Viral Marketing in Social Networks

In this bachelor thesis, tangible recommendations for launching and waging viral campaigns in social networks for promoting business were given. Despite the vast body of literature written on the topic, authors only provide some general and vague directions for carrying out viral campaigns, but never any specific suggestions. This bachelor thesis examines the phenomenon of viral transmission on the example of the viral campaign “28 Again”, launched by POPS hairdresser’s salon. The paper employs three approaches: the first one is addressing the psychological aspect of the campaign as the search for emotional transmission triggers; the second one is examination of the environment as the analysis of the social network of POPS’ official VKontakte page followers; the third one is the analysis of campaign’s seeding strategy as the evaluation of the audience reach. Based on these three approaches, the paper suggests the following aspects, which should be taken into consideration while launching and carrying out viral campaigns in the Internet: including some value for customers in the message (information, discount or artistic merit, i.e. advertising as the work of art); orientation on positive emotional messages (humour or inspiring social advertising); seeding strategies targeting groups of users (the groups of linked hubs or groups of people, associated with one social circle, i.e. groups of colleagues, same year university graduates, etc.).