Viral Marketing
Keywords: Viral Marketing, Word-of-Mouth, Social Networks, Sharing
Guide: Asst Prof. Sougata Karmakar, IIT Guwahati
Duration: August 2012 - April 2013
Project Description
The project is an experimental investigation of the factors affecting the Virality of Online Content through SNS, which means to investigate the concept of Viral Marketing in relation to the psychology of sharing, in order to answer the following research questions:
- RQ1 - What are the most important factors determining whether or not a person would open the viral message shared with him by one of his acquaintances, in the context of Social Networking Services?
- RQ2 - What are the factors most important factors determining whether the person would in turn share the content with his acquaintances?
An experimental setup has been proposed in order to investigate the affect of above mentioned factors on Virality of any online content.
Experimental Model
Every Decision making process has three stages acccording to the Multi-Stage Model for decision making, namely Awareness Stage, Interest Stage and Final Decision-Making. We are trying to measure the effect of various factors mentioned below, in influencing a person's 'Intent to Forward' or to share a viral message/video:
- Tie Strength
- Perceptual Affinity
- Demographic Similarity
- Source Expertise
- Attitude towards the Message
- Attitude towards its Brand
Portfolio > Research Projects > Viral Marketing