Going Viral

If your are clamoring for viral options for new or existing campaigns, you’re in luck. The following ideas emerged in a recent brainstorm, but have broad applicability across clients and campaigns. Think of it as a menu of options that can be customized to meet your particular goals and audience.

1. Send it on

Engage the target audience with cool, compelling content and make it easy for them to share with prominent Send to a Friend functionality. This is the ultimate viral, as recommendations from peers are golden. Add incentives to make the forward function even more enticing. Or up the ante by getting users to send to 5 peers to earn the reward (but double check lottery legalities).

Try it with:

• Games
• Video
• White papers
• Articles
• Question/answer threads
• Widgets

2. Make it mobile

Let users download your cool, compelling stuff to their favorite device. The key here is content that is so fun or timely or relevant that they’ll want to engage with it while they wait at Starbucks for a Caramel Macchiato.

Try it with:

• Games (including multiplayer options)
• Video
• Widgets
• Talking points
• Checklists
• Statistics
• Product comparisons (high level)
• Executive summary info

3. Harvest user creativity & expertise

Whether it’s answering vexing questions, uploading their own videos, or showing off a cool riff on your brand, make it easy for users to contribute—and to send their beautiful brainchildren on to friends, colleagues, and the boss.

4. Make it easy to embed

Why are videos from YouTube so ubiquitous? Because almost every video up there has embedded code you can simply copy and paste into whatever you want. There’s a lesson here for corporate marketers. If you’re making an asset, don’t miss the value in getting it to live outside your own site, and add an embed strategy into the development.

Try it with:

• Video
• Games
• Widgets

5. Think in series

One video Q&A with an expert is helpful. A whole series is awesome. For the same reason that you look forward to “Lost” each week, users look forward to getting new and different offerings from a trusted source. This is also a good opportunity to showcase high-quality User Generated Content (see #3).

Try it with:

• Videos
• Q&A content
• Podcasts/webcasts
• Games
• Widgets

6. Keep it short

This applies across the board. The registration process to viral assets should be quick and easy (although you can upsell after the fact—the first one’s free…). Videos should be focused on one subject, which will encourage users to tune in for the next installment (see #4). Games should take players through a quick arc of action and end, allowing the player to reinitiate or return later.

Try this with:

• Everything, but also

Single thread forums: One question, many answers, and a prompt to pose the next question, which becomes the next single thread (the series thing again).

7. Seek the viral in the static

Not everything can or should be viral, but many things can be broken apart, revealing viral elements that might have been missed. Don’t want to download a white paper to your mobile phone? How about the stats that will help you make a business case to your boss?

8. Relevant, fun, timely, easy

That’s the viral mantra, the lens you can use to vet content and concepts.

Manage Expectations

That last thing to remember is that viral marketing is as much art as science. A good percentage of viral campaigns simply miss the mark and fail to get the geometric hit rate their progenitors hope for. Hedge your bets by ensuring your new campaign does double duty—raise awareness, educate and entertain your core audience—in addition to your viral goals, to ensure you can claim success, even if you don’t post the new “Star Wars” kid to YouTube.