More often that not, when you hear the word “viral,”you may think of contagious viruses either attacking your computer or your immune system. However, when it comes to marketing, going “viral” is often the goal brands intend to achieve when they push marketing messages out through video, websites, social media, email, word-of-mouth, etc.

Unfortunately, many companies think they have the ability to create a viral campaign and presume that with certain social media channels in place, they can literally push their message out and it will automatically get forwarded on to thousands. If it only was that easy.

To help give you a deeper understanding of viral marketing, here are a few items to consider prior to planning a viral campaign for your company.

Goals & Objectives
To ensure success for your viral campaign, you will need to first identify what it is you would like to achieve by putting one in place. Will the goal be to gain brand awareness, obtain sign-ups, conversions, click-thrus, impressions, donations, etc? Establishing these types goals and objectives will help you measure and evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign.

Sharing is Caring
Instead of creating a campaign around something you want to sell, create a campaign that people will want to SHARE. Most likely you and your friends share videos or content that is humorous.  Humor, money and incentives definitely motivate people to share marketing messages.  Another tactic is to provide helpful information or tools for your target audience.  By doing this, they will be more likely to share it with their friends or peers, and as a result your brand will stay top of mind, gain positive exposure and have the potential to create a loyal fan and customer.

Advantages of Viral Campaigns
Quality content created around the campaign will help attract the right people to your brand.  One advantage of interactive marketing is the ability to get very targeted with your communications, but this is often the biggest challenge. So, who is your audience?  How do they want to receive messages and in what style do they prefer being communicated to?  Where and how do they meet?  Is it on Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube, or all the above?  Serving the right content, at the right time in the appropriate setting is essential for your viral campaigns to take hold and for your messages to proliferate.

Making sure your message is readily accessible to users, will only further enable sharing.  Integrating multiple channels when launching the campaign will potentially increase the likelihood that the campaign will gain momentum. For example, if email is part of your campaign (which it should be), try integrating social-forwarding features within the email so that users can share the email with their own personal social networks as well as forward the email on to their contacts.

Although an organic viral growth is ideal, there are a few tactics that can jump start a viral campaign, such as:

• Voting

• Contests

• Sweepstakes

• Coupons

• Trivia

• Giveaways

Monitoring Your Campaign
Don’t forget to address how your team plans on monitoring the viral campaign. If you are working with an agency, it is important to establish which resources will be dedicated to which component of monitoring and how much time will be needed in order to maintain the integrity of the campaign.  Having guidelines in place that clearly define which party will be responsible for monitoring comments, responses, and engaging with users will be vital.

Turning a Negative Into a Positive
Another common concern around viral marketing is the potential for negative feedback. Although negative comments can sound nerve-racking, it can also serve as an opportunity for the company to set the record straight, identify actions that are being taken to rectify a situation or a chance to educate the audience on your products/services. It can serve as an opportunity instead of a disadvantage for your brand.  If you do happen to receive negative comments during your campaign, it is wise to respond to them within 24 hours if possible.  Reacting quickly and directly to the commenter will help prevent the issue from spreading like wild fire and indicates that you care about the conversations taking place.  It is advisable to thank the person for their feedback and to try to solve the issue as calmly and objectively as possible.

Real World Examples
You have probably seen some of the examples listed below before, but just in case you haven’t, here are some of my favorite viral videos I wanted to share with you:

Will it blend? - Check this one out if you haven’t already seen it already. You iPhone fanatics will crack up for sure!

Thriller - If you have ever wondered if prisoners ever have fun when their in the pokey, you have got to check this video out. The video features the dancing inmates of a high security penitentiary in Cebu Province of the Philippines. Once uploaded, this video became a hit and now has over 37 million views.

Free hugs - Try not to shed a tear watching this one

If you are in the mood for more examples related to viral marketing, Viral Blog has tons to choose from. Enjoy!