How To Go Viral With Your Marketing

“OK, this is it lads. We’re going to create a viral video for our latest project. Any ideas?”

Well, if that’s how you think the process starts to create viral marketing for your business, you couldn’t be more wrong.

For a start, you can’t make something go viral – that’s the public’s job.

What is viral marketing?

Well it’s a way of using social networks to promote brand awareness (or boost sales) through a self-replicating viral process. Which means that you create something others love and feel compelled to share with their friends…who then share it with their friends…who then share it with their friends…who then share it with their friends….you get the idea.

And that is precisely why you can’t ‘make’ a viral video, image, eBook etc.

Qualities of viral marketing

The only way you’re going to make your piece of marketing go ‘viral’ is by creating an emotional connection with your view/reader.

Someone isn’t going to share your collateral just because you ask him/her to; it has to resonate with them and compel them to click the share button or talk about it to their friends.

There are no rules to say it has to be funny, gimmicky or super clever – it just has to evoke an emotional response.

OK, that kind of leaves the door wide open, but quite often the simplest ideas are the best.

Whether it’s a demonstration that captures the imagination like Blendtec’s ‘Will it blend an iPhone, the clever Honda ‘The Cog’ sequence, or the wonderful Cadbury’s Gorilla advert, your idea just has to capture the imagination of your audience.

That means studying your audience, studying your product (and the relationship between the two) and then working out which emotional connections your brand needs to make to kick-start the immediate ‘need to share’ reflex.

With the country gripped by Olympic fever, this has to be my favourite video on YouTube at the moment. OK, it’s not a product or a sales pitch, but it captures the excitement of a nation:

Reaction of the BBC commentary team as Mo Farah wins with 10,000 metres in London 2012.

What’s your favourite?

We’d love to compile an ‘all time favourites’ list of viral marketing, so leave a comment below with details of the one that captured imagination – and tell us why.