What is becoming one of the greatest trends is viral marketing. Perhaps this strategy will be taken by corporations to promote their 2012 products. Nonetheless, the latest sensation to take over the world is the Kony 2012 campaign video by Invisible Children. They have been able to show the possibility of harnessing interest from the society through such causes being marketed with the aim to become viral.
This is a good method to push your message and grows the awareness. This is meant to be attained with speed as well as reach, something that is not possible through most normal channels. Social media, through a well-combined effort of using Facebook, Twitter and video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo as well as similar platform can turn around as well as revolutionize how the information is passed.
Not much of the 30-minute documentary can be pointed to be the driving force behind such an upsurge of interest but more to the campaign accompanying it. The organization’s advocacy has gained much following and has inspired individuals into talking. This is when it comes to the atrocities experienced in the East and Central African region of Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Central African Republic. Allegations are that, Joseph Kony is responsible for all sorts of atrocities especially on children and women by the LRA rebels.
For years, the violence in the region was on and off the mainstream media; most of the time off, but never a time has it created such an impact as it has with the current campaign. This is the reason it became imperative for the Invisible Children to look for a more creative way to market their campaign. Viral marketing has sure done them proud!
To see the effect of this in terms of numbers, after only three days of its release, there was documentation of over 70 million views. This is to mean that people have either successfully watched the video or seen its excerpts. The mainstream media became interested in it after the viral marketing tools had paid off over Twitter. Now, the Invisible Children rest assure about their campaign for consciousness and publicity had paid off well. This can be attributed to the power of viral video marketing.
Having more than 70 million views after 72 hours is to mean that there were practically a million views per hour. Their manner of marketing achieved a great reach and accomplished it within a very quick time. The first step is to get awareness, then secondly, to channel the awareness to the kind of message, where in this case is targeted at the violence and crime against humanity. What this is likely to achieve is to raise more funding and interest towards the capture of Kony.
In 2009, U.S president Barack Obama signed the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act into law. However, little has been done to ensure that the goals of the law are accomplished. With the viral nature of the video, pressure is likely to mount for the full enforcement of the law and public support towards the capture of Kony.
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