[mccooey]

In this article I’m going to explain everything you need to know about viral marketing and how to be successful at making something go viral.

With today's technology we can quickly communicate with millions of people with just the click of a mouse. There are so many social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, that we can communicate quickly and effectively. Today, we can spread the word like wild fire. For example, remember your high school days when rumors were spread? Viral marketing is quite similar. The other day one of my leads emailed me wondering how something goes viral. He thought that the person just advertised their story over and over again. This was completely false. You could have the biggest marketing budget in the world and still not beat someone who is doing viral marketing. That is the beauty of it all - no advertisements! Here is a visual example below:

Andy starts a rumor: “Susan, the gothic girl, cooked a cat and ate it!”

On Monday Andy Tells:

Harry, Kate Tell:

Marissa, Matt, Caroline Tell:

Chris, Martin, Larry, Anthony, Nick, Harold Tell:

Alex, Sam, Emily, Gabby, Tony, Connor, Brianna, Jeff, Richard, Ashley, Tom, John

Imagine what will happen on Tuesday…

As you can see, this is a perfect example of viral marketing. See how one person can cause something to go viral? The question is how. Notice that the subject that went viral is the fact that Susan cooked and ate a cat. This subject matter is bizarre and interesting which is why the word was spread so fast. If the rumor was only "Susan ate an apple", obviously Harry and Kate wouldn't spread the message to their friends and the rumor would have never become viral. In viral marketing you must have spread worthy information. In other words, information that people want to hear.

Viral Marketing Success Fundamental # 1 – Create something of interest!
Whatever it is you’re selling or promoting, it has to be interesting in some way. It doesn’t have to be a bizarre story like Andy’s rumor, but it does have to attack a person’s emotions. For example, if you are promoting a weight loss product through viral marketing, you should show before and after photos. Why? Because it hits people’s emotions as they fantasize what they could look like a few months down the road using your product. Viral marketing is all about getting people emotionally involved.

Viral Marketing Success Fundamental # 2 – Separate yourself from the rest!
I can’t stress this enough. You need to have something unique, something original. For example, if you are trying to sell a “make money online” program, you shouldn’t just write up an article about how much money you can make – everyone does that. You need to market your program in a unique way so people can differentiate you from the rest of the crowd.

Viral Marketing Success Fundamental # 3 – Make it easy to share!
This is very important when it comes to viral marketing. Viral marketing is also mainly about people sharing with people. For example, if you post a story on Facebook, your friends should be able to view it and their friends as well. Also, reply to comments and read them! Many people will give positive comments and some will ask for more. If they ask for more, share more. If you’re promoting a story, get that story out there and post it on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. Why? More sharing exposure. Imagine Facebook friends commenting and liking on your status, and people retweeting your story on Twitter. Now that will surely go viral. Viral marketing is about sharing unique opportunities and stories that will force people to tell their friends.

[mccooey]

YouTube Viral Marketing

So now that we know some of the basic principles of viral marketing, let’s put it to practice. I’m going to start off by talking about how to make a YouTube video go viral. The first thing you should know is what your video is about. If it’s a boring subject, it will be almost impossible for the video to go viral. If you don’t have many ideas of what to make, look at examples on YouTube. Look for videos that have over 1,000,000 views. Be sure not to copy any of these videos as it will decrease your chances of having the video go viral. Remember that viral marketing is about creating something unique and interesting, not the same old video of a dude dancing on stage.

Some YouTube Viral Marketing Tips:

1. Your video should be no longer than 3 minutes. Remember your audience’s time is precious. Don’t have a long intro, don’t have credits, and don’t have anything that might be boring. You want your video to be short, sweet, and to the point. If you’re not sure if something is boring, trust me it is!

2. You need to cut out the parts that aren’t interesting. Even if your video is 3 minutes, if you have a 30 second intro, most people won’t stay.

3. Thumbnails are also very important. Remember that in viral marketing we need to tap into the emotions. Why do you think the video with the girl in the bikini has so many views? It appeals to people and hits the emotions, or sexual emotions.

Lastly, your video should have clear quality and the video should be stable. You don’t need to run out and buy a fancy camera, but your audience needs to be able to see the subject. A good rule of thumb is if you can’t see the whites of a person’s eyes, the video quality is just too low. Also I can’t tell you how many times I’m surfing on YouTube and come across a video where the cameraman can’t keep the camera still! I mean seriously, get your condition checked out because you can’t stop shaking!

