I got my 5th invitation today to join the 6 Degrees of Separation group on Facebook.

I decided to investigate it. I’m seriously intrigued (as we all should be) by the social networking phenomenon and how it will impact the marketing world in the months and years ahead. Clearly there’s a viral potential for ideas and applications within social networks that is unprecedented.

Yet, I’m still waiting and watching for case studies that demonstrate the marketing ROI on these initiatives. There is no doubt these concepts draw eyeballs… and can be sticky (at least for short bursts of time). But is anyone other that the app developers making money?

I believe the successful ROI case studies are soon on their way. And in the interim, there are certainly a number of interesting endeavors to reflect upon.

I read a fascinating post recent on the popular Christmas time application – Elf Yourself (not done in connection with a social network). Advertising Age, reports that 26.4 million people (myself included) spent an astounding 2,600 YEARS at ElfYourself.com turning themselves, their friends, and others into dancing elves.

If you happened to be among those who got sucked into this delightful application, let me ask you this. Can you remember the company that was behind it?

(Answer: OfficeMax)

And if so, were you even remotely inclined to buy some office supplies – or even frequent their stores on a more dedicated basis?

I doubt it.

I loved the application. But what did it have to do with the OfficeMax brand – or office supplies?

Have a look at what happened to web traffic at officemax.com (red line) during the holiday season. (Source: Compete.com)

Pretty much nothing….

The popularity of Elfyourself doesn’t appear to move the needle at all for OfficeMax.

Could they have done more to link the application back to the brand? Sure. Elf yourself and get a 15% off your next OfficeMax.com purchase.

Would it have helped?

I hope we have the chance to find out next year. As I said, I think ROI is right around the corner on some of these viral apps.

So back to my Facebook - 6 Degrees investigation…

The group (experiment) was started by Steve Jackson, a London based author who was doing research for his new novel, The Watcher. One of the themes he apparently explores in the book is the way the Internet connects people.

So on the afternoon of November 28, 2007, he started the 6 Degrees of Separation group and invited all of his friends to join. By day’s end, the group had fewer than 20 members.

As time progressed, things started to look up. By day 4, it was up to 200 people.

On day 5, things started to get really interesting… a doubling in 24 hours.

A week later, he was up to 30,000 people.

The next day… 141,000!

Over the next two weeks, at times the group was adding 3 people every SECOND. Six days in a row averaged 220,000 new members per day.

On day 13, the group hit 1 million people.

The slow down started on day 18 – shortly after crossing the 2 million mark. Since then, the numbers have trailed off.

Today, less than three months since the group began, I became new member #4,314,483.

Here’s what the growth looks like cumulatively and by day. (Please forgive the image quality.)

Cumulative Group Membership Growth over 56 days (peaks at 4 million)

Daily Membership Growth over 56 days (peaks at 230,000/day)

While the magnitudes may vary widely, I suspect that the shape of the daily growth curve is fairly representative of most viral concepts launched within social networks. It’s tough to argue against the potential here.

Now the question is how to harness this potential to produce a positive ROI.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 5:06 pm and is filed under Infinite Return Marketing, Real-Time Case Studies, Web Marketing, Marketing Economics & Metrics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.