January 30th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
When it comes to tapping into a marketing technique that seems to capture the attention of many, viral video marketing capitalizes off of the power of visual suggestion. This particular method takes advantage of already existing social networks to create a successful boom in brand awareness. While viral marketing had its start passing from one to another through word-of-mouth, today, the most impressive approach is provided through video. Many enjoy utilizing this type of marketing because it can reach a large amount of people in a quick amount of time.
One of the most increasingly popular ways to enter viral video marketing is to establish a blog on a website and continuously add images, words, and videos. Even amateur videos are making headlines on websites across the Internet. This interesting and rather entertaining approach towards advertising has brought attention to a wide range of services and products that might not have enjoyed the focus if viral video marketing was not used. It is the creativity of amusing video clips, interactive Flash games, and moving images that add to the appeal.
Viral video marketing is often chosen as a way to promote a site because it is quite easy to accomplish. When compared to direct mailing, the cost is also lower. Viral marketing helps attract a target audience, and is known for establishing a response rate that is high and fast. Also, a larger number of people become engrossed with little cost to the webmaster.
Examples of Viral Marketing
Using videos and interactive visual games to market products, services and websites has been an effective method of advertising for many years. For instance, the Dancing Bush 2001 interactive game led a campaign to bring an enormous wealth of attention to what would become the largest private entertainment site on the Web. Sunsilk hair care products gained increased consideration when a YouTube video titled “Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out” surfaced. Additional examples of viral video marketing includes companies and products, such as Halo, Blair Witch Project, Xbox 360, The Ring movie, Sony, Playstation, and FX Networks.
December 17th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Companies have long desired to create a buzz about themselves and develop ways to spread their message around in a quick and inexpensive way. Enter, Viral marketing. The Internet answer to creating product or company buzz.
Viral marketing is aptly named because when employed successfully promotional content for a company is spread about the Internet like a virus. People hear this term tossed around often on the news, on the Internet and in everyday conversation but many have little to no knowledge of what it actually means. Viral marketing campaigns use existing social networking sites like, You Tube and Myspace to increase their brand awareness. Companies create a discreetly promotional marketing medium such as, a video, a game, a brandable software program, an image or occasionally even a text message and they encourage users to pass it on.
Initially, viral marketing was practiced by free web based e-mail companies. Hotmail was the first company to use a viral marketing campaign. They placed a link at the bottom of all the outgoing messages from their users to encourage the recipients of those e-mails to create their own account. This tactic did not originally have a name, but it was quite effective and many other companies began using similar methods for getting the word out about their business.
There are many keys strategies to creating an effective viral marketing promotion. However, there are six principle elements that any viral marketing promotion should have if it has any chance at success. Companies that wish to succeed in viral marketing must start by creating a product or service they are giving away, such as the aforementioned items. The viral marketing campaign also needs to be easily transferable so that users can easily pass it on. Companies that wish to start a viral marketing campaign must be prepared for that campaign to scale from very small to very large. For instance, if you set up a website that users will ultimately join after the viral marketing campaign that website must be able to handle the traffic created. It is pointless to increase your traffic or user base if you cannot properly serve or accommodate a large volume of people.
A successful viral marketing campaign must also capitalize on common behaviors and desires. People want to be cool, funny, rich and loved. Many successful viral marketing campaigns have been successful as direct result of giving people the perception or ability to achieve one of these things. For instance, if you create a hilarious viral video as a marketing tool people may pass it around, in the hope of being the one who introduced it to others.
Finally, a viral marketing campaign should always take advantage of others’ resources. Many companies accomplish this by affiliating themselves with another company to gain the ability to place a graphic, link or text on that companies website. Not only does this create exposure, but when done properly it saves your resources for other purposes.
November 27th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Why do people often think video when they talk of viral web marketing? Could it be because multimedia has done an excellent job of capitalizing on the viral marketing process? Yes, that could be it, but that simply leaves a world for you to reach using other viral approaches.
Let’s look at several ways of creating excellent viral marketing messages.
* Viral Videos
* Ebooks
* Cartoons
* Jokes
* Text messages
*** Viral Videos ***
Our first stop is to the creation of viral videos. I would imagine most everyone has gotten a link to a cool video in his or her inbox at one time or another. While the video may have taken some work to put together, creation of the multimedia was not the major focus of the creator. Rather getting you to consider that the work was done with enough…
* Emotion
* Charisma
* Uniqueness
* Or what have you
So that you will send the video to your friends and they in turn will watch it is the absolute key of the makes of a viral video marketing project.
