Viral Marketing

The terms Viral Marketing and Viral Advertising pertain to the act of spreading content throughout the internet using various Social Media outlets. Think of it as word-of-mouth marketing, only over the web. Viral marketers will take content that will increase traffic and awareness for a brand and launch a campaign by which the content will be seen by the masses. While the objective is always to increase brand awareness or push sales, the piece of content is usually more suited to the general public. Content should interest surfers that cruise Social Media websites, it should be thought provoking or interesting enough for internet users to spread the word and/or participate by sharing their own views, thus provoking others to respond to their opinion.

Social Media Sites Used by Viral Marketers

• Twitter: 140 characters of your thoughts, including links
• Facebook: You have hundreds of friends, your hundreds of friends have hundreds of friends...
• Digg: Social news site
• InfoBarrel: User contributed content
• Mixx: User contributed content, highly news focused
• Technorati: Search engine for user generated content
• Delicious: Social bookmarking