Social Contagion – An Empirical Comparison of Seeding Strategies for Viral Marketing

Seeding strategies have a major influence on the success of viral marketing campaigns, but previous studies using computer simulations and analytical models produced conflicting recommendations about the optimal seeding strategy. We therefore compare four different seeding strategies in two complementary small-scale field experiments as well as in one real-life viral marketing campaign that involved more than 200,000 customers of a mobile phone service provider. Our empirical results show that the best seeding strategies can be up to eight times more successful than other seeding strategies. Seeding to well-connected individuals is most successful. They are attractive seeding points for viral marketing campaigns because they are more likely participate, which contradicts a commonly made assumption in other studies. Well-connected individuals also actively make use of their higher reach but they do not do not have more influence on their peers than less-connected individuals.