Viral Marketing

I engaged in my first piece of Viral Marketing today - using facebook to create a series of events put on by Moore Partners (formerly Alumni & Friends) on the 26th of March. I was happy to do it because I think the events are great. If you'd like to come and hear Don Carson speak at MTC, then check out their website: www.moore.edu.au for more details. A real highlight will be dinner in the MTC dining hall followed by a 'chat' between Peter O'Brien and Don Carson.

It got me thinking about the different ways that we now communicate - in the past events like this would have a mass mailout, ads in Southern Cross and maybe an article in the Sydney Anglicans website. Yet nowadays with so much happening online, to not use this medium seems to miss out on so many people. It took me perhaps 30 minutes and I was personally able to make contact and invite about 300 of my Christian friends. The effect of the facebook feed is that friends of these friends, who I don't know personally, will also have been informed of the event. Like any advertising, it is incredibly hard to guage it's effectiveness. Yet for the time spent, if a few extra people get to come along and hear the bible taught, I think it is great.

What do others think? Is it offensive/annoying/unhelpful to get invitations like this? How do we be wise about how often to promote such things using these methods?