26 October 2009 Encouragement Award

Another quick ramble, this time about viral marketing. Specifically, the usual definition I read which is about "encouraging consumers to spread content among their social networks".Please tell me how one would "encourage consumers" to do so? Having a button that says "Send to a friend" is not encouragement (does anyone even click those things anyway?). I suppose disabling embedding might be an example of discouragement but I'm failing to see how marketers can actually encourage consumers to spread content. Incentives might be one way but can't think of a decent example that actually worked without the person looking like a complete sell out.The only thing that encourages consumers to spread content is social currency, and that comes from remarkable content. I think I'll categorise this post with the rest of my rants about wanky marketing terms....