Viral marketing is still one of the most prolific marketing tools you can use to grow your business. If you employ it in the correct manner, it has the power to take you from obscurity to the "talk of the town" in a matter of days. If you are not sure what viral marketing means, it is a real simple concept.
Viral means that it is something that gets passed from person to person and that spreads very quickly, much like a cold virus. Instead of making everyone sick though, you get your product or service spreading out everywhere instead. One perfect example of this concept is Youtube. How many times have you shared a funny video with someone? Videos can become extremely viral very quickly, but other types of information can go viral as well.
Here are a few different viral marketing tools I have used to grow my business:
* Viral Video and Audio * Viral eBooks * Viral Workshops, seminars or online courses * Viral Reports
In fact, you can make just about anything viral in nature, as long as the tools you create are made to accomplish a few things. Since viral means passed from person to person, you need to think about the reasons why people share information with their friends and colleagues. Think about why you shared a video or an article with someone recently. It was likely that the information you chose had one or all of the characteristics below:
It Was Valuable...
Even though people have the whole world at their fingertips these days with the Internet, they still look for and hold on to valuable content and well written pieces of information. If information is informative and is created with the end user in mind it will get passed around due to it's high value.
It Was Entertaining...
We all know laughter is the best medicine. If you can make people laugh they will want others to laugh and feel good too. Humor is an excellent way to capture a market. Think of all the commercials you have seen that have made you laugh. Don't you remember the funny ones? I have seen commercials on television that I later went on Youtube to find so I could watch them again, and then I shared the videos with friends and buisness associates. If you can make people laugh, you make them feel good. If you can do that while marketing your product, they will start to feel good about your product too. This is the power of association, and if you do it right, it will go viral as well.
It Was Controversial...
Shocking or thought-provoking material gets people talking. You have to be careful with this method though, as it is very powerful. Controversial subjects will always draw alot of attention, but it brings out both good and bad attention at the same time. This method can easily backfire on you too, and there are ample examples of companies having controversial ad campaigns backfiring on them. You need to walk a fine line with this one.
Those are just 3 examples of the kind of content that you want to produce so that people will be more apt to share it with others. Still, this is only the first stage of a viral marketing buzz campaign. How do you use this viral product to promote your business?
Every ad medium is different, but the end result you are looking for is the same. For instance, with audio or video you will be able to market your product or service directly in your content. This can be your website, your company name or your logo. With print media it is the same story. With an ebook or report you will want to include a link to your website, and some information about you or your company. You could also include a separate or full page ad for a product or service in your content, as well as a resources page. The possibilities are endless and it is really up to you how you wish to pmote yourself or your company. Just make sure you make it very clear where people can go to get more information should they wish too.
Capturing your markets attention via viral marketing buzz can be a very powerful method of building your business and brand. If you can get your viral information into the hands of your target market amazing things can happen. Just make sure that your content is placed where your target market hangs out! With the social networking revolution going on you should have no trouble getting your viral content into the correct hands, and having it spread far and wide across the Internet. As long as your content is valuable and entertaining (with maybe a little controversy thrown in) and engages your readers, your content will work hard for you.
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