[casual_games] Advice on marketing a viral game

[Adam Martin]

2008/12/8 Paul Steven <paul_steven at btinternet.com>:

> Anyone like to share some tips on spreading the word about a festive viral

> game? I have no experience marketing games like these and would just like to

> spread the link around to as many people as possible within a short period

> of time.


(apart from the book recommendation already) the first point I'd start
with is Andrew Chen's posts on VM, especially his one about the Viral
Loop:

http://andrewchenblog.com/2007/07/11/whats-your-viral-loop-understanding-the-engine-of-adoption/

His posts are especially geared towards the use of Social Networks in
viral spread, but the concepts are generally applicable.

Warning: he mention's Tagged.com at the end, who try to remove the
"Add value" part of the viral loop, to make it faster. This does
kind-of work - but it can backfire spectacularly, because it is
(literally) indistinguishable from spam. I've seen that work really
well for getting very fast growth, at the expense of major damage to
your reputation - I've also seen it just result in appallingly low
viral conversion rates. I would strongly advise against it.