Viral Marketing – What is it and How to Use It
By Tom F Wilson

If you purchase an item and you tell a friend about the merits of your purchase, and they tell a friend about how good the same item is, and this information is past on to other friends this is a form of viral marketing.

Viral marketing has been around for a long, long time but it was a venture capitalist by the name of Steve Jurvetson that named the term to describe Hotmail`s marketing methods. Hotmail`s method was to attach an advert for itself on messages that was sent by its own service and when the advert was clicked, it would lead to Hotmail`s website and this would be repeated over and over, so creating the term “Viral Marketing”.

Using Viral Marketing

There are different ways of using viral marketing strategies and methods.

1. Passing the message along

This is the most common use of viral marketing, This where websites ask their users to tell a friend about their product or service and pass their message on. There is a risk that it maybe seen as “spam” by email providers, so it is important that the “from” and the “subject” lines do not contain any words that can be tagged as spam.

2. Incentivised Viral

This is a marketing strategy that is used by businesses in which a reward is offered when somebody is referred to the company, and the reward is given when action is taken.

3. Undercover

The most difficult viral to spot, this type of marketing sends a viral message that is disguised as an unusual page without obvious link citations.

4. Buzz or Edgy gossip Marketing

This type of viral marketing is used mostly in the entertainment world, an example of this is spreading rumours like getting divorced or getting married, or leaking information about a part in a film that is not yet released.

Methods of transmitting

Email – This is the most common method used, people forward information such as advertising products or jokes, funny clips, pictures the list goes on.

Websites – articles that are published online now have a link that asks you to send to a friend, this method can reach a lot of people just by posting on one site.

Instant messaging – You can receive links from friends through messaging servers, such as Yahoo or MSN.

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