During a decade in Interactive marketing, I’ve heard a litany of long answers to this question. Too many of them assume “viral” only happens on the Internet, or that “viral” means “short online video clip with some immeasurable entertainment value”. The true reason we call it “viral” marketing is because we notice a message behaving in ways analogous to a biological virus.

Biologically (or pathologically) speaking,  “a virus is an infectious agent that is unable to grow or reproduce outside a host. [Viruses] use the machinery and metabolism of a host to produce multiple copies of themselves.” [source] Basically, a virus needs a host to survive and replicate.

For all advertisers, the “host” is the audience. So, consider the audience your only medium. Everything else is a channel of this medium. Television, outdoor, mobile, console games, banner ads, radio, branded USB drives, micro-sites, kiosks, widgets, print, DVDs, podcasts… these are all channels of the audience.

Early adopters of the Internet could see the potential for digital media, particularly the Internet, to revolutionize the way messages spread through an audience.

Harvard Business School’s Jeffrey Rayport coined the term “viral marketing” in a December 1996 article for Fast Company magazine: “Viruses do not spread by chance. They let the high-frequency behaviors of their hosts -- social interaction, email, Websurfing -- carry them into new territories.” [source]

In his 1994 book Media Virus!, Douglas Rushkoff explored the idea of viral marketing, from within the larger idea of a "media virus" (which is essentially a synonym for a meme): “if such an advertisement reaches a 'susceptible' user, that user will become 'infected' and can then go on to infect other susceptible users.”

Take “twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonionsonasesameseedbun” for example:

Consumers have had this run-on Big Mac lyric memorized since its introduction in 1975. It is arguably the most viral message McDonald’s has ever given the English-speaking world, and I’m fairly certain it was neither pitched nor sold as “viral”. Not in 1975.

Which makes me think: perhaps none of our ideas should be pitched or sold as “viral”. Viral is a behavior of the audience, not the ad agency. We can craft a message (in the form of a video, a website, a catch-phrase, or whatever form of “brand experience” we dream up), but we don’t make it viral. What we make are means by which a message can become viral; we help it along, make it “sticky” and “easy to spread”.

To keep things in the parlance of biology, we create the (ideal) conditions through which a virus can become contagious, find adequate hosts, and replicate. To marketers, "viral" is simply another term for word-of-mouth, however enabled by the technology available at the time.

All that said, there is a short and simple answer to the question posed in this post’s title:

For interactive marketers, the comment may be the single most-feared aspect of an online social network. If you don’t allow comments, you risk being seen as anti-social, thus defeating the purpose of your presence on a social network. (The Web is predicated on conversation, after all.) The fear of what people really have to say about us is something we have got to get over, and quickly. There are missed opportunities in comments, when you see comments for what they really are: the online equivalent of gossip.

That’s a conclusion I arrived at after reading today’s BoingBoing post about the science of gossip. Evolutionary psychologists exploring why we gossip share their latest on why we can’t stop ourselves from dishing:

In many popular online social networks, the comment is the currency of socialization. If you post a funny photo to Facebook, I leave a comment on it. If my band posts a new song to MySpace, we know how well it is liked by the comments we receive, and by how many other users add that song to a playlist.

As smaller groups within networks become more established, they also tend to self-regulate. For example, Consumerist.com hired a Comments Moderator who regularly updates the site’s Comments Code – which has actually brought back readers who abandoned the site after experiencing inappropriate comments from other users. The code reassured site members of the accepted norms of this community. Smaller special-interest groups like this, and the measures they take to reinforce a sense community, resemble the workings of tribal culture from which modern civilization evolved.

Translated to online social networks: your brand may be the stranger who’s wandered into a small group with little or no proof of membership. That’s when it’s time to start speaking the language.

If comments are a form of gossip, and
Gossip is proof of membership in a group, then
Comments are proof of membership in a group.

Brands that want to fit in on social networks should take note. Consider leaving some insightful comments out there, and forget what your mother taught you about gossip being all bad.
 

There’s a lot of talk (and type) about how “social media is the new customer service”. Let’s consider that for a moment.

In the same way many people use the term “media” incorrectly as a singular, there may be as many or more people mistaken about what constitutes a “social medium”. Buzzwords and grammatical errors aside, all media are inherently social. Calling anything a “social medium” is redundant. (There is no such thing as an anti-social medium!)

