Viral Effects on Facebook

Facebook is a social networking website popular amongst college/Univeristy students and more. It started off being limited to Harvard students then began expanding to all Universities, high schools, and now just about anyone over the age of 13. Facebook has over 175 million users and over 3 billion minutes are spent on Facebook (worldwide) each day. I am currently in a class right now and a few of the people in front of me have Facebook up on their laptops. There are many avenues that marketers use to advertise on Facebook such as Fanpages, groups, and events. These methods are mostly consolidated and are targeted to people who already are current consumers or like the company. When people think of advertising on Facebook they first think of the Facebook ads. However, even with all the active users and time spent on Facebook, advertisers and marketers have found that using Facebook ads is little less than effective. Most of these 175 million users merely glance over the ads or not notice them at all. So how do you mitigate this phenomemnon? How do you advertise something beyond your fanpages and consoldiated consumer group?

I've recently noticed a crazy viral effect on Facebook in the form of notes and wall posts. In the past few weeks people everywhere have been posting their "25 random facts about me." People post 25 random facts about themselves on a Facebook note and then tag 25 of their friends that they want to do this as well. Within a few days of reading a first "25 random facts", suddenly my newsfeed is filled with friends and people from all different networks posting their "25 random facts". Different people in my networks were all being hit at once from my college peers, my high school cousins in California, to my 27-year-old working cousin in Houston. Another crazy viral effect that I'm starting to see hit is the "type of friends" wall po

st. This wall post is popping up all over my newsfeed:

People are tagging their friends as each of the individual "types of friends" portrayed by this cartoon. People that are not part of my mutual friend connection with one another are posting this photo. I believe it's going to begin another viral spread throughout facebook.

What does this have to do with marketing? Companies have tapped into viral marketing through YouTube, articles, and through the Facebook groups/fanpages. I'm proposing that a new viral marketing technique to consider is to create these unique "chains" through Facebook and have it associated with a product or company that people will pass through all their friends and networks.