Business Models Using Viral Marketing With Social Media
Almost daily I hear individuals tell me that they just don't understand how social media can help their businesses or further business objectives. It does take time to move individuals like that towards the light. Much longer than I have for this blog post. The best and easiest way I have found is to provide real examples of online success with business models surrounding the online social media sphere.
One example, Woot inc. is a North Texas based company that has been amplified through social media over the past few years. Ranked as the #1 twitter site in Dallas and 54 in the country, Woot has 1.4 million followers on twitter. They offer a single cool buzz worthy product daily that is bought and sold wholesale often times through closeout merchandise manufacturers. SALE, SALE, SALE! items. Lets face it....everyone loves a deal but everyone buys a "steal". Place a time frame to buy on that offer and you've got a feeding frenzy of followers (say that fast three times). A frenzy to the tune of $164 million last year and the CEO Matt Rutledge predicts double-digit percent growth for 2009. Not bad in a down economy.
Not every company is going to be able to leverage online social media like that but hopefully what people will begin to understand is that there is possibility and opportunity with a little creativity.
