Alternative sharing portal

Yesterday, I read a newspaper article about the newly launch of video sharing website like Youtube, it is called “Howcast”. What is the difference between Howcast and Youtube? Actually the main difference is, Youtube has different kinds of video clips including TV dramas, music videos, daily life shares etc. However, Howcast is mainly focus on hosting video clips which is about teaching something or “how to” do something, the most notable example is, the video clip which teaches people about “How to type faster on your iPhone”. After someone viewed it and think it's good to share with friends who has iPhone, a viral technique was included.

Linking to our focus, anti-drug, I think the government and those anti-drug organizations can try to make use of this new emerge video clips sharing portal to promote the message of anti-drug.

By using this portal, a more focus targeted audiences can be expected, since they are looking for some practical videos on the web. Thus, we can advise the government and anti-drug organizations to create some videos such as “How to get rid of drugs abusing” or “How to persuade drug abuser to stop abusing drugs”. As we can see, some videos (e.g. Bus Uncle) in Youtube had been spread and viewed widely, therefore, those anti-drug oranganizations and the government can create an attractive video place on Howcast in order to generate a buzz for this video and then spread out by a viral technique.

By Ed CHAN

Definition of Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing can be regarded as an online form of word-of-mouth communications among consumers. A marketing message will be passed on from a consumer who interests in the message to another, in order to generate a buzz for the organization.

Since the drug abuse cases are widely discovered in the school recently, an anti-drug campaign should be carried out to deliver the message of seriousness and harmfulness of drug abuse. By using the benefits of viral marketing, we can target the message to the non-drug-abuser and rely on their influences to their friends who are drug-abusers.

Actually the anti-drug campaign which targeted the drug-abusers has been carried out for a long time, but its effectiveness is a doubt. However, the campaign which targets on the friends or relatives of drug-abuser might become much powerful than target on the drug-abusers, due to the persuasion is more effective than just deliver the message of anti-drug.

Therefore, the technique of viral marketing can be adopted in this anti-drug campaign, in order to spread out the message of anti-drug from the non-drug-abusers to increase the effectiveness of the campaign.

By Ed CHAN