The Art & Science of Virality in Web Applications
The Art & Science of Virality in Web Applications
Achieving organic virality is the holy grail of growth hacking. This deck is a deep dive into how to design and optimize apps for viral distribution
The Art & Science of Virality in Web Applications
@amitranjan3 months ago

The Art & Science of Virality
- - Virality: Ability of an object to self-replicate
- - Think pathological diseases
- - Often mixed with WOM, marketing, buzz etc
- - Single minded focus on acquiring new users
- - Get users to spread to other users
- - Increase width (not depth)
- - Half art / science: Intersection of psychology & web analytics
- - Social Graph: Facebook, Twitter, IG
- - Network Effects: IM, Whatsapp, Telegram
- - Emails: LinkedIn
- - Widgets: YouTube, SlideShare
- - SEO (backlinks authority): Wikipedia
- · growth unbounded
- · think perpetual motion machine
- - Invite a friend
- - NewsFeed
- - Embeds / widgets
- - Notifications
- - Emails
- - Profile Actions
- - Validate Use Case : Will they use it?
- - Test CTA (call to actions) : Will they click it?
- - Track CTR (click through rates)
- - Analytics : Google Analytics, widget metrics, Mixpanel
- - A/B test entire user flows
- - A/B test calls to action
- - Viral channels bring new users
- - Features keep existing users engaged
- - Features not necessarily viral
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What is Virality?
Virality
Virality in Web Applications
Putting it differently...
Virality is marketing BUILT INTO the product⦠if the product is viral, it will market itself
Ways to go Viral
Viral Coefficient -The secret sauce
Viral Coefficient is the number of additional members every new member brings

Viral Coefficient < 1 · grows initially but hits ceiling
Viral Coefficient > 1

Why viral coefficient > 1

All figures hypothetical
Within an app, channel with highest viral coefficients dominates

Illustrative example for hypothetical video sharing site
The Mathematics of Viral Growth
User
CTA - invite friends
Yes
y% = invite accept rate
x * y > 1 gives you viral growth!
x = invited friends
Accept?
Designing a viral loop
Conversion Funnel
Requests
1 friend request

1 perfect match invitation
1 hotness request
Distribution Channels
Viral Loops: Distribution Channels
Fine Tuning Viral Channels
Using metrics: CTAs & click flows
X% user dropoff
Y invites sent/user


profile
Enter


You have
Social Me request.

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Ignore
Block This Applicatlon

Flow A
Flow B
Z% invites accepted
A new users
B new users
Viral channels NOT EQUALS features
Viral Channels LifeCycle

-Viral channels eventually decay (saturation, user conditioning) - When channel exhausts, explore new ones

The Social Participation Ladder
Questions?




















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