The “Idea Virus”
Here's how product teams can factor the element of "virality" in so as to shape the success of the product...
Fun fact: “This post has nothing whatsoever to do with Covid”!
Lenny Rachitsky recently came up with an article covering the story of an App called Saturn over a tête-à-tête with cofounders Dylan Diamond & Max Baron.
Started way back in 2019 the App targets Gen-Z school students in the USA and boasts of these figures:
Simply put the App could be thought of as a social network that is centered around the calendar and targeted at high school students in the USA. According to their website:
“Saturn helps high school students organize their busy lives by syncing up their activity schedules & sharing it with peers from a specific school”
Here are a few chief lessons learnt from their journey: -
Focus on how you can offer & better that personalized experience than changing the App entirely to suit a certain user persona
Don't over personalize if the TAM is small (if you're launching for X audience try & see how it can fit in with an immediate subset of audience)
Always think BIG, whilst still paying enough heed to things that are SMALL
Turn initial single-user signups to AMBASSADORS & hinge on their word of mouth to move the numbers on sign-ups
Amongst all those learnings, the last point is going to be a matter of prime interest here as for the scope of this article.
Idea Virus & the Virality
Over his book “Unleashing the Idea Virus”, Seth Godin describes how one ought to build products by factoring the virality aspect in so as to be able to leverage the power of word-of-mouth marketing by the users & happen to use the product regularly, which could be deemed equivalent to “referrals” given the pirate metrics (AARRR) as introduced by Sean Ellis but there happens to be a slight difference between the two.
Getting down to the elements they could be essentially perceived as 2 different marketing strategies viz: Viral & Referral Marketing.
Let’s establish the difference between those two:
Preparing the Idea Virus
Seth Godin talks of 8 variables (aka fundamental principles) that govern the idea virus over his book and how they ought to be tweaked so as to optimize for virality.
Let’s go over each of those individually.
Hive
Hive is a section of the market that not just identifies but closely associates with the problem or a pain point your product is trying to solve. And it would work wonders if your hive has a major number of sneezers given how all of them resonate with the underlying issues pretty well.
Remember it is the probability of that product hitting success and you are hinging on the reach for that, so it is only but natural that you look for the right section of an audience / the right hive so as to maximize all metrics that matter.
Sneezers
One could think of sneezers as the most influential people who could take one good look at your product or sample it and then help you increase your reach manifold. Given the current era of social networking they could be “influencers” who obviously leverage their reach, networking and the ability to rub it off by amplifying the content.
Partnering with the right sneezers empowering them with the right amount of information ought to lead to optimizing your reach in the market, so ensure it is always you who is choosing them and not the other way around & do it wisely.
Velocity
Everything idea in the world (even if it were to be the best) does have a shelf life, which is to say the relevance to a given market operating around the choices they have in the ecosystem and not to mention how that affects the collective attention span of the hive. So, the best bet is to get the sneezers to wield their spell over the hive as quick as possible enabling one to get their noses in front and gun for that early mover advantage.
Vector
When sneezers take an idea out to the market and blow it up for the audience to take notice, the chances of it sticking & sticking pretty well with the hive is down to a factor which could be the “relevance” and a vector could be perceived as the direction of the hive for not everything could resonate with the audience even if the most powerful sneezers were to be talking about it. Even the most powerful sneezers may fail to make an impact if there is a mismatch in the vector. So, ensure you choose & employ the right sneezers to reach the right hive so as to exploit the vector to your advantage.
Medium
A hive may witness many sneezers belting out eclectic ideas at them at knots pace. Given a particular hive there could be something they deeply care about and consider it paramount given the acute value it adds to their lives. The medium here signifies something tangible that adds direct value to the users, sans which everything & everyone may feel hollow & lack purpose.
Smoothness
Let’s face it, there are all kinds of products in the world. When some are really complex given the problem they are solving for, on the flip side some are absolutely simple and capable of solving the most complex problems. It doesn’t take rocket science to understand the latter kind is the one that tends to stick with the audience for long. The smoothness refers to the ease with which the hive understands the sneezers & instantly resonate with & buy into it.
Persistence
Talking of smoothness and the need to identify which idea sticks with the audience for a longer term, that’s got a bearing on persistence which is the amount of time the product / idea seems relevant to the hive. Markets, people & needs are subject to change with time, nothing lasts forever. But, needless to say that it’d be great if the term of association is long enough for an idea multiplying the potential of the sneezers manifold.
Amplifier
Amplifying the right content is more crucial than just amplifying random or all content over a hive. Given the dynamics of a hive it is possible that it comprises of a mix of people, some very happy, some not so much and some neutral. When it is possible that negative voices could spread in the vector, albeit double-quick in comparison to the positive ones, curbing that negativity by resolving their concerns becomes absolutely quintessential paving way for positivity to take over and act as an amplifier.
Remember:
“Not considering the virality factor when building products today could end up being a cardinal sin given how the entire world seems to have pivoted on social networking channels, …after all you are essentially building for people”