Viral Marketing 101
February 8th, 2010 | Written by: April Jasmine Stewart
What is viral marketing?
Viral marketing can manifest itself through many forms. Viral marketing can employ the use of blogs, videos, images, games, widgets, applications, you name it– viral marketing can be applied to just about anything. Content is the crucial piece to the success of a viral marketing program, but content can’t be just “anything”– content must be compelling or worthy of widespread attention in order to go viral. It’s an idea that propagates, spreads and “infects”– or rather, “affects”, everyone it reaches.
The future of successful companies belongs to those who are able to leverage the power of viral marketing through a network that cuts out the “middle man” advertiser and harnesses an environment whereby consumers market to one another.
What makes viral marketing compelling?
Unfortunately, viral marketing is not that explicit. You won’t find the ingredients on the back of a fruit loops cereal box. However, a few examples of viral content may shed some insight:
- Incorporate the wow, ooh, aww factor – Consumers like to be entertained. Viral marketing incorporates compelling and/or shocking content. Take for example, Coke Zero’s Facial Profiler campaign which generated widespread interest among Facebook users and drove volumes of traffic to the coca cola website.
- Target the big guys – That’s right, they’re your best viral alibi. Target the individuals with wide nets of influence. They are the movers and shakers and can ignite the viral fire.
- Make it fun – Engage your consumer and give rewards for participation. Rewards are addicting, and in many cases, can be a very successful viral mechanism.
How do I spread viral marketing content?
You don’t. Your consumer is the infectious agent. In fact, you only have so much control. You can, however, foster viral distribution by breaking down obstacles which may inhibit your viral content from gaining velocity.
- Integrate automatic updates across all of your social networks. Link your facebook updates to your twitter account. Arrange your blog posts to update on facebook, twitter and linkedin. Seamlessly tying your content between multi social platforms not only saves you a heck of a lot of time, but increases visibility and fans viral movement.
- Incorporate share icons and give your consumers an easy way to spread your viral content with one another, whether it’s through social media buttons or a simple “email this” link.
- Interact, in other words, fan the fire to get it started. Encourage the conversation by engaging with your consumers and ask questions to augment the chatter.
Viral marketing can be tremendously powerful. Successful companies use viral ideas and the powerful consumer audience to generate buzz and build brand awareness.
Tags: viral content, viral marketing
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