INFLUENCE OF VIRAL MARKETING ON THE MEDIA PRODUCTION: AMERICAN EXPERIENCES

Text topic: Digital Media Technologies

Text author: Александар Бркић

Viral marketing is a set of marketing techniques that use existing social networks (both real and virtual) to achieve specific marketing objectives, through viral processes that resemble the spread of computer viruses. The central part of this process are the users, or potential audiences, which in certain way become marketing managers, constantly recruiting new marketing managers. It was necessary to fulfill one important prerequisite in order to reach the moment when the boundaries between different media formats are no longer of that much importance - erasing the boundaries between the real and the virtual space, creating a hybrid space, the so-called “real virtuality”. This article tries to cover recent US media practices related to viral campaigns in the film and television production, and other forms of media expression through media channels that are intertwined, denying borders between them, making members of the audience interactive and integral participants in this collaborative process.