Promoting it through Viral Marketing: do’s & the dont’s

What is Viral Marketing ?
Ever received a video from a friend featuring an insane funny bear, dancing & fighting on the river side and which is so hilarious that you can’t stop yourself from forwarding it to your best friends to make them go through the same motions that you just had. This is Viral Marketing. What that viral video provided you, was a chance to enjoy some thing stupid, hilarious and what the makers of the video got; was a word of mouth for their own company, product or service. And the marketing channel involved in the process was 1000 times more effective and faster than other traditional and really expensive marketing channels like banners ads, PPC ads etc; as viral marketing is based on the oldest and the most effective channel - that is word of mouth.

Viral Marketing might sound insane to some but I don’t think, any question can be raised on effectiveness of a well directed and presented viral advertisement. Here I have tried to gist down few tips about how to develop a successful viral advertisement. I am not guaranteeing you any success though, as its all about your creativity and perception about your company and product or service that you are selling.

1. Hit the right emotion
Viral should be so designed to evoke feelings like love, hate, humor or shock in the hearts of the viewers. So when it comes to viral marketing, there is no harm in acting like the most idiot, insane, genius or compassionate person on earth.
2. Do the unexpected
If you want people to actually notice and share your viral campaign, you will have to think out of the box.
3. Do not do any thing that can have negative impact on viewers
Time for a word of caution. When I say that you have to make some thing different which has a big emotional impact on the viewer, I don’t want you to end up making some thing that is vulgar and disgusting. As its not a good idea to spoil your product or company’s image or even spread a bad word of mouth about it on the cost of cheap publicity.
4. Focus on story
For now, forget your product or your company and just look to concentrate on story. When Sony made its viral ad for Bravia, there was hardly any TV in it, but still people loved it and they still remember it.
5.Viral Sequels
Now lets just assume that your viral is a hit and people really liked it. By now you have a ready made platform and you are jet set to launch a sequel and since the people already have an image about you and your service, most chances are that they would love it.
6. Lets share
Its not only about making it well, but also letting the people to own and share your viral.

Now lets talk about a little Do’s and Don’ts of Viral Marketing:

Do’s
Let them download it in a usable format.

• Allow them to embed it to their own sites.
• Let them share it as simple URL links.
• Publish your viral over digg, youtube etc.
• Let them book mark it.
• Let the people leave their thought and comments to make it more interactive.

Don’ts

• Don’t make it mandatory for users to register before watching or sharing it.
• Your viral shouldn’t require to download special drivers or softwares to run.

I hope this blog will help you to make your own successful viral campaign, if not you at least have an idea that how fun it can be to market your product or service to the masses through Viral Marketing. But I believe some thing that is so fun, effective and economical; it is actually worth a try..