*** Ebooks ***
Another excellent way of creating a viral product is through Ebooks. Electronic material is best made viral by creating high quality rich information that your target audience will find valuable enough to give to those who would be within the same focused industry. While it may take some time to put together such writings, once it is done it can be worth its weight in gold especially if you distribute it for free. While it’s true your not going to become wealthy giving away your hard work, it will create brand awareness and you can include income producing links within your free Ebook.
*** Cartoons & Jokes ***
If you haven’t yet received a viral video in your inbox, then surely you’ve seen text or graphical cartoons or jokes. Many people send these to one another just because. Imagine the results available if the picture included your URL in a visible but non-evasive position. Or perhaps your written joke referenced your website within the joke itself. The point here is that without much difficulty you can add a marketing message that everyone everywhere will be more than pleased to send throughout the web.
*** Text messages ***
As technology changes and builds upon itself the methods of distributing viral web marketing will morph accordingly. One of the best examples of this is using text messages through free services like Twitter.com where you are allowed to send text messages to other peoples cell phone devices.
*** Conclusion ***
No matter which process you use for your viral campaigns, be sure to use such processes, as they will help your Internet marketing endeavors in a large variety of ways. The more viral marketing you have on the web the higher the chances of massive traffic being driven to your web creatives.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:29 am
Among the multiple innovations the internet introduced to the field of marketing, there is no doubt that the most entertaining one is the viral video. Video sharing, which started as what seemed to be a teen fad, exploded into the primary content trend offered online today. And where the creative juices are flowing, it doesn’t take long for advertisers to jump in and join the current.
A huge part of the popular viral videos of the past were amateur stuff featuring home videos that range from funny to shocking. Everybody’s pet became a video star. But along with professionally produced material such as tv sketches and music videos, banned tv ads that started popping online were the first seed for commercial videos made straight for the internet. At first, when the videos or their links used to be spread in emails, spam guards and size limits slowed down the process, but video sharing giants like YouTube made the world a stage – the most accessible stage we ever had.
Most people flip tv channels when the commercial break is on, so what makes them tune in voluntarily? Internet videos are usually bolder, edgier, and more creative, and the people who make them are internet users themselves who take active part in video sharing communities; internet marketing companies who create viral videos understand the medium intimately and the truth in its core – that author and audience had never been closer, and in fact interchangeable. The fact that the person watching your video now is the author of the video you’ll be watching in a few minutes is the basis of genuine respect for the viewer. Internet ads don’t pound their commercial message with a hammer, or spoon feed us. They have to be more sophisticated and entertaining, because switching off is much easier.
Commercial viral videos are the best marketing strategy out there today to create brand awareness. What could be better than having people recommending your commercial to their friends? And with a wide range of video upload websites, you can publish your vision for free. That’s right, who needs to pay for air time when you’ve got web time?
To make it work in media sharing communities, your video needs to be interesting and surprising, and keep a high quality standard of image. People will tolerate the most grained and disrupted streaming from amateurs, but the pros have to deliver great graphics and processional work as seen in this funny and provocative internet commercial, The Interrogation The Interrogation . But it doesn’t stop there, before the video runs on its own you need to give it a hand, by networking with other members on your video sharing community to reach more exposure. Internet marketing companies usually devote considerable resources for this purpose, and rightly so.
The archives of sharing sites are already packed with millions of videos stored, but as long as there are people out there looking for laughs, interest and some entertainment, your audience is waiting for you.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Companies have long desired to create a buzz about themselves and develop ways to spread their message around in a quick and inexpensive way. Enter, Viral marketing the Internet answer to creating product or company buzz. Viral marketing is aptly named because when employed successfully promotional content for a company is spread about the Internet like a virus. People hear this term tossed around often on the news, on the Internet and in everyday conversation but many have little to no knowledge of what it actually means.
Viral marketing campaigns use existing social networking sites like, You Tube and Myspace to increase their brand awareness. Companies create a discreetly promotional marketing medium such as, a video, a game, a brandable software program, an image or occasionally even a text message and they encourage users to pass it on.
