Viral marketing strategy on Facebook: Analysis, experiments and case studies on initial broadcast populations.

Summary Marketing on online social networks is characterized by a loss of control compared to traditional marketing (Mangold & Faulds, 2009) for two main reasons. The first is that the balance of power is completely reversed on online social networks in favor of the consumer. The second is that platforms, particularly Facebook, make access to company-specific information, such as fan lists, limited, complicated, and in some cases impossible. This thesis comes at a time when there is a need for a strategic marketing foundation for the use of online social networks (Hoffman and Novak 2012). To that end, it attempts to reflect on and augment theoretical research on viral marketing on online social networks and, in particular the issue of optimizing the initial broadcast population. It also tries to suggest strategies to restore a certain balance for the benefit of the marketing strategist by showing him what means are available to him so that he can enjoy a certain freedom of maneuver between a platform stingy with information like Facebook and a public that considers companies as invaders on its own ground (Fournier & Avery, 2011). We choose the critical approach of Habermas (1985). In this paradigm, knowledge is based on empirical experiments and modification of the environment is accepted as a means to achieve knowledge. The analyses and experiments attempt to follow a theoretical and experimental path to a theoretical and practical reflection that would define strategies, means and methods for optimizing viral marketing on Facebook based on the control of the elements of viral marketing and, mainly, the selection or creation of initial broadcasting populations usable for this purpose. The development of this thesis is composed of several chapters written in English, one of which is in its third revision in the Journal of Advertising Research (JAR) and four of which have been the subject of papers at international conferences (Euras, 2012. INSNA, 2014. ISMS, 2015) and at the Paris-Dauphine strategy workshop (2014). In this thesis, we have asked several questions regarding the control of viral marketing elements on Facebook and, in particular, the optimization of initial broadcast populations and we believe we have found innovative and relevant answers to these questions. We begin with a general reflection on social network research and, in particular, the ethics of Internet research and online social networks. We then address the issue of reconstructing the social graphs of fans, and analyze the efficiency and inefficiency of fake profiles in the context of Facebook marketing. We also tackle negative word-of-mouth in the context of an optimized initial broadcast population, and the discovery of bridges over structural holes between two opposing political camps as a theoretically influential seeding population. The experiments carried out lead to a reflection on the question of the media available on Facebook (Pages, Groups or Profiles) in the case of marketing strategies in general and viral marketing strategies in particular. The last chapter applies the results obtained by taking charge of a viral marketing campaign from zero time to success. This Personal Branding experiment, documented and analyzed, and without bias since it takes place only on Facebook without any advertising, shows concretely the effectiveness of the viral marketing strategy defined from the results, reflections and theoretical analyses of this thesis.