanks for that tip will look into it - although i reckon 90% of people wont bother to change the file name on mobile - too much of a pain?

@scrapman - good point on subdomains etc - has been very effective for people like Texomobile/ Igloo with their dirlink products etc plus all the site builders - in fact that's a whole new area i could cover including all the guys ***ering mobile guestbooks etc etc

@others - thanks for the props glad it was useful

[william1]

Wow that's an informative post and thank you for sharing good stuff. I feel in viral marketing, through a direct advertising campaign or through the sheer power of the incredible viral mechanisms, internet marketers will receive contact details as a lead for list building

[lydabryant]

:adore: Facebook integration is great!
with millions of facebook users out there, there's no doubt you can spread the VIRUS... :hmmmm2:
:laugh:

[Museum-Tracker]

<a href="sms:?body=Check out the X at http://m.domain.com (http://m.domain.com/)"> <b> Sharethis site</b></a>

<a href="sms:?body=Check out Today's Creators http://www.museum-tracker.com/blog/ - a daily bulletin celebrating those that have created the things we love."> <b>Share Today's Creators</b></a><BR>Link to send a text message about Today's Creators to a friend (works only on mobile phones).I tried this (with my correct details as above) on a Nokia 2760 phone and get an "Invalid web address" error message.

Any suggestions ?

David Berghouse

[mobihead]

you will need to check the type of phone supports it - pity that it is not a universal standard can be useful if done well - see

http://mobiforge.com/forum/developing/mobile-development/sms-a-xhtml-mp-webpage

[andyparker01]

some of this are unknown to me before. thanks for sharing.

[*james*]

Glad this post is still delivering value ... thanks for the comments guys

[Mobidomainer]

Very interestiong.
Thanks for this info / tools !!!!

[Rudolph]

Excellent information. Thank you so much for that. The goal of viral marketing is to make sweeping promotional ads and uncover all attainable income sources in less time possible. It's as if creating stories that might blow the ears of everybody who will hear - making a phenomenon known as talk-of-the-town. The talk-of-the-city phenomenon spreads quick like a virus. This is the strategy behind Viral marketing.