5 ways to use word-of-mouth marketing in a post-viral world

When most game developers hear the term “virality,” they tend to think of the type of viral marketing that involves rewarding players for sending out invitations or sharing their “wins” on social networks. And though this type of virality allowed some games to get really big, really fast on platforms like Facebook and iOS, it doesn’t provide much value to the end user and is generally considered such a poor user experience that both platforms have taken strong measures to keep it in check.

That type of virality is also a complete waste of time for developers in today’s environment. It creates a squeezed user acquisition funnel through which only a small proportion of people actually see the invitations and a much smaller percentage actually take action on them.