July 2nd, 2007
VMO, “Viral Marketing Optimization”
SEO, “Search Engine Optimization”, is now boring. I once reveled in the challenge of raising the PageRank of projects with which I was affiliated. I’ve stooped embarrassing low on ocassion; “Hey you, «friend I haven’t spoken with in a year», wanna put this link on your blog?”
I’m not saying SEO is not important, its crucial to a lot of businesses (such as Wikia). But a new frontier is opening up and it has gained a name: VMO, “Viral Marketing Optmization”. VMO is the art of creating and improving processes where current users beget more users. VMO is a better term for “increasing virality”. Like SEO, VMO is mysterious, but unlike SEO you are optimizing against human behaviour not an algorithm. That’s lots more fun.
The best case studies right now are Flixster, Geni and Facebook.
I first heard the term from Nivi. I’m sure it will shortly be listed on all respectable Web 2.0 résumés.