Viral marketing refers to the exploitation of social media to propagate brand awareness through the internet via ‘self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of a computer virus.’ The methods used include blogs, social bookmarking and networking sites, as well as online picture and video sharing sites.
This is great for advertisers because of the low costs (because the users do most of the work) and high and well-targeted market reach.
“All viral means is that you’ve created a message that people want to share,” says Gregg Spiridellis, who founded animation and design studio JibJab with his brother. “If people want to pass it along, that’s what brand marketing is all about.”
This phenomenon has in turn led to the rise of viral marketing campaign tracking and managing sites. One such site, The Viral Chart, allows you to manage, track, and seed your viral advertisement campaigns.
Originally posted on December 14, 2006 @ 2:26 pm