The 7 Viral Marketing Secrets you will ever need

HHMMM! This week we have Viral Marketing! What exactly could trigger virality is something that almost every company from the old times till today is searching for.

I think that if someone thinks about it, even more, that is the purpose of a marketing strategy overall. To spread your product so much into the audience that it will start spreading it around like a virus by itself.

But before we start our weekly session I think that from now on at the beginning of my articles I will share with you a song, my jam probably for that week. You can listen to it while reading the article as well!

Shall we start then?

Now we are all set up to invade the world of virality!

1. Stay Ahead of the Curve with these “Trending” Tools

Sometimes you need what is in trend so you can follow that and surf the cool kids wave to success. For me, there is another road as well.

Some people have the gift of being “clairvoyant” when it comes to marketing trends. I do not think I am one as such but if you regularly keep yourself updated you slowly grasp the concept of what could easily go viral.

Time to upgrade your toolkit and know what is going around the hood. You know like these creepy guys with the coats, but you do not actually have to be a pervert or belong to the GOTHAM city gang.

Whatstrending.com

Well ever wondered what could be trending right now? I think we got the answer for you. In fact, this is not just about let’s say marketing trends but generally what people are into right now.

One thing you should keep in mind about Viral Marketing is that you have to focus closely on why something is going Viral. Figure out human behavior more than any other marketing tactic.

As Douglas Van Praet, author of Unconscious Branding: How Neuroscience Can Empower (and Inspire) Marketing, wrote in Fast Company,

The most startling truth is we don’t even think our way to logical solutions. We feel our way to reason. Emotions are the substrate, the base layer of neural circuitry underpinning even rational deliberation. Emotions don’t hinder decisions. They constitute the foundation on which they’re made!

NewsWhip Spike

This is a Viral News aggregator which has news that is mostly shared on social. If something is shared on social then we bet, that as a marketer, it needs your attention too.

It does not matter if it silly or not, all it matters is that it produces value for you and your future campaigns. Content like that is exactly what you viral marketing campaign needs.

What is popular on youtube

We all know that Videos is one of the dominant content forms right now. It is something that will surely catch the eye and if you are aiming for virality videos or at least “video” like formats are a must.

According to Garth Haley, Video Producer:

[clickToTweet tweet=”87% of online marketers use video content @HyperfineMedia” quote=”87% of online marketers use video content @HyperfineMedia” theme=”style3″]

Of course where else could you get an inspiration if not from the treasure trove of videos?

Always seek ways to take advantage of the video format.

P.S. if you see a cat video JUST DO NOT OPEN IT. 

Snip.ly

This is where shit actually hit the fan guys. The reason I am telling this is because this tool is a very sneaky way to stay in trend but also boost your own viral marketing campaign.

So what you do is actually find Viral content. You promote it and get into the frenzy, but from now on that shared piece of content can have AN EFFIN CTA LEADING BACK TO YOUR OWN CONTENT.

Popurls.com

Well, there is not much to add here, this is a news aggregator that features the most shared pieces of content from all the major web platforms. E.G. Reddit.

Especially if you aim to focus your Viral efforts on specific channels then this will surely come in handy.

2. Figure out & Segment your target audience

Of course, we are dead serious with no.2 on our list. Viral Marketing means that you actually find the right people, who like the right content and want to tell all their friends who are actually their crew, aka a carbon copy of them, about it!

So, in the beginning, we need to focus on segmenting our customers, a small base in the fact that could, later on, ignite a viral boom.

There are a lot of criteria on which you can base your segmenting:

• Demographics
• Geography
• Type of customer
• Psychographics 
• Lifestyles

Likely although it a really qualitative choice, in our days you do not have to go out with questionnaires to figure out things like that.

I would strongly suggest experimenting with Social media for a while and see what performs better with parts of your audience.

In fact, you can:

• Post different times throughout the day
• Experiment with different pieces of content & promotions of your product
• Use features like Global Pages on Facebook 
• Slowly and steadily drive audience to that content through paid ads

With good research on your industry, metrics from all the above and a little bit of intuition, you would be ready to start injecting virality into your life or better let the right people inject it ;).

Growth Tip: While your Viral Marketing is in motion, if you do your segmentation right, then targeting, retargeting and positioning will be a piece of cake.

3. Use an All-In-One Viral Marketing Platform

Oh come on, don’t act so shocked (and in Spanish if I may add)

You knew this one was coming.

Of course, VIRAL LOOPS was going to be here. BOOYAAA.

This tool on its debut on Product hunt made it among the three top tech products (other ones being slack & Snapchat) with 600+ upvotes.

