Viral marketing is an interested subject. Viral is the name given to the type of online marketing that is really very similar to word of mouth marketing. Other people pass on your product, service or advertisement to their friends. They just do it via the internet rather than face to face.

One of the most intriguing things about viral content creation is that some have seen massive results with no investment, while others have invested hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and been less successful. There’s no way to guarantee viral success. Of course having the budget to give a piece of media an initial push helps greatly but once people start sharing the content with their friends for free you can see a massive impact beyond what you’ve paid for. Great content helps in going viral such as a useful web based product or amazing video. Facebook and Google both got much of their initial push from viral success because they both created great services that people naturally shared with their friends. But sometimes content goes viral based on how bad it is as well.

In any regard, while there is no guarantee anything will go viral, there are several similarities shared between successful viral campaigns that can greatly increase your odds. We’ll cover these in a later post.

- William Ellerman