Man invented media because he needed them to help us socialize and spread culture beyond the confines of vocalization and gestures. From cave-paintings and hieroglyphics to the alphabet and printing press; from the telephone and fax machine to VOIP and SMS, media are invented, optimized and improved upon to serve the spread of our culture. Interactive or "social" media allow better fidelity and more immediacy – which are huge improvements over more primitive media, but still serve the same basic purpose when it comes to customer service.

Merchants needed ways to learn what satisfied or dissatisfied their customers, and couldn’t always ask in person at the point of purchase. Customer service has always depended on “social” media to achieve its purpose. But it’s not a medium, it’s an experience. That said, I think the intention of the quote was more like: there are many new means to achieve better customer service, and many of those are proving to be digital media. It’s no secret that our culture has gradually shifted from mass-media to media-of-the-masses. Read just one page of Consumerist and it’s clear that customers aren’t experiencing better service solely because of interactive media. Customer service representatives don’t magically become more sociable just because they have new technology at their disposal. It's not the medium, but you use it that matters.

Buzzwords have the tendency to obscure more meaning than they grant. “Social” media are not replacing customer service, but they are opportunities to improve it. The right media for a given company depends on the type of transaction or service provided. For example, when I had an issue with the repair warranty on a home computer, I called an 800 number and spoke to a customer service representative directly. A website’s FAQs or company Facebook profile is useless if my computer is broken. Once my computer was fixed by a repairman who came to my home, I got a follow-up call to make sure I was happy, and an email summary of the repair. That was the single best customer service experience I’ve ever had.

Likewise, if I can’t find a store in a mall, I’ll check the directory map near the entrance. If I’m at the pub with friends and I have a random question I want answered before our next round arrives, I’ll call or text chacha.com (thanks for the tip, Liz). Customer service is about being there and being useful, wherever and whenever it is that your customers are in need.

This BusinessWeek article, How Companies Use Twitter to Bolster Their Brands, made me think. At first, I didn't get much further than the subtitle:

The “creepy trend” part is slightly confusing. What’s so creepy about attentive customer service? Monitoring Twitter feeds that mention your brand is one thing, and a no-brainer at that. Like any social network, online or offline, this is an environment in which brands are expected to be sociable. Tweeting back to the offended party might be a more appropriate response than no response at all.

Sure, the potential is there for brand voices to come off as creepy, awkward or forced when venturing into emerging social situations such as Twitter feeds – but brand voices face the same challenge in every medium. The anxiety expressed by the BusinessWeek article reflects the hesitation many marketers have for social networks like Twitter.

There are good reasons for that hesitation. Twitter is new, and therefore a little scary for some. Like blogs and other social networks, it demands dedicated resources. Twitter is unreliable, now notorious for repeated outages and network down time. Twitter is instantly public – whatever you do is out there for everyone to see, right away. Sounds intimidating.

There are good reasons to be brave, too, because it’s pretty cool when it works well. GM used Twitter in an attempt to help a ready-to-buy customer at a Saturn dealership who couldn’t find a salesman. Jet Blue uses Twitter to monitor customers in need of information on flight delays or cancellations. Brands like Dell, Comcast, and Whole Foods recognize the Twitter user as an “influencer” of a target audience, and pay attention accordingly. The potential for evolving customer service is huge. The immediacy can work to a brand's advantage, enabling real-time responses that reach a consumer wherever he or she may be. This is a new means for brands to prove their usefulness to consumers, but it's probably not for everyone.

Still, what’s so creepy about it? The article points out that “not all Tweeters want Corporate America following their Tweets” -- yet they continue to post Tweets for everyone to read! That’s a conflicting message, but it’s also a defense mechanism. These influencers are still getting used to the personal transparency that, in many ways, resembles the same transparency consumers want from their favorite brands. Transparency can be a scary thing, because there's no hiding once you have it. Right now, these conflicting messages keep corporations guessing about how best to socialize their brands.

Personally, I’m fascinated that people who willingly and publicly broadcast their lives, 140 characters at a time, are so surprised to learn that the likes of Jet Blue or Zappos are reading Twitter feeds. Because, really, which is creepier: microblogging your every move for the entire world to read, or responding to a single post that implicates your brand or business by name?

