The Ultimate Guide to Viral Marketing
Viral Marketing has been a big buzz word for marketers. With the growth of user-generated content on the web from Facebook to YouTube to Twitter, the web has provided marketers with the opportunity to reach millions of users at little or no cost.
For viral marketing to succeed, the message, no matter what it may be, must spread from user to user. This means you have to get those to whom you are marketing to share the content with others. People don’t tend to share random pure advertisements; hence, a key element to viral marketing is creating an advertisement that provides some inherent value to those you are targeting whether it be comedic or educational to encourage the sharing of content.
One of the major aspects of viral marketing people get caught up with is simply the raw number of people or views a message attracted. Yet, when you actually think about it this number is largely irrelevant. Honestly, how does it matter if 5 million people saw your video if it didn’t promote your brand or product? If the advertisement did not help market you or your business in a meaningful way then what value does such a large reach have?
The key is to not focus on what will drive the most views, but rather what will add value and help market your product while still having some viral element.
Say you have a random very funny video that you know will be seen by 5 million people and an industry related video that provides valuable information but will be seen by far fewer people. You can slap your logo onto the end of the funny video and receive 5 million impressions or incorporate your company into the information presented in the industry-related video and receive 200,000 impressions.
Which advertisement will be more successful?
Undoubtedly you will find the industry-related video to be far more effective in providing valuable marketing for your business, which translates into publicity and increased sales. Viewers of this video will actually be able to use the information associated with your company and will be more likely to ask for more information.
Your company/message is incorporated into the viral element of the marketing plan.
In addition, viral marketing must be targeted. What good is it if 5 million fourteen year olds saw your funny video on YouTube if you are selling SEO consulting services. Honestly, where is the value in that? Wouldn’t it be far more effective to reach 200,000 people involved in the SEO industry when it comes to building a brand and winning over new clients?
Here are some tips to help with launching a successful viral marketing campaign:
Viral Marketing Strategies
Make it Easy to Share
This one is obvious, if you want people to share your content, make it easy for them. Make it easy to link to, embed, e-mail, print, submit to social bookmarking websites like Digg and StumbleUpon, social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, and more. The easier it is to share the better. Make sure your content is accessible.
Add Value
People will only share something that adds value to their lives. Share information that the people to whom you are targeting can use in their lives.
Target to Attain Conversions
Like I said above, having 5 million people who don’t know anything about your industry will add no value to your company and your marketing campaign will fail. Target viral marketing to people you think will have an interest in you and your company.
Do the Unexpected
You want to get people talking and one of the easiest ways to do this is to surprise them. Do something new and unexpected to grasp people’s attention and get them to share your content.
Use Other’s Fame and Success
This instantly adds credibility and people want whatever it is that they share to be credible. A perfect example, one of my friends is a rapper and has put out dozens of videos on YouTube. However, the moment he started remixing popular songs such as Asher Roth’s I Love College, his videos spread amassing as many as 400,000 views and beyond.
Encourage Commenting
No matter how you create viral content make sure people can comment on it and share their thoughts. After all, if you want to get people talking what better way to do that then let them comment on content itself.
Don’t Make it an Ad
Everyone hates advertisements. No one wants to share pure advertisements and if they do, it is not because of the product, it is because of some other element of the advertisement that makes it interesting.
Make People Care
People only share ideas that they care about. It doesn’t matter if you care about it, it matters if others care about it. Create content that OTHER people want to share. Why do people share content? They do so because it provides them benefits. It enhances their power and gives a sense of satisfaction if others like whatever it is that they are sharing. Hence, create content that other people will WANT to share.
Build a Community
Why is Apple or BMW so successful? One of the main reasons is because they have die-hard followers who LOVE their products. This should be the goal of your viral marketing and any marketing campaign you run. One of the greatest ways to build a successful company is to build a strong community around your products and services.
Allow User Product Modifications
One of the greatest reasons why the iPhone was such a viral hit was because developers could create cool apps for the product. The same is true for Facebook applications. If possible build your product so that others can work with it and make their own versions or modifications. This will get people talking. Your marketing campaign should stress the possibility for users to make modifications on your products.
Platforms for Viral Marketing Campaigns
We have spent a lot of time talking about key elements of successful viral marketing campaigns, but what about actual ways to conduct viral marketing online. Below I will talk about some platforms conducive to successful viral marketing campaigns.
Social Networks
There are many ways to promote content virally on social networking sites and Facebook has put together a great 28 page report on social network viral marketing. It is related specifically to Facebook but can work with other social networks. We have embedded it before.
Facebook Insider’s Guide to Viral Marketing -
YouTube
YouTube is THE best way to market a video online. With hundreds of millions of viewers, it is a great marketplace for video views. Anyone can upload a video and thousands of videos have attracted millions of views.
Content just tends to naturally spread virally on YouTube and marketers can take advantage of this if they know what they are doing.
There is a fantastic, yet controversial, post on TechCrunch that does provide valuable information on how you can get attention for your video on YouTube.
Blogosphere
The blogosphere is by far the largest community on the web and prevents a great way to speed up your viral marketing campaign. The goal with this is to try and get bloggers to talk about your content. Build relationships with bloggers and when you run a viral marketing campaign send them an e-mail and ask them for coverage of your content.
Coverage in the blogosphere helps with building links and authority as well. Try and get coverage in the biggest blogs you can find because chances are smaller blogs are reading them and will report on content found in these larger blogs. However, every post counts so if you have trouble getting larger bloggers to post your content work your way from the ground up.
These same strategies can be used for marketing on Twitter.
Social Bookmarking
Social media websites such as Digg and Stumble Upon are viral in nature. After all, they are all about sharing content. Using these websites are crucial to the success of any viral marketing campaign. We could write essays on each social bookmarking websites and how they can be used to enhance a viral marketing campaign. However, instead we have scoured the web for resources you can use to help you with how to incorporate social bookmarking websites into your marketing campaign.
There are four main social bookmarking websites, Digg, Stumble Upon, Del.icio.us, and Reddit.
Ultimate Guide to using StumbleUpon
Ultimate Guide to using Del.icio.us
Ultimate Guide to using Reddit
Other Social Bookmarking Websites
E-Mail may be old but it is still widely used. Viral messages can still spread rapidly if people forward messages to their contacts. Make it easy for people to e-mail your content to their friends and family.
Mobile
More and more people are accessing the web on smartphones from iPhones to BlackBerries. Hence, make sure your content is mobile friendly and make it easy for mobile users to share your content too.
