Viral Marketing also known otherwise as Viral Advertising is simply a marketing strategy that involves using pre-existing social networks and other technologies to produce increase in their brand awareness or to achieve other marketing aims such as product sales or email list subscription.
This method of marketing can be delivered by words of mouth or enhanced by the network effect of the internet and mobile networks. There are many forms of media that can be used in this means of advertising to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product by riding on in other forms of addictive means that could get a person hooked and be obliged or amused to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along with it.
However, creativity is one virtue a site must possess to lead the race in the ruthless competition in the Internet based business. With so many competitions going on in the industry today, every method of marketing must be employed and utilized for a greater advantage.
These days, it doesn’t really matter if you have a killer product or a fantastically designed blog, if people don’t know that you exist, it doesn’t matter, and you are not going to make it big. Worse of all, you business could just get killed.
While there are so many methods and schemes used by so many e-commerce sites today, there are still some of those that can help you with an extra boost in the popularity ratings. One of these is the so called Viral Marketing.
While the term Viral easily portray a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, it is not what it seems. You do not actually use a computer virus to spread your business; on the contrary it just might kill you. Everyone has had enough of all those pop up ads and spywares.
In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.
Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam mail, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pass on the information. If a person sees the name of the person they know as the sender, they won’t block it and open it as well.
Many companies offer incentives such as discounts and rebates when they help in spreading their viral marketing. They rely on the number of recipients a viral marketing gets from one person in determining the amount or number of incentive they can be attributed with.
Using Viral Marketing to your advantage
The utmost goal of marketers interested in creating a successful viral marketing programs is to create viral massages that appeal to individuals with high social networking potentials and that have high probability of being presented and spread by these individuals and their competitors in their communications with others in a short period of time.
The main and foremost advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site and your company. You get to generate a flow of traffic that are potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.
Most every site and companies are catching on to the effectivity of Viral Marketing and Advertising and not using it could kill your business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the competition games.
Viral Marketing could be a sneaky way to get people to know about you and your company. You get them to pass your advertisement along. They are also very low cost that not investing in it could be downright a business suicide. All it takes is a great idea, a good addicting game, a funny story many ideas are still out there. Create a gossip or a buzz, many movies are promoted by using scandals and gossips to make them more popular.
Many big companies have tried viral marketing and have had many success stories with it. A good example is Microsoft’s Hotmail. They were the first known big company to utilize the scheme and it has worked marvelously wonders for them.
I hope you’ve now gotten the bold picture of what viral marketing is all about and how it can help your brand, now it’s your turn to utilize it to work wonders for you too. Act now and reap the benefits Viral Marketing will provide for you and your sales figures.
Further reading on Viral Marketing.
The Viral Marketing Cheat Sheet
What is viral marketing?
Thanks for reading.
Please share with us on the comment section your own view of viral marketing, have you used it before and what was the result?
Don’t forget to share and tweet if you like what you read.
Photo Credit: MrJSEE
amedar consulting group says
Aw, this was a really nice post. In idea I want to put in writing like this moreover – taking time and precise effort to make an excellent article… but what can I say… I procrastinate alot and on no account appear to get something done.
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks Amedar,
I’m happy you enjoyed the post. You have to stop procastinating and start doing what you know will benefit you.
Thanks for coming.
Tim Bonner says
Hey Theodore
A great headline can sometimes make things go viral. It’s something I need to work on as if your blog visitors don’t get beyond the headline, they’re definitely not going to make it go viral I think!
Thanks for sharing the cheat sheet; that’s a great little infographic.
I hope your week is going well.
Tim
Chimezirim Odimba says
I agree with you, Tim. People will decide if your content is worthy of their further involvement just by reading your headline. Great content with a poor headline won’t be read. A great headline without depth and value in the article is a disappointment.
But a great headline with great content is the perfect content for viral marketing.
Theodore Nwangene says
Welcome to my blog Chimezirim,
Thanks for keeping the conversation going.
Hope to see you here again.
Theodore Nwangene says
Headline matters a lot Tim,
Because is the first place that will catch readers eyes, it is therefore very paramount that we give it more time.
I also love the infographic Tim and that’s why i decided to share it with you, I’m glad you like it though.
I had a great week indeed.
Thanks and enjoy your weekend Tim.
Chadrack says
Hi Theodore,
Viral marketing is truly want can put your marketing on steroids! Though the market is presently very competitive, with a little ingenuity and outside the box thinking, you can actually use viral marketing tips.
There are few strategies I have used before and were really very effective. What will greatly produce the desired results is if you have a highly engaged community who are willing to share your content with the social contact. So if you want to succeed with viral marketing, creating an engaged community is necessary.
Theodore Nwangene says
I can’t agree more Chadrack,
I like that word steroid. Viral marketing can be very effective if given a good attention.
Do you mind sharing with us those strategies you’ve used before?
Thanks for coming.
Fernande says
Thanks for the sensible critique. Me and my neighbor were just preparing to do some research on this. We got a grab a book from our area library but I think I learned more from this post. I’m very glad to see such magnificent info being shared freely out there.
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks Fernande,
I appreciate you liking my post and I’m happy that i can help. Keep visiting my blog for more.
Ben Troy says
Hi, which plugin are you using to display a cool giveaway toolbar at teh bottom ?
Theodore Nwangene says
Ok Ben,
The plugin I’m using for that is called OPTINCRUSHER. You can google it.
Khaja moin says
Viral marketing is the way through which you don`t need to worry about getting hit by any Google update.
And it`s easy to make viral marketing when you do some research work before writing.
Theodore Nwangene says
I agree with you Kahja,
Ones your content has gone viral even without google, traffic will naturally come your way.
Thanks for commenting.
Felicia says
Hi Theodore,
Viral marketing is a great way to promote your site or your products/services by means of using different tactics or strategies to get people interested and/or entertained. When people have come to like your ad, campaign, photos, infographic, videos – they will most likely want to share it with their friends/family and if all goes well, in such a short time, it will become viral online. Sometimes, even the simplest gigs (songs, dance steps, funny everyday life events) typically become viral, just as long as it is fresh, unique and currently adheres to today’s trends.
Theodore Nwangene says
You’ve said it all Felicia,
Viral marketing can be that good if done properly.
Thanks for commenting and have a great week.
Sapna says
Hi Theodore
Viral marketing can work wonders if the product is as good as the message, else it can surely backfire and will erode everything, so we need to strategise every possible detail before we start.
Thanks
Sapna
Theodore Nwangene says
Welcome back Sapna,
I agree with you that viral marketing can backfire if not done well, that’s why we have to give it our utmost attention for a better result. Thanks for coming.
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