Trolling through the Red Ferret Journal today, I came upon a post about a new video enhancing technology that augments video with still photography (to over-simplify it). The implications for advertisers are potentially huge: you could replace products in video you’ve already shot, polish user-submitted videos for a campaign, or tailor elements of a single video to different geographic locations or audience segments. Below is the demonstrational video created by the team developing this software. For you video editors, they’ve posted most of the source code, too. Here’s what they had to say about the qualities their technology can lift from a photograph and apply to a video:

I have two three main reasons for posting this vintage organizational chart used by Walt Disney.

1. It captures a method of organization that worked well.
2. It offers organizational insight to a creative company like ours.
3. “Nurse” and “morgue” are listed among management roles.

View larger chart.
[via Neatorama]

The ten things include the origins of the Internet, from a 1963 memo about an "intergalactic computer network" to ARPANET (pre-cursor to the Internet we have today), to the first instances of spam and web logs. Not an exhaustive list, as made clear by a few of Neatorama's commenters, but an enlightening look at the origins of a technological evolution that helps pay our bills. From the post:

... how much do you know about the Internet? Did you know that you have the Soviets to thank for this wonderful invention? Or that despite the flack that he got for inventing the Internet, Al Gore actually did play a major role in the creation of the Net?

It's easy to take for granted a lot of technology that wasn't available just ten years ago (when a few of us started working here). But understanding where the Internet came from can help us understand where it's going next, which can be a huge advantage in our line of work.
 

Mashable today posts 35+ Examples of Corporate Social Media In Action. The key is that these companies are all experimenting with social media – a venue that (when done well) requires more flexibility and resilience than traditional advertising. From the post:

It’s probably worth our time to be acquainted with the examples, which run the gamut from Adobe to Zappos. Lists like this are great resources for companies like Tribal who continue to lead our clients toward fruitful social media efforts - whether B2B, B2C or P2P. The more we know about this stuff, the more we can educate our clients and sell work that gets people talking. Or typing, as the case may be.

It's worth noting that this is not just a Radiohead promotion. This is a significant marketing move for Google, tying a major international rock band to a variety Google properties like YouTube, iGoogle, Gadget Ads, and Google Code in one succinct effort. Smart stuff.

When was the last time you pitched Google Code as campaign tactic?

The English electronic duo Groove Armada, in Miami at the Bacardi B-Live event, is being promoted by Bacardi.
[Rob Loud Photography]  - Photo, caption lifted from NYT.

There was an interesting article in Monday’s New York Times about companies like Procter & Gamble, Red Bull and Nike who are “stepping outside their core businesses to promote, finance and even distribute music themselves.” From the article:

The article spun into the blogosphere, on its way here, stopping at sites like Marktd, which dares to declare “marketers are the new record labels.”

Well, sort of. That statement requires a couple qualifications...

First, it’s probably more accurate to declare that anyone can be a record label now. It costs less than $100 to get a barcode and distribute an album in stores like iTunes and Rhapsody (the barcode means your sales are charted). If I can release my own album into the same retailers that stock the Top 40, and do so on a hobbyist-musician’s budget, then why wouldn’t a brand with big marketing budgets do more than dabble?

Second, brands are taking advantage much as they always have, especially in terms of underwriting content. My parents aren’t old enough to remember watching the Camel News Caravan (which aired from 1949 to 1956), but the soap opera is an example we’ve all heard of. Soap operas were named such because they were underwritten by Colgate-Palmolive, Lever Brothers and – this one will sound familiar – Procter & Gamble.

That was the Golden Age of Television. Did anyone claim that brands were the new television networks? Hard to say; The WayBack Machine doesn’t go back that far. I tend to suspect the answer is "no". Most of the televised content we've consumed in our lifetime was free because of corporate sponsors. Even PBS and NPR are underwritten. While this new underwriting of music makes for headlines that sell newspapers and banner ad placements, it's essentially just the latest spin on a tactic that's been practiced for decades.

The idea we can take away is: brands have always underwritten content, and with new digital means of distributing content come new opportunities to sponsor, underwrite, and embark on joint-ventures. The challenge is in selecting and creating partnerships that will be beneficial to all parties involved.

UPDATE: Or, perhaps the challenge is finding the right record label for your agency to buy outright. And then finding musicians who will want to sign to an ad agency.