I know many people on the internet, and surprisingly, many of them still aren’t aware of what the term viral means. I will take this opportunity to remind you that this phrase has no relation to physical health, and if you have such a condition, you have my condolences. Anyway, I wrote this article to explain the term to those unfamiliar with internet marketing, or simply don’t waste their time on the internet surfing around the most pointless websites.

So what is it?

Thanks to the Google dictionary for the following definitions:

Viral Marketing is a technique whereby users are encouraged to pass on messages, especially slogans or product recommendations, to friends and relatives.

Viral Marketing is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message.

Viral Marketing, although being incredibly hard to get right, can prove to be the most effective, short term campaign in a product’s lifetime. It will boom within a month, and can take years to decline. I’d like to point out that this is incredibly hard to do, and even if you get it right, over-advertising can have damaging effects.

Take a look at semi-viral Hastings Direct, who on their television campaign featured a 3d cartoon of a man (from the correct-ish time period) singing 0 800 00 10 66 (split into appropriate blocks). This was amazing, and was in the heads of everyone for years, but if you look at them now, with more prank calls than real calls (don’t quote me), this has cost them a fortune to repair. When trying to divert attention to "Hastings direct dot com; Hastings Direct dot com," in their follow-up campaign, it was quite simply too late.

However (and a pretty darn big however, at that), the best, truly best, viral phenomena, are completely accidental. The best also tend to be the strangest, or even most normal. They tend to be things like videos on YouTube, uploaded by normal people, who normally end up as shocked as you, at their overnight fame.

Where can I find them?

You don’t. Well - you’ll see them all around the internet on one condition, that you don’t look for them. A true viral campaign will find you. There’s always one friend that finds these things, and fills up your business inbox each week with silly things.

Somewhere along the line, past the top 10 silliest IT department call-outs, or the free e-cards for a next door neighbour’s dog, or that lovely chain-mail containing a death threat if you fail to forward it within three hours, there’ll be one, waiting for you, when you least expect. Or rather, when you’re most busy.

If you’re really interested, hang around on social networking websites, like Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook and Pownce. Digg is specifically designed to be a directory of new content, so you’ll definitely find something there.

How can I ‘become one’?

Short answer, again, is that you can’t. The long answer, however, is that the only way to approach such matters, is to upload a video of yourself, doing something pretty normal. If it’s viral material, the guys at YouTube, or wherever you choose to upload it, will find it, they just will.

How can I track them?

Your answer is, Google Trends. A new (free, of course) feature fresh from the Google Labs. Just enter your viral phrase, and watch it grow, decline, or fly around. Pretty good fun, eh?

For the love of God, why post this?

I realised, when ‘nerdily’ (choice of word based upon a vague comparison to ‘normal people’) using the phrase above in internet-related conversation, that a shockingly large population of the internet still doesn’t know quite what it means. I’ve been around way too long to be easily led to ‘laugh out loud,’ and this was funny enough to make me do so, so it’s got to be worth posting.

Not bad for an unplanned post, eh?

That’s your lot,
Lawrence Job
GridFusions Interactive