Is Viral Marketing Permission Marketing?
At SEMforSMB, I hear one speaker say that one type of permission marketing is Viral Marketing. He was saying that things like widgets and linkbait are just as good as emails, etc. I am not sure I agree there, if you think about what some people consider viral marketing. I must define before I move ahead, so please wait before butchering me. 
If linkbait is done the right way, it is just an extension of your regular marketing. It is an interesting article, list, or application that directly connects with your product. People know what they are using and reading is related to you and it makes them more interested in your product. If they like your marketing, your writing, and they then sign up for more information on their own, that is permission marketing.
But what some linkbait and viral marketing has become isn’t permission marketing. What you wrote, designed, or released is funny, fun to read, etc. But is it related to your product? If it’s not, and you get people’s info from it, or push your unrelated product in any way, it really isn’t permission marketing.
So I get his original point, but I’m not sure it applies in all terms of viral marketing.
I think the word “viral” is thrown around too casually. To be truly viral it needs to show exponential growth, like Hotmail, YouTube, and plateau with millions of users.
Anyone that can reach that level of growth is set for life.
Personally I think “list obsession” is a symptom of illiteracy and I hold Digg responsible for pushing the “link bait” concept. If you play the Digg game you just end up feeding Digg more traffic and more users, and you lose. I personally read Techmeme for tech news and there’s none of this “5 ways to do xyz” obsession over there.
Also “link bait” only works if your readers have domains and understand why sharing Pagerank is beneficial, which severely narrows down who you are reaching out to.
Comment by PJ Brunet
July 23rd, 2008 @ 10:02 am
I’d be interested to learn (as a total beginner) how the ‘loop’ is completed when trying to adopt internet marketing. If you look at The Meadow home page you will see that we are trying to market a novel recently completed by two co-authors.
The submissions protocols with publisers apparently does not work with new kids on the block so we are trying to attract traffic into our home page which is just another way of promoting our story.
Comment by Mike O'Hare
August 25th, 2008 @ 5:49 am