Viral marketing

“They tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and they tell two friends.”

This is the basic premise of viral marketing. Online marketing campaigns or promotions that go “viral” when they mimic the behavior of a common cold virus. This means that they exploit the natural, interactive behavior of their hosts to spread.

The interconnected nature of online communities enables a similar spreading of marketing messages through the Internet. If your marketing message informs, entertains, provokes, or otherwise attracts attention online, its recipients can easily forward it to their friends. This amplification of your promotions can happen quickly and inexpensively leading to massive attention and website traffic for the sponsoring company or website.

To take advantage of this “word of mouth on steroids” potential of online marketing, your promotion needs to offer incentives to its targeted recipients. The incentives should be geared to encouraging them to take the action that you and your products most desire. Usually, this means offering your audience a chance to look smart, well-informed, or clever by forwarding your marketing messages to their friends and colleagues.

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