So to summarize YouTube viral marketing… You should have a video that is unique (examples: Jenna Marbles, EpicMealTime, Shane Dawson, etc.) and original! Make sure the quality is good enough and the video is roughly under 3 minutes. Finally, make sure the video hits the emotions. If it can’t make me laugh till my sides hurt, make my eyeballs pop out of my head, or cry till I die from dehydration, it won’t go viral. Good luck guys.

[mccooey]

Some More Viral Marketing Tips:

Now that you know a little bit about YouTube viral marketing, let’s talk about website viral marketing. Many people who are trying to make money with their website simply aren’t getting enough traffic. When someone first creates a website on average they usually will receive 10 visitors their first month. The sad part is out of the 10, you’re one of them. You can’t make any money with that kind of traffic. So that’s why we look to viral marketing and getting our website the traffic it needs to become a cash cow.
In this example, I’m going to talk about a weight loss website and how to make something like this go viral. The first thing you need is your website address. Because you are targeting the keyword weight loss, make sure you include the keyword in your address. Now when choosing a website address you won’t get an address like weightloss.com, because obviously it’s already taken. With viral marketing all you need is a catchy address with your keyword. Try weightlossthinkitdoit.com or something like that. This address is catchy and it includes your keyword.

The next step is your websites content. Again, this is one of the most important parts of your website because it’s how Google ranks your website. It’s also very important when it comes to viral marketing. You’ll notice on Google that the top search results for the keyword weight loss also have high quality content.

I thought we didn’t need great content with viral marketing?

This is true, however you still need to have some traffic before it goes viral. Remember anything that goes viral did not start out with 0 traffic. Someone had to see it or most likely thousands of people were able to see and share. I know you can get serious traffic with SEO, but remember that going viral means that thousands of people are sharing information with their friends. Speaking of weight loss, a perfect example is the program Insanity. Not all their sales came from SEO, they came from viral marketing as well.

So anyway, make sure your content is high quality and original. Make sure that you reread what you write and that the article is free of grammar and spelling mistakes. Also, whatever you are writing the reader should want to keep reading, but keep it short and sweet. Your content needs to be interesting and worthy of sharing to others. Why did Insanity go viral? Because people had good things to say about it and people read those comments and shared the information with their friends. Lastly, try to avoid commercializing your writing. Google doesn’t like people trying to sell stuff so the more you write commercially, the less search engine traffic you’ll get. I soon will talk about the power of images and how they play huge role in viral marketing.

[mccooey]

Looking At Viral Marketing Examples

In order to master the concept of viral marketing, you need to analyze how something goes viral. When you look at other videos or blogs that went viral you should ask yourself “why?” You should know the answer especially if you’re trying to create something that you want to go viral. In this example, I’m going to be talking about videos on YouTube. More specifically, dog and cat videos. It seems that in the world of viral marketing, these videos go viral all the time.

Why Do These Videos Go Viral?

You need to realize that there are two type of people on the internet. There are people who seek information and people who just hang out. The people who are just online to hang out are the type of people watching these cat and dog videos. After they watch one video, they’ll watch another and another. In YouTube, the videos on the side play a major influence because when people are done with one video, they’ll check out the titles and thumbnails on the side to figure out what they want to watch next. The people who created the videos probably new nothing about viral marketing and had no idea it would go viral. Since we are into viral marketing and we’re trying to create something that will go viral, we need to take more time creating the video. The dog and cat videos are easy when it comes to viral marketing because pets are cute, their cool to watch, and people enjoy watching pet videos. It’s as simple as that. So do all pet videos go viral? No, but there is a reason why certain ones do go viral.

When reading all the information I mentioned earlier in viral marketing article, note all the techniques that cause a video to go viral. The pet videos that did go viral had either a catchy title, an amazing thumbnail, or a shocking outcome in the video. The pet videos that didn’t go viral may have been missing some elements or hasn’t received enough views to get the sharing process going. Remember that in viral marketing it may take one technique or multiple techniques in order for something to go viral. This is why I always recommend to use all the techniques I listed to increase the chances of the video or blog going viral.

So to summarize the viral marketing tips, you need to use one or more techniques. There really is no exact formula to viral marketing besides the fact that you need to create something people want to share. It doesn’t need to be good, it just needs be share worthy.