Everyone wants to be a social media star but only few are blessed with the right skills set – both creative and technological to achieve the desired results. Ever wondered why some content work very well while others don’t despite having all the right ingredients in terms of content. There is actually a science that works, a logic-oriented approach that delivers results – ensures an incoming stream of people into the flow of money, without the cost of its acquisition.
It is all about ensuring that one active user invites a few friends, each of them invites a couple more friends, and so on.
…and that is what we call K-Factor which shows how many users led to the project by one of its active user.
How to calculate K-factor?
The formula is very simple –
k-factor = i*c, where i is an average number of invitations sent by one user, c is an average conversion from received invitation into registration.
Let’s assume that each user sends the invitation to one friend in average (i = 1), and every third person who received an invitation is successfully registered (c = 3). In this case, the k-factor = 1 * ⅓ = 33.3%.
But there are some limitations as well –
There are many instances when the invitation done through the word of mouth where invitations can’t be traced with tangible data points.
How should k-factor be calculated then?
We prefer the following method: k-factor = (organic downloads per period n) / (active users per period n-1).
This formula takes into account all kinds of invitations – online and offline
It is suggested that you monitor k-factor in at least once a month for a realistic picture about your product’s success.
What is a viral cycle?
You download an application, register yourself, start enjoying it and then recommend a friend who downloads the same application after your insistence. The period taken to complete this cycle is called a viral cycle.
In the previous example, the product, at first, had 100 users, and within 33 periods of time, the number of users exceeded one million.
If the period of time to take is a month, you will need 2 years and 9 months to reach one million users.
If the period of time to take is one day, one million is reached after 33 days!
What is the conclusion – the virality is defined by two metrics: k-factor and the viral cycle. Thus, the shorter is the viral cycle, the higher is the k-factor.
How to measure K-factor success?
Its very simple.
if k-factor > churn, more users come than users leave, and your product is going to have exponential growth;
if k-factor = churn, the virality only compensates the churn, and the number of users will be stable;
if k-factor < churn, the churn of users is not compensated by the virality and audience of the project will gradually decline.
You have to constantly brainstorm to increase k-factor is to reduce the viral cycle.
A few useful tips
Use existing social networks of your users. Try and integrate social networks and other services;
Add some benefits for users to invite friends
A stable working paid channels acts as a stimulus
Virality is a sexy term in today’s world where everything is digital and attention span is getting reduced constantly. Work smart, play smart and do not shoot in the dark.
There is a logic behind everything on the internet. Trust that logic.