Most talk about or plan to do it, while the reality is that very few companies do. A viral campaign is probably the best way to spread buzz and word-of-mouth marketing for branding purposes, drive traffic, or even monetize a site.
I will post my notes from this session to help you understand what a viral campaign is and hopefully spark ideas as to what you can do for your campaign to go viral.
What’s more important in a viral campaign? Money or Content? CONTENT. Content is truly king in a viral campaign. For example (and there are many,) Willitblend.com spent $50 in production cost for a video that yield millions of visitors. We also have the example of the Diet Coke Mentos guys and many others who have had immense results by simply posting a video on YouTube or starting a Myspace profile.
What is one of the main goals of a viral campaign? GET PEOPLE TO TALK ABOUT YOU.
Content from your viral campaign will come from two sources, yours and the visitors. Your content will have four main ingredients and they are:
-Entertainment
-Relevancy
-Timely
-Exclusive
The visitors’ content will come by them posting comments, posting questions, etc.
What is so beneficial and cool about making your campaign go viral? It’s FREE. Websites such as YouTube, Myspace, Facebook and many others can combine to create a buzz monster delivering millions of visitors if your campaign takes off.What are some outlets to get the word out or generate traffic?
-Blogs
-Forums
-RSS Feeds
-Social Bookmarking (Digg, Stumble)
-Press Releases
-Photo Directors (Flickr)
-Video sites (YouTube, Revver)
-Article Marketing
-E-Zines
-White Papers
-Wikipedia
Conn Fishburn, Director of Social Media Strategy at Yahoo gave a great example and quote. If the web was a country, it’d be the 3rd largest nation in the world. Followed by that statistic, he delivered a great quote to understanding how a campaign can go viral. “It’s not the size of the flame that will spark the fire in the forest, it’s the condition of the forest that will spark the fire” **not the exact quote.
You make the condition or look at what communities, etc will have the greater chance of your campaign being successful.
