I recently wrote an article on The Top 10 Viral Marketing Strategies and thought I would share the basics of the article.. Viral Marketing is the sharing of information from person to person, also known as word of mouth. Online viral marketing can be an extremely powerful tool for increasing traffic to your web pages, blogs, products and affiliate links. The principal idea behind viral marketing is that traffic to your site will increase exponentially if 1 person refers 5 people, those 5 refer 5 others, 25x5, 125x5 etc.. By having great content, providing the right tools and implementing the following viral marketing strategies, you can increase your traffic dramatically. These are my Top 10 Viral Marketing Strategies in no particular order. 1. Creating Social Buzz 2. Affiliate Programs 3. Tell Friends Buttons 4. Rebrandable Ebooks 5. Rebrandable Software 6. Social Bookmarking & Sharing 7. Content Syndication Networks 8. Resell Rights Products 9. Website Tool Widgets 10. Article Marketing
I would never have thought of article marketing as a viral marketing strategy. Viral marketing will ONLY work when the content is entertaining and/or through provoking. The content must appeal enough to make some one want to share it. Your list of 10 is just social marketing methods that can be used IN viral marketing. They in themselves are not viral marketing.
Creating great (usually free) content is a very important viral marketing strategy. If your sites' content is good enough, or interesting or unique, people will tell each other about it
Unique content in any form is very important and can really increase your traffic dramatically. But to build a 5, 25, 125 .... pyramid the content needs to be extremely good.