What kind of viral network are you in?

Will viral marketing work for you?

Viral marketing is a craze but will it work for you?

You may think, duh! Everybody's doing this! It has to work!

Well, everybody was buying stock in 1999... until December, and then again in 2006-2007, until 2008. And everybody will chase another latest Internet marketing scheme or newest product today, tomorrow, in ten years.

The truth is, none of those techniques are silver bullets, but mot of them work if you know how to use them and when to use them. Viral marketing is not an exception.

So, will viral marketing work for you? It depends on what kind of viral network are you in.

Networks are different

You see, the only way to do viral marketing is on a network. It does not have to be a computer network, and even when you use Internet, it's NOT actually a computer network, it's always a social network, network of people. But networks are different, they have different, as mathematicians call it, topologies.

Topology is simply a pattern of a network. The simplest topology is a loose network, when you actually don't have any connections and therefore no network at all, but just a bunch of disconnected people.

Loose network

That's also the prime example of a network, where viral marketing does not work. That's pretty much Internet marketers networks before the Internet.

Typical Human Network

Of course, people are connected and they were connected long before Internet. There is a research showing that every person on Earth is somehow connected to any other person on Earth with no more than six people between them. It means that you know somebody, who knows somebody, who know somebody (six times), who knows any person you can think of. The chain will be different for different people, but just asking for referral six times will get you to any person on Earth, President Obama, Pope, Oprah, you name it.

The reason is that a typical human has connections which are very similar to the connections of a neurons (brain cells) in our brains. Both have a bunch of short local connections (friends, family, neighbors) plus a few long connections (a friend and former coworker, who moved to another coast, college buddy who now works in Europe, etc.) These long connections allow to go the distance.

Imagine that you need a contact to Pope. You ask your contacts, if they know anybody in Rome. Somebody usually does. Then you contact that guy in Rome (that's two connection, one local to your friend, and another long to his friend in Rome) and ask him for connection somewhere in the Vatican hierarchy, the higher the better. Rome is a very interconnected city, so some of his local friend smay have such connection. That's two more connections, again, one local, one long. And then Pope is definitely reachable in one or two connections. It's like, if you work at Microsoft, you certainly know somebody who knows Bill Gates. I am not saying that convincing all these people to get you to their connection is easy, it's probably next to impossible in this case, but the connections are there.

So, here is the typical human network (local links in orange, long links in blue, and, of course, local connections are not necessarily four, they vary):

Typical human network

No matter what you do, this is the base network of what you have to deal with, because that's how people are connected to each other.

General human network is a dream tool for a viral marketer because that's exactly what it is for. This is how we learn from each other, this is how we pass knowledge, this is how we cooperate and build alliances. And that's how we did that before schools, colleges, universities or Internet. However, unless you sell something that everybody needs, that's not the network that will carry your message.

Interest networks

Interest networks are subsets of the general human network with only people interested in a specific topic. Suppose, you want to advertise to Internet marketers. Pick any other niche if you prefer, but that's the one I will be using as an example. To make your message pass from one person to another you need both of them interested in Internet marketing. You may persuade your prospect to start bothering friends and family, but unless they are interested, it will be like getting untargeted traffic from AdWords: very expensive and totally useless. In fact, that's exactly what is it like. You will alienate your prospect, you will annoy a lot of people, you will spend money and time doing so, and you won't get the sales.

Now, the question is, does your prospect know somebody who is also interested in Internet marketing (or whatever you niche is)?

You can answer this question if you know the topology of the interest network for your niche, in our example, Internet marketing niche.

Imagine that people who are interested in Internet marketing are those marked green in this picture:

Interest network

In the example above, the interest network is basically a loose network with no marketing value at all. If this is your case, Google AdWords and other search engines and advertising networks are probably the only way to get the customers. And that's a very expensive way to get customers, so if that's the niche you are looking at, you may want to look someplace else.

Fortunately, most of interest networks have a much better topology. That happens because people tend to talk to each other about the things, they are passionate about, and spend more time with those, who are interested in the same things.

Hub Network

Most common interest network type is a Hub Network. Here is how it looks like.

