Viral Internet Marketing: Why Viral Content is Great

The term viral content may conjure up ideas of computer hackers and crashes, but it is actually a positive feature of the web. It refers to information published on the internet that can be easily spread across the globe. Such content can take almost any form and include media substance beyond basic text. However, it must be something that others want to view, talk about, and share.

Viral content stems from the advertising technique known as viral marketing. This method is used to spread brand or product awareness through pre-existing social networks. When applied to the internet, this technique expands many times over. Social networks are no longer limited to face-to-face meetings. In fact, entire sites have been created for virtual social networking. Thus, when viral internet content spreads, it can spread to millions of users who participate in these networks.

Viral content has great marketing potential as it draws traffic to blogs and websites.

The content itself is usually free to view. Money is not made by the actual feature. Rather, it is used to promote a product or draw viewers to ads on the same site.

The key to viral content is that it is easy to understand. If one person “gets it” the odds are that others will too. That’s why images and videos are especially popular forms of viral content. Successful viral content must also be current. The more it is related to popular culture, the more people will be interested in it. However, the moment the feature becomes outdated, it will stop spreading.

Viral content is usually short and sweet. People have short attention spans and seem to prefer items that can be viewed quickly. A video may be no longer than a few seconds, or an article may take up half a page. Items that are too long can cause viewers to lose interest. This means they will be unlikely to share the content with anyone else, and the virus will not spread.

Lists are a popular form of viral content. They meet all of the aforementioned standards. Lists are generally short, easy to read, and simple to understand. Most good lists are well-researched and contain supporting information. When focused on an interesting topic, they can become quite popular. Thus, people will start to share a good list with others.

Interactive content is also very popular. Games, quizzes, and polls are great ways to let readers interact with your content. Additionally, letting viewers leave a comment makes them feel like they are a part of the feature itself. Those sites that allow outside contribution have become some of the most popular on the web. Consider Wikipedia, a site where anyone can post their ideas, or YouTube, which lets viewers post their own videos.

Viral media has been greatly impacted by the social web revolution. New networks that allow users to easily share links and reviews have made viral media even more prolific. This eventually creates a snowball effect as a “viral” article or video is repeatedly passed along from one person to several more. Thus, effective viral content takes advantage of these social sites by providing easy links to users so they can copy the feature to one of these social bookmarking sites, such as Digg or Twitter, or an RSS feed. Most sites also let you share content with friends via e-mail.

Viral content essentially spreads like a biological virus. This means it is reproduced at an exponential rate. Users may not even realize they are spreading viral content. Most of the time they are just trying to share something interesting or amusing with a friend. This makes it all the more effective as a marketing technique. The more people who participate, the faster the content will spread and the more publicity a site will generate.

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