One of the more brilliant forms of marketing that has become very popular in the last few years is a form of marketing called viral. There are a few ways to go about doing this in today’s technological world with the most popular one being YouTube videos. It’s actually quite amazing how a simple YouTube video if done properly can propel a product to the attention of main stream media. For example how often do you see a video on the front page of Yahoo or CNN or any other legitimate media website only to see that it’s already been seen on YouTube by a few hundred thousand people already.
Even legitimate TV news channels now reports viral videos of the day that are getting lots of hits. Make no mistake viral marketing has become a huge new form of marketing. Hollywood studios have picked up on this trend and most movies now a days start releasing little teaser viral videos even before official movie trailer premiers start hitting the theaters.
Hollywood example of viral marketing from the Cloverfield movie:
That’s the beauty of viral marketing, anyone from a regular everyday person with a video camera to a big Hollywood studio are taking part in viral marketing. Video’s on YouTube of course are not the only forms of viral marketing out there. I will give you another example of viral marketing. Have you ever watched a MLB baseball game? Millions of people do every year and since 2001 you have started to see more and more players wearing these things called Phiten necklaces. As far as I know these necklaces have seen no form of advertising in the US other than being worn by MLB players. They originated in Japan but now there are stores in a few different countries and they ship their products all around the world now.
One more form of viral marketing that happens on the Internet all the time is giving away free stuff. There are offers all over the net for you to get free stuff or in your email box to get free stuff. Why do all these companies have all these offers to give away free stuff? That’s right to get you to go their site and increase the odds that you will purchase something from their site or at the very least give your email so they can continue to try and sell you stuff.
As you can see viral marketing is a powerful tool in the world of marketing. What other forms of viral marketing do you see out there that are just as effective as some of the one’s I listed here?
Share Your Opinions and Thanks for Reading
3:52 am on October 14th, 2008 1
EA Sports recently did a really good Viral for the Tiger Woods console golf game series called “The Jesus Shot - Its not a glitch, he’s really THAT GOOD” which was sent to me by a friend.
Viral’s are big money now and something that everyone should look into as part of a new marketing campaign.
6:23 am on October 14th, 2008 2
I trully believe in the power viral marketing would get
8:52 am on October 14th, 2008 3
@T -
oh yeah i got that Tiger Woods clip sent to me also, i loved that one!