Viral marketing has been around since mankind started trading. Off-line, we call it word or mouth. The difference between on-line and off-line is the rate of communication. In an off-line world, the saying is: “a customer will tell three others of a good experience; they will tell ten others of a bad experience”.

The on-line world is slightly different. If one doesn’t like a page, we just move on. If we do like a page, we bookmark it, either through a browser’s traditional bookmark, or through a social bookmarking site. Better yet, we discuss it on-line through either a forum or on a blog, hopefully providing a link back to the page or article.

As an on-line marketer, the trick is to get that individual to at least use a social bookmarking tool or to discuss your article on-line. Rather than telling three people about a good experience, they are potentially telling hundreds, or even thousands.

How you get that viral marketing effect is not always easy to plan for. You can put together a brilliant article and get little response; you can throw an article together and see it take off. I all depends on who reads it and what the current trends are. Successfully gauge those trends and you are half way there.

Of course writing an article that gets noticed is one part of the battle, you also need to ensure that you have a range of social marketing buttons available for the reader to tag your post. Either that or provide a reason for them to discuss your article.

With viral marketing - it is all in - it is not an optional extra - so plan for it.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 9:35 am and is filed under Social Marketing, Viral Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.