Trying to go viral

I've been helping my classmates Thomas and Norberto on getting buzz for their customized-cereal startup MojaMix.

Alex, I'll take Marketing for one-hundred.

The activity entrepreneurs engage in when there is no marketing budget.

What is social media marketing?

We're trying everything. Contacting bloggers, building a large Twitter following, Facebook fan pages, weekly giveaways, coupon codes,....

Being a skeptic of Twitter, my mission has been to grow the number of Facebook fans for the MojaMix page. It hasn't been easy.

Keeping people interested and engaged using Facebook fan pages is quite straightforward. The companies who are doing a good job at this include Jamba Juice and Starbucks. But how do we get people to join the fan page in the first place?

Yesterday was my birthday. Armed with 800 Facebook friends, I tried to go viral with my status update:



I got over 40 "likes," which is a record high for me.

No, Oprah's assistant did not call. Although I grew the number of MojaMix fans by 11%, it was hardly viral.

Alas, it was a fun experiment. Onto the next idea...