Hub network

This is not the greatest network to do viral marketing, but it will work. In a Hub Network you have a few disconnected people with a lot of connections, and the rest connected to one or more hubs. Classic viral marketing does not work in a Hub Network, because most people are disconnected. However, once you get one of the hub people to carry your message, you bang for a buck goes wild. Naturally, most of hub people are well aware of their position and it probably will cost you money to make them publicize your message to their followers.

A classic example of a Hub Network is some low profit niche dominated by eZines. And guess why is it low profit? Because it costs a lot to advertise to it.

You may be temptet to think that Internet marketing niche has a hub network, but wait for a moment to see…

Guru Network

Guru Network is similar to the Hub Network, only in Guru Network hubs are very well interconnected. They know each other, they network on conferences, getaways and cruises, and they do Joint Vetures (JVs). Sounds familiar?

That's how Guru Network looks like:

Guru network

Notice that the rest of the people are still disconnected, so there is no sense to torture them for email addresses of their friends. Guru Network is also driven by deals with hubs ("gurus") and there is not much you can do with that. Is Internet marketing carried on Guru Network? Looks like that, however, that's probably not the complete story.

Cluster Network

Cluster Network is a combination of generic network and loose network. How can it be possible? Here is how:

Cluster network

In a cluster network people are organized into small and large clusters. They are very well connected inside their clusters, but the clusters themselves are mostly disconnected. What it gives you is that once you hit a cluster, you are likely to get a lot more people from the same cluster. Clusters work as sort of multiplicators significantly helping to pass the message, however, your message does not go between clusters.

Cluster network is the last form before the generic human network, which is essentially cluster network with long connections between clusters. One intermediate version will be a combination of Cluster Network and Hub or Guru Networks, where those extra long connections are provided by hubs or gurus.

A good example of a cluster network are reading groups for marketing a printed book.

So, what's in it for you?

Knowing your network is important, and it's different for each niche.

Loose network is a tough one unless your margins and conversion allow you to swallow advertising costs (AdWords) and still make a profit. You can improve that with some continuity (e.g. mailing list) however, especially if you develop several products, including backend products to sell. What's good about loose networks, your competition has similar problem when they are trying to steal your affiliate sales from you. On a loose network stealing is as hard as getting the customer. However, once you get the competition and it will start to do the same, your loose network may evolve into a Hub or even Guru network. Using affiliates to market your product on a loose network may be tough, because your affiliates will struggle and retention won't be that good. Affiliate trains may be helpful in this case. That's the type of networks, where you may want to think about PPC or PPC to CPA arbitrage, but test first if it works there.

Hub network based niches may work well for you as long as you have a unique proposition clearly distinct from niches used by hubs, but still addressing the same target audience. In this case, making hubs to promote your products through JVs may be not that tough to achieve.

On another hand, affiliate marketing in a hub network is somewhat difficult, because most people in it are already "infected" with hub's affiliate IDs, and even if you get somebody to have your cookie, it's likely to be overwritten soon by some hub, even if he promotes a different offer. Have you ever seen bonus offer ending with "Now, clean your cookies in the browser, go to this link and get the program. Once you do, send me the receipt to receive your bonuses." Guess what does it mean? All your Amazon and Clickbank affiliate cookies are gone that instant from the prospect's machine. That's not even stealing affiliate commissions, that nuking them into oblivion.

Guru network based niches have about the same advantages and issues as Hub networks. One big difference is that because gurus are interconnected, and they collectively own one of the most important advertising channels, it's your reputation among them that defines your success in the niche. Think about Hollywood.

And the last one, generic human network. It happens when your product has a very wide appeal. Think diet and weight loss. Think EXTRA income as opposed to replacing 9 to 5 with your own business. Think cosmetics. Generic human network is great for viral distribution and MLM. On another hand, it may be not that great for affiliate sales, because people are likely to pass the actual website, and not your message or your affiliate link to their friends. In other words, when it comes to on the generic human networks and unless you know some trick to sell there affiliate product, sell your own products there. And if it's a physical product, you should be the retailer, not an affiliate. If you want to attract affiliates, you may want start creating automatic retail webstores for them. Cookies won't do.

Now, how do you find out, which type of network you are in?

Yes, that's the tough one. I'll write about that soon.

This article is cross posted from my other site ViralMarketingetc.com