Engineering Virality Bootcamp

My notes for attending a bootcamp hosted at Stanford GSB on virality.

Julio from Experience Project

Virality: Degree to which something is propagated throughout a population.

Viral: Every affected person leads to at least one other being affected.

Buzz: Conversation generated among people from an event or action.

Left Brain (Quantitative) and Right Brain (Creative, Holistic) approach

The Hotmail example, Facebook platform (driven by invitations)

Andy Smith- Dragonfly model

Ripple effect- Small actions, big change, overtime

Emotional Contagion- Tendency to catch and share emotions

Dragonfly has four wings: Focus, Grab attention, Engage, Take Action

Focus- small, singular; action plan; concrete and specific; true to self; milestones; metrics

Grab attention- (missed this part)

Engage- Understand, tell a story, make it personal, mix media

Take action- Make it easy, fun, promote idiosyncratic, provide feedback, create independent action

Definition of virality: Think Spread, each outbreak begins with an individual, propagation is endogenous (self-sustaining), new infections grow with each generation

Conventional Marketing: Conversions= Prob of conversion x people exposed

Viral Marketing: Reproduction Rate= Transmission Rate x People told, must be >1 to be sustained

Viral leverage comes from increasing the transmission rate

Transmission Rate= Grab attention rate x Engagement Rate x Fit, Ease and Fun taking action

Fireside Chat- Matt, Dave, Ed

Dave- AARRR!: 5- step startup Metrics Model

Acquisition --> Activation--> Retention--> Referral--> Revenue

1 Page Business Model= Users + Conversions+ Priorities

Ed- Conversion Rate-> Engagement Rate--> Invitation Rate

Viral Factor= X*Y*Z

Conversion Rate: Percentage of invited users who install the app

Engagement Rate: Percentage of users who invite at least one friend

Invitation Rate: Average Number of invites sent per engaged user

Concept of A/B testing

Images are really important, using 99designs to see which images are clicked on the most

Tactical vs Long term goal; be cautious of initial messaging

For consumer web, scalable distribution, addictive user experience, design are key

Game mechanics, paid acquisition, social distribution- Zynga

Platform- think more in terms of distribution and monetization rather than features

Iphone apps will go viral first on facebook before on itunes store

Fireside chat- Jeff, Mark, Ben

Jeff invested in Tapulous and they discovered no virality at all on the platform; about 20 million installs

Bootstrapped marketing is all about personally touching people

Ben Katz- Rolodex: Smile, dial and rile; you are Billy Mays, Celebrities: they're just like you, Look big: sleep with Bill Gates, Leland and Yoko, Harness the groundswell: Press, video, social media, email

Getting on techcrunch is prime