Islam is Growing Fast – Here’s Why ? (in business terms)

By the time you are done reading this post you’ll agree that the King of Viral or Word of Mouth Marketing is Islam. It spread from one person to the next rapidly and still continues to do so.

In fact, most major companies around the world took a page out of the spread of Islam and used it to become giants. Interested in learning the secrets of Islam’s expansion? Read on.

#1. The first rule of spread is that:

1. The product must actually be good

If the product is not good, regardless of how many people hear about it, the conversion will be minimum. One true test of an amazing product is the conversion rate after exposure.

Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world, once people give it a fair chance, most of them end up adopting it. If the product was not good, there is no way it would work.

2. It must be easy to use

Any viral product that spreads must be good to begin with, but the big second is that it must be easy to use. If the usage and adoption of it is not easy, the conversion will be a lot less.

#2. This is how easy it is to become a Muslim:

To become a Muslim one must simply pronounce the Shahadah (Declaration of Faith) with sincerity and conviction.

The Shahadah is the following:

“Ash-hadu an laa ilaaha illaallaah, wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan-ar-rasool ullaah” (In Arabic)

“I bear witness that there is no God worthy to be worshiped but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad (PBUH) is the Messenger of Allah.” (Translation in English)

Pronouncing the testimony of faith is sufficient to convert to Islam. That’s it. This is literally how easy it is and mainly depends on your intention.

#3. You must figure out your market fit

Market fit in Islam is composed of two main things:

Quran: The Quran is the central religious text of Islam comprising of revelations from God.

Sunnah: Practices, customs and traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) that are considered to be perfect examples. They are found in Hadith and other texts.

#4. What really makes things grow?

Look around and you will see examples everywhere.

Every startup worth its salt sets out to become the next big thing, especially in this day and age when some startups are being acquired for Billions.

YouTube was acquired for $1.6 billion by Google in what now seems like a steal, while Instagram was acquired and hired by Facebook for $1 billion and most recently WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook too, for $19 billion.

Similarly, startups like Twitter, Pinterest, Airbnb, WhatsApp and Uber are all well-known privately held companies with valuations over a billion.

What have these companies done to reach this prestigious and lucrative club? The answer is actually rather simple. When they all started growing, they were able to achieve a rate of growth that is exponentially faster than the norm. How did they achieve such fast growth, you ask?

Did they advertise a lot using PPC, as well as TV and radio advertisements?

Do they happen to have amazing social media strategies or grow due to strategically fruitful joint ventures?

The answers to all of the above questions is…

“NO”.

They did not do any of that, in fact all of these companies grew based on viral spreadfrom one user to the next. People shared them among their contacts openly and freely, promoting, endorsing, and encouraging adoption.

That is exactly how Islam grew – promoting, endorsing, and encouraging adoption from one person to the next.

Viral growth is one of the most important aspects of growing your startup and if you ever want to enter the Billion Dollar Club, your users must spread the word both freely and willingly.

Since Muslims are actually proud of being Muslims, they do spread the word both Freely and Willingly.

Islam is said to be the fastest growing religion with the world’s population of 1.6 billion Muslims, predicted to expand to 2.3 billion by 2050, according to the Pew Research Centre. Islam is also the fastest religion to reach the Billion people mark.

#5. Leadership: Before a company or a Nation can really grow, it needs a founder/leader with a Vision

Who can be a better leader and have more clearer vision than the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). He was born in A.D. 570 in Mecca, Saudi Arabia and is often regarded as the founder of Islam by non-believers and for believers he is the last prophet and messenger of Allah sent for the guidance of all mankind.

#6. The Team: Beside a strong founder, every company or nation needs a strong team which believes in the leader’s vision

Which team can be stronger than:

Khalifa Abu Bakr (RA)
khalifa Umar bin al-Khattab (RA)
khalifa Ali Bin Talib (RA)
khalifa Uthman bin Ghani (RA)
Sahaba are the companions of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him ) who believed in him and did great things to further Islam.

#7. Dedicated users who spread the message

Besides the Sahabas there are other countless Heroes of Islam like Khalid ibn Al-Waleed, Sa’d Ibn Abi Waqqas and current day heroes like Muhammad Ali who became inspirations for the ummah.

