The Key To Successful Viral Marketing
There are as many ways to succeed at viral marketing as their are people doing marketing online. There is no one right way to conduct a viral marketing campaign. But there is one common element to every viral marketing campaign and there always will be. If you can tap into that one element then your chances of succeeding are greatly enhanced.
So what’s the key?
The key to any successful viral marketing campaigns to solicit others to do your marketing for you. How do you do that? There’s a real simple way to get others do your marketing for you – offer something of value.
Yes, that’s it. Make sure you offer something of value for free to those other people and they will do your marketing for you if they believe in what you are doing.
It is getting harder and harder to conduct a viral marketing campaign online due to the low barrier to entry and the number of people competing for attention. Your offer has to be outstanding. You have to offer something that is free and that people will find of value. Strike a nerve and they will promote your offering for you.
Going Viral: How Many Friends Do You Have?
Going viral is a lot more difficult than it used to be. Which is a bit ironic because there are a lot more people online to see what you have to offer. But, of course, there are a lot more people competing against your for interest too. And that’s why it is so hard.
Viral marketing consists of two things:
- Quality product, service, or message
- Serendipitous discovery
The first of those really needs no introduction. If your product, service, or message isn’t worth telling people about then it won’t go viral. No one’s going to tell their friends about something they don’t find interesting or worth telling about. It’s the second quality – serendipity – that could make or break you.
Serendipity is often thought of as luck, but it’s really more than that. It’s a kind of luck, but not like a roll of the dice or a pick of the draw. It’s more like a planned kind of luck. Serendipity happens to those who expect it and pursue it. But it does happen. It just doesn’t happen because you pursue it.
Sound like a jumble of words? It’s not. Viral marketing is all about making friends. And helping your friends see the value in what you see value in and encouraging them to share that insight with their friends. If there is real value in your perception then you could go viral. Serendipity.
So the question, “How many friends do you have” is somewhat rhetorical. You could have all the friends in the world, but if none of them see the same value that you see then viral won’t happen. But if you have something valuable to offer and no one to offer it to – well, you get the idea. It takes both. A valuable product, service or message and an audience ready and willing to see the value in it. That last one is the thing you’ve got to pursue. It won’t come to you.
Viral Marketing Tip: Focused Twittering
Viral marketing gets a lot hyper for good reason. There are plenty of ways to go about running a viral marketing campaign and achieving success. Here are some tips to help you in your next Twitter marketing campaign. How to go viral on Twitter:
- Put some thought into your Twitter name. Try to get something that is easily brandable (and it helps if it matches the brand you’ve already created)
- Use Twellow, Twitter Search, and such tools to find followers in the niche that you work in.
- Maintain an active Twitter posture (10-20 tweets a day is ideal – not too many and just enough to keep your name in front of your followers)
- Ensure that all of your tweets provide value related to your niche
- Write a keyword-focused description on your Twitter profile
- Use @replies to respond to your followers and build relationships
- Retweet helpful tweets from others
- Build up a sizable following (there’s power in numbers)
- Stay away from automation whenever possible, but in light doses you can pre-schedule certain tweets that are recurring using services like Tweetlater and HootSuite
- Put a Retweet button on your blog
- Use Twitter Tools to automatically post your blog posts to your Twitter account
The key to going viral on Twitter is to build relationships with people in your niche who are like-minded and to provide value upon value upon value.