Viral Marketing 101 - What Is Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is a phenomenon. It works and works well. Why? Because it puts the power in the hands of the people. It doesn't rely on advertising executives, million dollar campaigns or celebrity endorsements. It is real, down-to-earth, grassroots marketing that, when it comes down to it, might be advertising in its purest form.

Viral marketing is one of the most effective ways of driving traffic to your website with little effort on your part. With viral marketing, you can send your marketing message to selected recipients who then pass on that message to others. Viral marketing is easy and affordable, so anyone can do it. Viral marketing, while driven by strategy and well-planned messaging, is only successful when its audience is captivated. A marketing campaign will only go “viral” if people like it and ultimately, share it with others. Therefore, they have the power. Not the marketer.

Online business owners and Internet marketers alike understand the important role viral marketing plays in the success of their businesses today via a solid social media marketing strategy. Social media networks have become just as much about business as they are about pleasure.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, (ultimate guide to using Pinterest for marketing) and other key players are essential elements in any social media marketing strategy now joining us in the boardroom, in sales meetings and are the hottest marketing venues for bloggers. Blogs are replacing news media in many ways, and we must adapt our marketing approach to become players in the new Internet marketing schema. Image Credit: http://www.rylanclayne.com/

Google +1 is essential now for rankings and for using social media fr viral marketing, learn more with 5 Tips For Using Google +1 For Business.  Blog Engage is a fantastic place to submit your content and network with bloggers that understand the importance of viral marketing and spreading the word.

How To Go Viral Using A Social Media Strategy

Say, for example, you are an Internet marketer with a blog that you want to promote using a social media marketing strategy. You create and sell valuable sales tools, including E-books, reports, videos and webinars and offer valuable content to readers on a specific niche. Not only should you have a list to which you apply your email marketing campaign, but in addition, you can share your offerings on social media marketing channels like, Facebook, Linkedin, tweeting about them on Twitter, YouTube and others, the possibilities are endless.

With a little bit of creativity and a true understanding of your target market, viral marketing has the ability to skyrocket your business to new heights when using a solid and consistent social media marketing strategy. Not only should you consider the favor of your current customer base, but approach your viral marketing campaign in such a way that encourages – and makes them want to – share your business with others. You could offer free products for every ten people your customers share your link with. The more you incentivize, the more likely people are to share with others. 

Think about it, if you were your own customer, what would entice you to share your products? What grabs your attention? Start there and see what works in social media marketing and viral marketing messages. The other great thing about viral marketing is, if one approach isn’t working, you lose nothing by switching gears. Just be careful to settle in to a consistent message, no matter what your approach might be.

Always remember that value is the key to success in viral marketing an social media marketing, people always want to spread something useful around and tell others because they want to share it and show their appreciation as well.

Viral Marketing Via A Social Media Marketing

If you have high quality products, services and content your marketing message will be passed on to many people via viral marketing. Viral is usually best when it is done via word of mouth, like any brick and mortar business. And online it is social media that provides a venue for people to share your content and refer new visitors and customers to your websites and blogs.

A single piece of content can get unlimited retweets from followers, which is really an incredible and free way to spread your content and increase the opportunities for more links and more exposure, and therefore more popularity and in turn higher rankings and more money, this is how viral marketing works via a solid social media marketing strategy.

Viral Content Ideas And Methods To Promote via Social Media Marketing

The key to success with viral marketing is to offer something of value, no matter what niche you are in order to get others to spread it around. The tips below will help you to engage in your viral marketing campaign and use  a social media strategy to set your online business on fire. Image Credit: http://www.mmtc-direct.com

• Always have a variety of social media buttons on your blog, use WP Socializer as previously stated to make this easy. Great plugin with a lot of versatility for easily adding social buttons in many different places on your blog.

• Titles matter - make sure the title of your content is engaging and sparks interest for people to want to go and take a look.

• Use a plugin like Twitter Tools that auto posts your new content to Twitter, this makes it easy, set it and forget it system. Also, check out 5 copywriting strategies to accelerate Twitter marketing.

• If you have a static website, make sure to attach a blog, this is essential for spreading content and making it go viral.

• Learn to build and create meaningful connections on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and not just numbers, quality matters, here.

• You can carry out your viral marketing campaign by creating e-books, reports or articles and distribute them to targeted recipients, giving them away for free. Any Internet marketer can do this; since it simply involves creating the product, pass it on and let other people pass it on further for you.

• Post great images with your content and use Pinterest to promote it.

• Offer high quality products and content that spread your marketing message. Write well-researched reports and e-books on your niche and add your URL on these reports. Many people like getting free reports and e-books. These e-books will provide very powerful information on your topic, and people who read them will visit your website. Further distribution of your reports and e-book will result in more traffic to your website as well as increased awareness of your business or brand.

• Get active on social sites that matter, Facebook, Twitter, Google +, LinkedIn, Blog Engage and other relevant social sites in your niche. If your niche is related to online business, blogging and Internet marketing see this list of 23 social sites to promote Internet Marketing, blogging type content. Be social on social networks, do not just be self serving. Share others information and they in turn, will share yours. Viral marketing is a give and take and the more you give, the more you will get.

• Do not just self promote, reach out to other bloggers and retweet and like on Facebook their content as well.

• Link back to other sites and get your content noticed by influential bloggers.

• You can also offer a free service or product on your web site that spreads your message to an increasing number of people who hear about it. Send out news releases concerning the free service or product available on your site. This in turn will generate huge volumes of traffic to your website.

• Setting up an affiliate program that encourages links to your products can also be helpful. If you can afford it, provide attractive financial incentive for other sites to pass on your marketing message. You can also install a ‘Recommend it” referral system on your website so that other Internet marketers will pass on your website address to their lists. By having your own affiliates promoting your website, you drive a lot of traffic to your website.

• Write good quality articles and encourage other webmasters to post them for free as content on their sites. If you're an expert in a niche, write an article on that niche and give it away for free to complementary sites to post on their site as free content, so long as the article contains links to your site. Write high quality articles and distribute them online for free with reprinting rights. 

• Guest posting is a great way to go viral, and some very high traffic sites, like Mashable, accept guest posts, imagine the viral opportunities there.

Use the power of viral marketing and a solid and consistent social media strategy to spread your marketing message all over the Internet and drive high volumes of traffic to your website.

Social Media Marketing Tools

Here are resources that allow you to manage all your social media profiles and resources in one place, much easier than having to manage one by one and allows you to main stream your personal reputation management.

Hootsuite

Hellotxt

Nimble