Young Muslim: What do you think your greatest achievement is?

Muhammad Ali: Joining Islam.

Young Muslim: If you could go back and change anything, what would that be?

Muhammad Ali: I would become a Muslim at the age of ten.

#8. “Why do you wanna fight?” asks Adrian. “Cause I can’t sing or dance,” replies Rocky. What is your main message?

In the real world “viral” is simply called word of mouth marketing. Let’s take the simplest of examples first; when you see a good movie, do you tell others? How many people can recall “I’ll be back” the famous catchphrase used by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1984 science fiction film The Terminator.

People used it freely and it became one of the top movie catchphrases of all time (and the Terminator franchise is still going strong).

Almost every single movie makes it or breaks it based on word of mouth. In fact a highly successful movie has the public doing all the promoting, endorsing and encouraging to the masses for them.

“Why do you wanna fight?” asks Adrian. “Cause I can’t sing or dance,” replies Rocky. With a budget of $1 million, Rocky made $225 million at the box office, giving star and creator Sylvester Stallone a percentage return of over 11,000%. Wow. How exactly did that happen?

The Blair Witch Project, which was shot by a simple camera and filmed in just eight days, made over $248.3 million. With a budget of only $600,000 the return on investment for the film was more than 20,000%. Amazingly, the film advertised very little but was able to thrive thanks to viral marketing.

Whether it is a movie, startup, nation or religion, the viral spread must pass from one person to the next in an efficient and simple process. It should be a streamlined distribution model where one user cannot wait to tell his entire network the news he has discovered.

To determine viral growth for anything, what needs to be determined is fairly similar:

1. What will make you grow = your main message – Islam’s main message is:

“I bear witness that there is no God worthy to be worshiped but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad (PBUH) is the Messenger of Allah.”

2. Initial Liquidity = where will the initial users come from?
3. Spread rate = How many people will each user invite?
3. Conversion rate = how many people will see it and actually join?
4. Cycle time = CT (time it takes for invite cycle to reach from one person to the next)

The Viral Coefficient (K) = (invites * conversion rate)

According to the Pew Research Centre, The world’s Muslim population is expected to grow at a rate of 73 percent in the 40 years between 2010 and 2050; while the world’s Christian population will grow at just 35 percent during that period.

Spread, conversion rate and Cycle time of Islam is greater than any other religion, which means Islam’s Viral Coefficient is better than other religions too.

Figuring out your viral coefficient is nice, but determining what will spread about your venture is the golden key.

Your users will not pass all the benefits and features along to other people. In Terminator people didn’t explain the entire movie to their family and friends, they simply said “I’ll be back” enough times for others to go and watch the movie. At the very least, it did create in others the burning desire to check out the character which is quoted here, and then be exposed to the movie’s marketing material.

Some startups will have a built-in viral component but it must still be highlighted. For example, one of the most famous viral growths was achieved by Hotmail.

What did Hotmail do to cause Microsoft to take notice and pay 400 million to buy them? The answer is simple, Hotmail simply grew too fast to ignore.

A small segment of the market will become your early adopters, acclimatizing to your product or service offering very quickly. You must do everything in your power to make sure it is easy for these early adopters to use your product and spread the word.

Hotmail didn’t push at all. The service allowed you to log in from anywhere while possessing your own email address. It also allowed for the creation of folders, and featured an address book to easily add your contacts.

Through it all, Hotmail pushed only one message. Every time the early adopters used Hotmail to email someone, Hotmail embedded a one line message at the bottom of the email – “Get your own Free Hotmail account” – therefore when an email came to you from someone you knew, at the bottom it would feature that message.

When you complied and got your own account and started sending emails to your contacts, they got the same message at the bottom as well. Hotmail was therefore able to achieve viral coefficient which was greater than 1 and grew incredibly fast, but the main thing was they pushed only one message and their cycle time was short.

Islam spread because it has a clear cut one message:

“I bear witness that there is no God worthy to be worshiped but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad (PBUH) is the Messenger of Allah.”

#9. Fundamental questions for spreading your venture

When you are looking at your own startup’s viral potential, you must learn from others and be able to answer some fundamental questions:

Is your product viral by design?
What are the top 6 most important features of your venture?
What are the top 5 core values of your venture?
What is the biggest benefit?
What gets used the most?

