The Art of Viral Marketing

Part 1

By Duane Harris

“What is Viral Marketing?”

Viral Marketing is the concept of a product or service going viral in real time.

You must truly understand the word “Viral”.

“Viral” in plain English is  the process of something going from one person to another person. It can be the H1N1 or it can be a video or an e-mail.

Viral marketing is the cheapest form of marketing tool that anybody can use.

A common expression is “it gone viral!” and that basically means it took off and went global just like that.

Viral marketing is very useful to promote a product or service or simply to get discover and sponsor by a major corporation.

Some popular platforms to launch a viral campaign are: Youtube, Facebook and Twitter as well as various other social media platforms.

The source is often a video or an interactive e-mail that promotes your goods, service, complaints or to parodied something.

The most effective thing about viral marketing is the cost. It is can be done under $100. Some have no budget but can have the same effect as a $1 million commercial that run on a 30 second bit on a major network on television.

*The following video may not be suitable for work*-In my opinion the following video “Window Seat” by Erdyah Badu is an excellent example of a viral marketing campaign that went viral.  The video itself raises a lot of buzz and received a lot of free press.

My only problem with this “Window Seat” video is  that it should have been released 4 weeks ahead of time prior to the album dropping. The key to a successful viral marketing campaign is building the hype before the actual release of the roll out of the product/services and then when it peaks that when you should anticipate a lot of revenues as a result of a successful viral marketing campaign.

The best viral marketing campaigns that are successful are the ones that come from the heart.

In part 2 “How to do your own viral marketing campaign” I will give you a simple guideline that can be modify to your liking to effective launch your own viral marketing campaign.