Initially, viral marketing was practiced by free web based e-mail companies. Hotmail was the first company to use a viral marketing campaign. They placed a link at the bottom of all the outgoing messages from their users to encourage the recipients of those e-mails to create their own account. This tactic did not originally have a name, but it was quite effective and many other companies began using similar methods for getting the word out about their business.
There are many keys strategies to creating an effective viral marketing promotion. However, there are six principle elements that any viral marketing promotion should have if it has any chance at success. Companies that wish to succeed in viral marketing must start by creating a product or service they are giving away, such as the aforementioned items. The viral marketing campaign also needs to be easily transferable so that users can easily pass it on.
Companies that wish to start a viral marketing campaign must be prepared for that campaign to scale from very small to very large. For instances, if you set up a website that users will ultimately join after the viral marketing campaign that website must be able to handle the traffic created. It is pointless to increase your traffic or user base if you cannot properly serve or accommodate a large volume of people.
A successful viral marketing campaign must also capitalize on common behaviors and desires. People want to be cool, funny, rich and loved. Many successful viral marketing campaigns have been successful as direct result of giving people the perception or ability to achieve one of these things. For instance, if you create a hilarious viral video as a marketing tool people may pass it around, in the hope at being the one who introduced it to others.
Finally, a viral marketing campaign should always take advantage of others’ resources. Many companies accomplish this by affiliating themselves with another company to gain the ability to place a graphic, link or text on that companies website. Not only does this create exposure, but when done properly it saves your resources for other purposes.
April 1st, 2009 at 12:00 am
Before we get into the meat and potatoes of how you can use viral marketing to help get a buzz going about your small business, let’s start with a definition of exactly what “viral marketing” means.
According to the Wikipedia, “Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use preexisting social networks to produce increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, images, or even text messages.”
If you’ve ever had a hotmail, yahoo or G-mail account, you’ve participated in a viral marketing campaign every time you sent an email to someone – because the company inserted a small (and usually discreet advertisement) at the bottom of all of your outgoing emails – inviting the people you were communicating with to receive their own free email account.
So how can you put a viral marketing campaign together for your own business – and more importantly, do you even want to?
Let me answer that second question first, okay? YES! You definitely want to take the time to brainstorm your own viral marketing campaign – even if you don’t someday want to be as big as hotmail, yahoo or Gmail.
Why? Because according to a recent survey done by Forrester Research, people are almost 65% more likely to trust a review posted by a peer – or even a complete stranger – than they are to trust the marketing or sales information put out by the company.
Don’t believe me? Check out Amazon.com and I-tunes. Why is this the case? Because as consumers we tend to think that the average “Joe Blow” has less of a personal agenda when posting his review about the latest “Dixie Chicks” album and so we give it more weight.
And, by the way, this is a normal reaction – it’s one that’s kind of hard-wired into all of us. People have always shared the things they like – or hate – with their friends and family members. Back in the 50′s and 60′s, our grandparents used to talk to their neighbors over the “back fence,” call each other on the phone or tell their friends during lunch. The difference is, these days we use the Internet and cell phones.
What’s interesting though, is that with the popularity of the Internet, our trust – and believe in “social proof” – has become even stronger.
By creating your own viral marketing campaign, you’ll be doing more than getting the word out about your new affiliate product. You’ll be gathering social proof – and that will help your sales to go through the roof.
So how do you set up your own viral marketing campaign? The first thing to do is to get back to the basics.
Here’s the real “secret” to making a lot of money with affiliate products. Have the right product, with the right message to the right people in the right time.
So start with your affiliate product. Make sure that there’s a hungry audience for whatever you’re selling.
Then make sure that you’re sending out the right message – and in the right way. If you’re marketing a product to teens, you’ll want to make sure that it’s something they want – and you’ll have to reach them where they’re hanging out. That might be on MySpace, twitter or even Friendster.
What’s the right message? Maybe it’s a special report. But it could just as easily be a video. Or an audio mp3 file. Match your message to your audience. And finally, make sure that you’re getting your message out at the right time – when your audience is ready to buy it.
Make your viral marketing campaign stand out from the crowd – because that’s how it’s going to get passed around and become viral. By understanding the basics – who your audience is, what they want, how they want to get it and when they want it – all you have to do next is to create something that your audience loves – or hates – or finds interesting enough – to pass around to their friends. And because your product comes with an implied endorsement – social proof – those people will pass it around to other people – and the buzz goes on and on and on and you’ll start hearing the “ka-ching!” of your cash register going off a lot more often.