Islam’s fundamental questions for spread answered

Is Islam viral by design? Yes it is, More so now than ever before. Look at all the news stories, which mention Islam on daily basis. Stories are vessels. They’re the perfect way to pass on or to learn new information.

Regardless of how Islam is portrayed in modern day media, whenever a story is written or shown on TV, it acts as a vessel to pass information to the viewers. When a sane person sees it, reads it or hears about it, he/she then researches it. When they do that, they find the truth and the rate of conversion to Islam increases.

If you were to look at the conversion vs coverage, there will be a direct co-relation between the countries, which cover Islam the most and spread of Islam.

What are the top 6 most important aspects (features) of Islam?

1. Belief in One God
2. Belief in Angels
3. Belief in Prophets of God
4. Belief in Revealed Books of God
5. Belief in Day of Judgment
6. Belief in Destiny and Divine Decree

#10. 5 Pillars of Islam: The top 5 core values of Islam

1. Shahadah: Sincerely reciting the Muslim profession of faith: “I bear witness that there is no God worthy to be worshiped but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad (PBUH) is the Messenger of Allah.”

2. Salat: Performing ritual prayers in the proper way five times each day.

3. Zakat: Paying of alms (or charity) tax to benefit the poor and the needy.

4. Sawm: Fasting during the month of Ramadan

5. Hajj: Pilgrimage to Mecca

#11. What is the Biggest benefit of Islam?

Highest place in Jannah (Heaven), Is the highest reward for a Muslim.

What gets used the most in Islam?

Qur’an

#12. Stories are the Vessels to spread anything

Stories are the Vessels to spread anything and it has been like this since the beginning of time. Wrap anything in a story and if it is engaging enough, has emotions and makes sense to spread – it will spread.

Islam has grown through stories and individual efforts from day one. Today this spread is higher than ever, because modern day media’s unprecedented coverage of the words “Muslim” and “Islam”.

Regardless of what some of the media portrays, any sane person takes it with a pinch of salt. Those who really want to know what Islam is all about, they look into it properly and when they do, they find it to be just like what it means:

“Islam” means peace, submission or surrender

They see it teaches that everyone is born with a natural instinct and a free will to understand the difference between right and wrong (fitrah).

Here is a touching message from a French Muslim:

“I don’t usually define myself according to my religion. I consider myself primarily to be French…

But today, I want to express myself as a young Muslim. Why? Because, as a Muslim Frenchman I was completely shocked by these attacks, and because it’s not just France, but Islam and Muslims too, that these phantoms are trying to break. That’s why today, I am both tired and afraid.” Read the full story in Frenchand English.

They learn that there is no place on this planet where violence is welcome. When they learn most Muslims are law obeying contributing member of the society and Islam is not only a religion but a clean, complete way of living life, they make up their own mind, and that also contributes to more people converting to Islam than ever before.

#13. Customer support in viral marketing

The biggest factor of Viral marketing spread beside an awesome, easy to use product, is the customer support. How the users are treated and looked after. In Islam this superior customer support is called Ikhlas (sincerity).

The role of Ikhlas (sincerity) in spreading Islam

The biggest reason Islam has spread around the world is not because others see you pray five times a day, or hear you read Quran. The biggest reason for the spread of Islam is the Ikhlas of the Muslims.

Being fully sincere, humble and looking out for the best interest of those around you. When others see how nice you are, how honest you are and your sincerity demands nothing in return, that is when someone says,

I want this;

and If this is what Islam teaches,

I want to be a Muslim;

and

If this is how Muslims are,

I stand in front of all the people present today and I say to the whole world:

“Ash-hadu an laa ilaaha illaallaah, wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan-ar-rasool ullaah” (in Arabic)

“I bear witness that there is no God worthy to be worshiped but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad (PBUH) is the Messenger of Allah.” (Translation in English)

Now, not only do you understand how Islam spreads, you can also play a positive role in spreading the message of peace by sharing this post with your friends and family.

Allahu Akbar!

By: musliminc.com

Source: musliminc.com

Courtesy :
www.ieroworld.net
www.taqwaislamicschool.com
Taqwa Islamic School
Islamic Educational & Research Organization (IERO)