A Population Dynamics Approach to Viral Marketing

Abstract

The symbiosis of Social Media and viral campaigns has recently become ubiquitous. In many recent phenomena (e.g., the Cambridge Analytica scandal), rumours in viral marketing programs are present without being even noticed by consumers. Yet, the study of population dynamics and its complex patterns of interaction remains largely elusive. Here, we propose an agent-based Marketing referral model to study the impact on firms’ dissemination and profitability of biased behavior in a population of opportunistic individuals. We show that those agents only interested in collecting rewards without any brand recognition are responsible for most of Marketing campaign success and dissemination, for a large range of different cost structures, network characteristics, and number of invites. This effect is further amplified whenever the difference between the cost of using the service and the reward collected after bringing a new customer is higher.