In medicine its called Off-Label use.  Wikipedia describes the common (unfortunately) practice as:

Off-label use is the practice of prescribing pharmaceuticals for a purpose outside the scope of a drug’s approved label, most often concerning the drug’s indication.

But what does this have to do with social media marketing? Many of us have been the victims (perhaps victim is too harsh) of an interesting “Off-Label Viral Marketing” scheme on Facebook, its what I call “tag spam”.  Most know it as “25 Random Things About Me” and from a viral marketing perspective here is how it works:

1. Someone writes something (the marketing message or bait in the form of a note)
2. They incorrectly tag you as being in the note or message (the virus) – think off-label use of tagging
3. You noticed you have been “tagged” (fear of potential infection)
4. You visit the item to investigate  and ingest the virus (actual infection)
5. The seemingly innocuous (non-commercial) nature of the virus causes you to engage in the spreading the disease (viral spread)
6. You write your own message and tag a couple of friends and the process continues.

This “off-label” viral process has proved rather effective (almost every media outlet is covering this phenomena) and it actually works (for now) but what is more interesting is why it works so well and what we can learn from this accidental viral marketing success.  Here are some interesting points:

1. The virus leverages a previously un-used (“Off Label”) viral mechanism to spread itself. It avoids the obvious overused “diseased” vehicles like application invites and email.  As a result the target’s immune system let’s down its guard allow the target to become infected.
2. The virus exploits a common user behavior (not an obscure one). People regularly engage in the “vanity search” behavior, looking for what others are saying about them (photos, comments). People are also concerned about their reputation. Combining a “note” and tag on your name implies someone may be talking smack about you! Better check it out!
3. The viral message or payload appears innocuous (harmless).  It’s non-commercial, and even attractive in nature since it promotes the most important product in the world..which is you! (The note asks you to write 25 random things about yourself).
4. Once infected, the virus actually (and this is key, since it differs from normal infects where uses try to contain their infection) encourages you to spread the disease as part of your regular and common behavior of promoting yourself!
5. Because you are tagging multiple individuals (increasing the reinfection coefficient and therefore the spread) the viral infection is one-to-many (vs. one-to-one) which ensures viral (exponential) growth even if some of your targets are immune to the infection.

Metablocks Recommendations:

1. Explore and identify other “Off-Label Viral Marketing” agents through experimentation (planned or after the fact), social data mining and analysis, and research.
2. Consider exploiting “tag marketing” campaigns before they become a thing of the past.
3. Consider “non-commercial” benign viral campaigns around altruistic or self-promotional themes that carry your message (albeit subtly)
4. Create a behavior matrix that identifies your customer’s common behaviors patterns online and finds ways of leveraging this activity
5. Consider viral marketing campaigns that do not “kill” the carrier (or target). “Kill” refers to the process of tainting infected carriers/hosts/targets with the infection thus shaming them from spreading it or providing no incentive to spread it.