Viral Marketing: Retweet, Like, Comment and Share!

Let’s talk about a topic close to all (or most) of our hearts today!

Do you know what’s launching on the 25^th of July?

If your answer is yes, then you are probably one of almost 2 million who have pre-registered for Maplestory M!

Maplestory M is a side-scrolling MMORPG, based on Nexon’s MapleStory franchise released in April 2003. Finally, after 15 years, MapleStory M brings the nostalgia of MapleStory to mobile — an authentic MMORPG experience right on our mobile devices, with the same amount of storylines, customization and battles we have had on PC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NVP_XvS0oE

For those who are not familiar with Maplestory, MapleStory is a free, two-dimensional, side-scrolling MMORPG developed by Wizet where players fight against monsters and complete quests. Players can mould their characters to their liking by increasing their abilities and skills while chatting, trading, marriage and playing mini-games with others. Players may alsopurchase various enhancements and upgrades in the Cash Shop using real money converted into the in-game currency.

I believe most of us have played Maplestory at least once during the 2000s and even 2010s. Personally, I have not played Maplestory since 2013. As such, I haven’t been keeping up to date with the news and updates on Maplestory. 

However, I was one of the early few to pre-register for the launch! How did I know to do that?

Have you seen these on Twitter, 

Creative, passionate, generous, warm-hearted, cheerful, humorous.

MapleStory M is technically going to be Leo.

MapleStory M comes to Android and IOS on July 24th PT! pic.twitter.com/vzo3ctaIEr

— MapleStory M (@PlayMapleM) July 18, 2018

Facebook,

and even at MRT Stations?

My analysis:

Aligned with Jonah Berger's 6 STEPPS for Success, Maplestory M's marketing strategy has 3 main factors that allowed it to become viral:

1. Social Currency (Insiders)

Maplestory M gave incentives to users who pre-registered or shared the Facebook posts, as well as creating milestone rewards - promising exclusive in-game items to all players who participated. This allowed players to feel like insiders; with the scarcity, they were part of an exclusive group and thus felt the sense of urgency to immediately pre-register or share the post in fear of losing out to their peers! 

In-game rewards for hitting milestones on number of people who have pre-registered

In-game rewards for hitting milestones on number of people who have shared the Facebook post

In addition, if you notice, all the posts on social media platforms by Maplestory M are not paid advertisements! They are simple posts where users can easily retweet, like, comment and share with their peers. This made use of the power of WOM, which is known to be more persuasive than advertising, as the information was spread from player to player when they shared the posts.

2.  Triggers (Natural Connection) 

As a 10 year old brand, Maplestory triggers a natural connection as most of its user base have played the game at least once throughout their childhood. In addition, being one of the biggest games from the 2000s, even if you have not played the game, you would have at least heard of the game as a child. 

3. Public (Conformity)

With more than 2,000,000 pre-registrations before the global launch of the game and chatter amongst social circles in Singapore, it encourages even people who are not fans to try it out because of FOMO (fear of missing out). A great example would be myself, as a casual Maple fan, who hasn't played the game in a really long time, deciding to pre-register for the mobile version because 1. All my friends are doing it, 2. We want to reminisce the fun times we had in the PC version and 3. I wanted to own exclusive items that others did not.

In addition, Maplestory M also utilizes print advertising to generate awareness among those who may not be interested in Maplestory at all. These print advertisements were placed at areas with high footfall, such as at the Jurong East and Orchard MRT station, and were accompanied with a QR code that allowed people to easily pre-register for the game. This greatly amplified the effect of the game's marketing strategy as it complemented their digital efforts. People who saw the advertisement frequently took photos of it and posted it onto their social media accounts to share the news with their friends.

In my opinion, the winning factor that made the launch of Maplestory M become viral is the fact that they encouraged people to share the news through incentives. This caused hardcore players and even casual gamers returning to the game for nostalgia want to share the news because they were able to receive exclusive items by simply clicking a button. 

Definitely, while we can't create a marketing strategy and guarantee that it may become viral, Clevertap believes that making it share-worthy is one step in the right direction to make it spread via WOM; reducing the barrier to entry for the audience.

All in all, I can't wait for the game to be launched!

Will you be playing Maplestory M?