6 Essential Viral Marketing Strategies ~ What is Seo-Seo World Updates

What is Viral Marketing?

Viral marketing strategies involve the spread of content, in a way that is similar to how a virus spreads – quickly, while infecting many people. Viral marketing gives the potential power, to just about anyone – be it an individual or an organization, to quickly spread their content among a lot of people. Often times, we end up seeing Youtube videos of people’s pets, babies or something else, that have thousands of views, if not millions.

Social mediums such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube are synonymous with any viral marketing strategy, and form the basis of viral marketing. Other important aspects in viral marketing include the messenger(s), the content and the timing.

Viral Marketing and SEO

While much of the viral content might be about something interesting that was captured at the right time and place, perhaps due to coincidence or because of sheer luck, and hence might have unintentionally gone viral, a lot of content is being created with the sole purpose of going viral and as part of a wider SEO strategy.

There is simply no denying that going viral almost guarantees a large influx of visitors and traffic to the original source. It can therefore be an excellent and an effect marketing and SEO strategy. Imagine if one of your videos were to go viral, gaining worldwide attention, being featured on a talk-show or being shared millions of times, ending up getting you all sorts of traffic from all sorts of high-PR and authority sources!

‘Kony2012’ would be an apt example here.

Why Viral?

For starters, going viral gives the potential to target thousands of potential customers and potential audience. That precisely is the aim of every SEO strategy, isn’t it: getting targeted traffic. That is exactly what viral marketing does for you; pull in highly-targeted traffic, in large numbers, in a short span of time.

Spreading the word could also come with added advantages from a SEO-perspective such as increased traffic (as explained above), an increased Click-Through Rate (CTR) and Call-To Action (CTA), and a higher conversion rate.

Viral Marketing Strategies

So what exactly can one do to ‘go viral’? As stated above, all three factors, namely the content, the messengers and the timing is extremely important to an effective viral marketing strategy. But here is a six-step viral marketing strategy that could work for you:

Give stuff for free – freebies, giveaways and promotions which give away stuff for free are a good way to have your content go viral and therefore a guaranteed method of attracting visitors and customers. This could include giving out a free product like a WordPress plugin or an app or even a free domain name or hosting space. Alternatively, offer a service such as a free personal consultation or a coaching session. Do this periodically.
Give people permission to re-use your content – whether its images, a video, an article or anything else, giving people the permission to re-use it, share it or reprint it on blogs, websites, social mediums, magazines, their own videos or anywhere else is usually a good way to go viral. Just make sure to add a disclaimer that says that this is free to reproduce as long as the person who does that credits the original uploader/creator.
Offer people an incentive – as easy as it is for someone to click on that share button, why would he or she do it? Offer an incentive so that people are forced to share. Ask people to share, like, retweet, +1, or pin your content. Add a ‘recommend to a friend’ box within your app or plugin. And in return, offer them something extra. Every 5 referrals, or every 50 shares earns you an eBook worth $10 free of cost. Dropbox, the popular cloud-storage software, does this to great effect, by offering additional storage on every referral. You could also do a contest by offering a big prize to anyone who shares your content the most.
Be funny, use humor – Being funny and humorous is usually a sure-fire way of going viral. This is why we see images like ‘internet memes’ shared by a lot of friends, and Youtube videos showing people and animals doing funny stuff with a very high number of views.
Choose multiple forms of media – go for videos, images, press releases, and podcasts.
Choosing who to target – in order for your content to spread like wildfire, you need to ensure that as many people as possible hear about it. Post it on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, GooglePlus, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Submit it on content submission directories like StumbleUpon and Reddit. The more places you put your content on, the merrier. Having your content on multiple mediums not only gives it more chances of exposure, it also increases its chances of being picked up and plugged by someone with a high social networking potential (or SNP).

Being Prepared for an Influx of Traffic

It is vital to know that going viral would probably mean a large influx of visitors and traffic to your blog. Make sure your hosting package will be able to handle that sort of traffic and/or sales. Being prepared usually pays off in the long run.

Optimizing for Conversions

This is not limited to just viral marketing, but also applies to it, as it would apply to any other marketing strategy. All your marketing efforts should be optimized for conversions. Your viral marketing efforts need to have a clear and precise call-to-action – whether it’s to have your viewers like your Facebook page, subscribe to your blog, purchase an item or perform any other action.

Network Marketing

At first glance, this might seem like a completely new and unfamiliar term to you; however network marketing is essentially another word for viral marketing. Network marketing simply refers to networking with people through different online and offline mediums. Connecting with people, especially emotionally, and building contacts is an important aspect of viral marketing. A human being, by nature, is a social animal – use this to your advantage to attain more exposure, traffic and revenue streams.

Concluding Words

Suggestions? Would you like to add something? Leave your comments in the comment section!

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What is Seo-Seo World Updates

Wednesday 12 June 2013