Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, thus creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions.

Viral marketing is considered one of the most powerful method of online marketing and advertising nowadays. Marketers today utilize the power of online viral marketing – this marketing technique is not just one of the most successful internet marketing methods, but it is also considered as one of the most economical method.

Viral marketing uses the Internet to disseminate its message and spread the word about a particular brand and/or content.

In this article, I will share and discuss six tips on how you can write content that markets itself to readers and that can drive potential clients to your website:

1. Identify your niche

First of all, you must know your target audience and you need to identify the specific niche your message will be targeting. The better you understand your audience, the easier it will be for you to create messages that they will consider funny or interesting.

If you want to get the attention of the general public, with no specific niche, a good idea is to look for trending topics on social media communities and other online discussion groups related to your site’s theme and ideology. In the end you will have to choose the ones that can really catch your potential clients’ attention.

2. Post teasers on social media networks

A common fact of marketing: anything new creates momentum! You can use this paradigm for your own marketing strategies. You can build on people’s excitement by releasing teasers. Teasers may consist in a tweet, a poster or an image, a video, or any short content. This gives potential and existing readers something to look forward to.

But be careful: don’t post the same message on all your social media accounts. Remember! Being able to adapt your message to each specific public is a mark of a true marketing specialist. Besides, no two social media platforms are alike: the message you just posted on Twitter will get you little to no buzz on Facebook or Pinterest if you do not change and adapt it! 

3. Catchy titles are the key

Do you read the body of a blog post first before reading the title? No? Me neither.

The vast majority of online readers use titles as a deciding point on whether or not they should read the rest of your article. So if your blog post has a weak headline, no one will read it. You should learn to treat titles as mini advertisements to maximize your chances of compelling your target audience to check out and go through the entire article.

Remember: headlines are the most important element of your page, so put a lot of effort into identifying the right key words, and invest time and patience before publishing the post. To get a good list of keywords that will hit the first few pages in Google, you can check out Google AdWords and use its keyword generator tool for free.

4. Be funny! Be witty! Be viral!

Despite all the power and potential the Internet has, most people still use it primarily for entertainment and distraction, which is why sites like Facebook and YouTube are so popular. Some companies have built entire Internet empires from nothing but funny pictures and videos. And you too can tap into the power of viral marketing.

The secret to viral marketing is composing short, funny or witty messages that make people laugh or that appeal to their emotions. People like being entertained, and if they find something particularly entertaining, they’ll pass it along to their friends, who in-turn pass it on to their friends, and so-on and so-forth. And that’s how content goes viral. 

If you want to know more about how you can incorporate funny messages and pictures to market your business and gain traffic to your site, you might also want to check out this article about using memes for your Internet marketing campaign.

5. Short, simple and up to the point

The secret of any successful marketing campaign is to know your audience very well and to write as if you’re talking directly to your readers. You need to ask yourself: “What do my readers want to know?” Once you’ve figured out what you want to say and what they want to hear, develop your message according to the following principle: Keep It Short and Simple.

Short messages have much higher chances to go viral. Nowadays, people’s attention span is so limited, that anything that takes longer than a few seconds to read or comprehend is usually discarded. And you want your message to reach its audience and to make a powerful impact. So you should work hard to make your message into a concentrated dose of emotion or information that will pack a powerful kick.

6. Encourage sharing

By definition, “viral” is something that spreads quickly over a short amount of time. Your content must encourage sharing, otherwise you’re not doing viral marketing the way it should be done.

So be bold with your statements, be funny and witty, but most importantly, create worth-remembering original content that will ignite people’s desire to share your message with the word.

Step two: Install Retweet, Like, Recommend buttons and other sharing plug-ins visibly on your page to enable visitors to share your content with ease. The more your information shared, the farther its reach is.

Remember to design your website or page in such a way that is accessible and fun for your readers to browse, but not over-crowded with social media buttons. By all means, you must give them the possibility to hare your content, but you mustn’t give the impression that you’re “hungry” for Retweets or Facebook likes. The sharing part must come somewhat natural, your readers should not feel obligated or harassed into sharing your message. You will just feel desperate and needy and you don’t want to give that impression.

The benefits of viral marketing

1. Free advertising for your website

2. Gain visitors immediately

3. Causes exponential growth – reaches a large audience

4. Pretty inexpensive to set-up – all you have to invest is a bit of your time

5. Viral marketing tools are relatively easy to develop

6. Use viral marketing strategies to quickly build your reputation

7. Easy to combine with other marketing methods

8. Increase targeted traffic to your web site

In conclusion

Employing the right tactics for a successful viral marketing campaign takes practice and experience.  Through viral marketing techniques, you provide something that encourages others to spread the word
about your product, quickly and inexpensively with little effort on your part. This potentially creates exponential growth in the message’s visibility and effect. The message spreads in a viral form in a manner similar to the spreading of a common cold virus from person to person. If you manage to set up a viral marketing campaign correctly, you have the opportunity of gaining thousands of visitors to your site. All you have to do afterwards is keep them enticed and keep them coming back for more.

Good luck!