Jul
Creating a Viral Marketing Campaign
The term viral marketing, though sometimes negatively viewed as cousin to the evil computer virus, has created its own niche on the online marketing world. At its core, viral marketing simply means creating a marketing idea that viewers will pass along to their friends and contacts, creating far-reaching potential for exposure. By taking advantage of social networks and media, businesses can spread their message using word of mouth with the goal of reaching far more viewers than possible otherwise.
Creating a Viral Message
Successful viral marketing depends on two key principles. The first is crafting a message that people will want to share. Your message needs to resonate with viewers and give people a reason to pass it along. Most marketing campaigns that have gone viral included one or more of the following elements:
- Humor
- Giveaways or freebies
- Controversy—political or otherwise
- Appeal to basic desires
- Ego boost
- Useful service or resource
Think about the chain emails that come to your inbox, probably on a daily basis. If you’re the type to pass things along, there’s probably a certain category of messages that capture your attention and entice you to send them to friends. Political messages, comic strips, funny videos, 101 uses for vinegar—all of these appeal to a niche group that will be most likely to share them with others. In order to create a successful viral marketing campaign, you’ll need to determine what will be the most likely to appeal to your target audience and capitalize on that appeal to help disperse your message.
Getting the Message Out
The second principle for a successful viral marketing campaign is creating exposure in the right circles. If you want your message to catch on, you’ve got to make sure the right people see it. Social media outlets like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, websites like Digg and StumbleUpon, and well-known bloggers all provide outlets for your message to be seen. Make use of communities that already exist such as your email contact list or your Facebook group to propagate your marketing idea and you’ll be well on your way to exponential growth. If your content resonates with your target audience, you’ve won half the battle. The other half will be won for you as readers hit the forward button on their email messages, post links on blogs and Facebook pages, and send out Tweets.
Justin McGill is a web marketing professional and runs a successful Small Business SEO Firm. He is the founder and CEO of SEORCHERS (read: [surch-ers]) - a local web marketing firm specializing in organic search engine optimization (SEO) with a focus on converting visitors into clients. He is available for SEO Consulting and now you can connect with him on Google+!.Related posts:
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Viral marketing is the internet’s version of word of mouth.. As a blogger, I can say that the power of viral marketing comes from wise management and usage of social networking sites, forums and blogs.
Very useful post.. Thanks Justin
I like the list you assembled of types of viral campaigns. Almost all of them appeal to peoples emotions. I think that if you can make people smile or cringe you are on your way to coming up with a good viral idea. Thank you for the post.
Most popular viral message that I know are in video format, so I suppose it helps if you post a funny video on Youtube. As you said, it’s highly important to make it available for the right people.
Well, we can increase the marketing campaign in a more proper way through the viral marketing and the concept of the email is very vital in this regards and you can increase the popularity of your products and services by using some emergent strategies of viral marketing….
I have setup viral campaign using these principles and I have seen my traffic increase, thank you!
I’m going to try setting up a viral campaign according to this article. Thanks for the info.
Johan@Air bed reviews´s last [type] ..Aerobed Guest Choice Inflatable Bed
Viral marketing is awesome! If you really want to get your website out there and known, it is important to utilize some form of viral marketing. Obviously the best method is to give something away for free – of great value to the visitor of course.
Thanks for providing the tip on using social media by the way. I am still yet to look into their capabilities and how to use them the right and best way possible.
Josh´s last [type] ..MLM Sales A Vital Key to MLM Success
I would love taking all these tips into action and see if it works!
Joe@Cincinnati Divorce´s last [type] ..When You Have Decided to Get a Divorce
Wow!Really I am proper satisfy with your comment on this post.I think that Viral marketing depends on a high pass-along rate from person to person. If a large percentage of recipients forward something to a large number of friends, the overall growth snowballs very quickly.
Viral marketing also a good method to promote for your website and introduce to people about your product or service that you offers.
Tony @ Android´s last [type] ..Logitech Alert digital security system
I think the definitive element is humor. It may be controversial or a useful resource but those aren’t universally loved concepts – but something funny is funny to pretty much anyone. The difficulty is tying in some quality humor with what you want to promote.
SteveM@Sports Betting Forum´s last [type] ..NL Hold em Matrix
I don’t think anything works better for viral marketing than humor. Currently the best example would be he Old Spice commercials. They have seen a large spike in product sales because of the viral nature of the commercials they have been producing on TV and Youtube.
Brian@Charleston Marketing Firm´s last [type] ..Vs Dofollow-A Nofollow Link Solution
I agree with Steve, the best way to go viral is with humor. Everyone likes a good joke, but you do need to find a way to incorporate your message. It is fairly easy to create a YouTube video of your cat doing something funny, it is a little more difficult to make a video that is funny while still conveying the clients message.
Trevor B. Reed@ Charleston Marketing Firm´s last [type] ..Vs Dofollow-A Nofollow Link Solution
Go viral with a lot of interesting fact and offers, yes humors is very essential. Active and precise action on viral marketing is the key point.
Norman from Local Advertising Agency Colorado´s last [type] ..Test ddd
Nice tips, Thanks.
It may seem very obvious, but many people underestimate the importance of having a truly GOOD product. Products that improve consumer’s quality of life do not really need much as satisfied customers proactively recommend your product to people.
Viral marketing needs a little touch of creativity. You have to do or write something that everyone will get interested to read and share.
Viral Marketing is hard to achieve, it needs proper plan and practice to select the right tactic to make your marketing viral.
Facebook would be a good venue for this. People like sharing stuff.