Tips for Viral Marketing

An effective viral marketing campaign can generate enormous interest and create positive brand association but there is no magic formula.

One of my favorite viral campaigns was done by Burger King Subservient Chicken

While each viral campaign is unique, here are a few basic tips to follow:


Pick the right content
You can't have a boring image or broad topic engage people and be sent down the viral hole.

Types of Content that have an opportunity to go viral:

1. Controversial
2. Very Helpful and Unique
3. Amazing/Spectacular
4. Humor

As a business the most beneficially and possibly easiest category for a viral marketing campaign would be #2.

Know your audience
The first step when implementing a viral campaign is to identify what motivates your audience. It’s worth doing research and analyzing your target market.

Be prepared
Caution should be used in your viral marketing campaigns when the possibility for exponential viral traffic is available. There have been countless web sites brought to their knees when a surge of traffic and server requests are generated from their viral marketing campaigns.

You must ensure you have the hardware and server capacities to handle the traffic should a viral event occur.

What's trendy
Looking at what trends are popular will allow you to turn ordinary content into potentially viral contributions.

Here are some popular trends to help you get your brain turning:

1. Going Green / Global Warming
2. Racial Diversity
3. Luxury / Materialism
4. Gay Rights
5. Safety / Fear
6. Obesity

Jump start your virus
Many businesses will have a valuable asset which most of the other community contributors will not have: Employees.

To help jump start a viral movement with your business’s content or contributions, you will have the option of using your employee base as the beginning of your online network, social supporters, followers, friends, and other elements contributing your viral campaign.

In the end a viral campaign is all about the product. If you're trying to force a campaign to go viral it's very hard to achieve, it has to come natural.