9 Ways to Build Virality into your Product: How Pinterest Grew From 3,000 to 73 Million Users

9 Ways to Build Virality into your Product: How Pinterest Grew From 3,000 to 73 Million Users

In today's digital age, building virality into your product is crucial for its success. Virality allows your product to spread like wildfire, reaching millions of users and creating a buzz around your brand. In this article, we will explore nine effective ways to build virality into your product, using Pinterest as a prime example of how it can be done successfully.

1. Create an incentive for users to invite their friends and for their friends to accept the invite. Pinterest utilized old-school word-of-mouth marketing to grow its user base from 3,000 to a staggering 73 million. By encouraging users to invite their friends and remix the bloggers' boards into their own, Pinterest created a sense of community and engagement that propelled its growth.

2. Target community leaders to reach entire communities. Pinterest organized meetups at local boutiques, handing out invites and turning participants into the forerunners of their word-of-mouth efforts. By targeting community leaders, Pinterest was able to tap into existing networks and spread its reach exponentially.

3. Make users proud of their boards. Pinterest boards are carefully curated collections that reflect users' taste and creativity. Many users use the platform to showcase their artistic expressions and chart their progress. By providing users with a platform to express themselves and share what they are proud of, Pinterest created a sense of ownership and pride that motivated users to share and engage with the platform.

4. Marketing using Pinterest is also marketing for Pinterest. At its core, Pinterest is an app that encourages users to share what is dear to them. By allowing users to share their interests and passions, Pinterest essentially becomes a powerful marketing tool for itself. As users share their favorite pins and boards, they are inadvertently marketing the platform to their networks, further fueling its virality.

5. Reward both sides of the equation. When building incentives for users to invite their friends, it is crucial to reward both sides. If the incentive is missing for either side, it won't catch on. LinkedIn, in its early days, incentivized users to invite more connections by prominently displaying the number of connections on their profiles. This created a sense of competition and motivation to connect with more users.

6. Enable collaboration and communication between users. Apps built for collaboration or communication between coworkers are inherently viral. By providing additional value when users collaborate or communicate with others, your product becomes more valuable and encourages users to invite their colleagues or friends to join.

7. Allow others to embed your product into their website. By creating the ability for others to embed your product into their website, you not only gain exposure but also model the expected content and behaviors in your product. This can attract potential users who come across your product through embedded content.

8. Promote social sharing. If your product generates uniquely interesting content, encourage users to share it on their social networks. Auto-sharing content onto other networks can be an effective way to spread awareness and consideration of your product. Creating a uniquely appealing artifact that users want to share will amplify its virality.

9. Provide a rich experience around shared information. When users share information from your product, ensure that it provides a rich experience for both the sharer and the recipient. Hotmail's signature line at the end of every email, which helped it grow from 20k to 1.5M users, is a prime example of leveraging shared information to drive virality. By providing a seamless and engaging experience around shared information, you can encourage users to spread the word about your product.

In conclusion, building virality into your product is not something that can be added as an afterthought. It needs to be built into the core mechanics of your product from the start. By incorporating incentives, targeting community leaders, and creating a platform that users are proud to engage with, you can create a viral loop that drives awareness, conversion, and loyalty. Remember, quality matters, and providing a valuable and engaging experience is key to unlocking the full potential of virality. So go ahead, implement these actionable strategies, and watch your product spread like wildfire.