So it is obvious that a lot more people than just our client’s thing that we are talking about a very promising tool that anyone should integrate to their viral marketing campaigns.

What does Viral Loops do?

It is a tool that follows various referral models like the dropbox one and allows you to build quickly & easily referral campaigns.

These campaigns come in the form of sweepstakes, giveaways competitions and demand people to share their participation via social or email and get their friends into the fun to increase their winning chances.

This produces a virality like none else as you can imagine.

Why go for Viral Loops

Some things that quickly pop into my mind are:

• User friendliness
• Customizable widgets/templates to fit your brand
• Metrics
• Awesome support

4. Ever heard of the Skyscraper technique?

This is one of the things you should aim for, to be honest.

The reason is that especially if you are a little bit good with content marketing you can work miracles with this one.

And if this adds courage to your process, this is my core technique when I first started my content ventures.

One of the best case studies I have read recently is this guy who managed to generate 17,584 visitors in one day with Viral Marketing via Brian Dean.

One of his core methods in doing so was the skyscraper technique.

What you actually do is take a piece of content that nailed it online. But you do not just copy it:

• Upgrade with other sources as well
• Add your own value & experience
• Curate the content visually with your own personal style
• New Killer title based on keyword research
• SEO optimise the shit out of it

There are many ways you can do this, but I would strongly suggest going for the following tools, that you might recognise especially if you are a SEO freak. These tools will help you find most shared content, keyword ideas etc.

For example, when it comes to Buzzsumo, you enter the keyword which you want to aim for and what you get are the most shared content pieces. You can crossover your results with Google search and even use Open Site explorer to see which keywords some sites ranked for.

Why don’t we go for Viral Marketing? ?

Make a collection of the best ones, find that aspect of the theme they are missing to touch and get to work baby!

5. Emotions can be as sweet as coconut flavored chocolate

I know we are all people doing with data and emotions are a no no but that is how the world is going round these days and you have to go with the flow.

Not that kind of feeling, but there are various reactions which your content can spark.

• Amazement
• Curiosity
• Humor
• Interest
• Admiration

So people rapidly share emotionally charged content. But what if I told you that you can emotionally charge someone not only by the content itself but also the way you present it.

One of the most clever ways to achieve that is through headlines. Be inventive with your titles and try to invoke curiosity. The funny thing here is that people might share a piece of content just by the headline without even opening it.

That is Viral Marketing for you!

Caitlyn Dewey presents an example of this when presenting a study that was conducted.

[clickToTweet tweet=”6 in 10 people will share a piece of content just by reading the headline” quote=”6 in 10 people will share a piece of content just by reading the headline”]

Another thing that would help you, would be to touch some issues from various unique angles.

Instead of saying “The 7 things that will save your business”

You can say “7 reasons why your business will fail”

6. Good Timing & Good Distribution

I know that we have gone through things like this over and over again through various of our articles but chances are if you are here now, you need our help. From essentials to more expert ways of nailing viral marketing we must have it all.

So let’s say I launch a new feature for my program, and I am starting to distribute it on Social Media. If I do it around 3 AM who the fuck you think is gonna share this?

(Just keep in mind that there is slight chance you succeed if your main user base is in a country with a time difference, that is why our second tip about segmenting is crucial)

There are 3 time-based criteria which you can use for your strategy:

• Time of day
• Specific Day of week
• Around Certain Eventful periods

The folks over at TrackMaven have an amazing guide of when to post and tips specifically broken down for 75 industries.

Last but not least, as for distribution remember to always use all possible channels and outlets, it is not only Facebook and twitter, there are a bunch of other things too.

• Email Marketing
• Social
• Widgets withing site
• Paid Advertisement
• Affiliates
• Communities

Never forget that. Take advantage of as many of them and you will succeed for sure.

Viral marketing essentials: STRIKE AT THE RIGHT TIME AT THE RIGHT PLACE!

7. Make your content shareable and why not downloadable?

Ok, you all get why the content needs to be shareable. Especially if you like to use platforms like WordPress, there is a vast majority of plugins to go around and add flashy sharable buttons to your content.

But why downloadable?

I can not start to describe you all the times that someone here at the office shared with the rest of us something and quoted “Look this is rad + you can download it as a pdf”.

I still can not figure our why but there is an added value when someone can download it and save it as a source to his data bank.

That’s all folks

I guess we have to part ways once again, and I hope that I somehow managed to help you once again. From content strategies to referral and viral magic tricks I think this must have been an eye-opening 101 session.

Viral Marketing is, in fact, something that we all aim for whether we are in the B2B or B2C sector. Time might change but the word of mouth is still there, so do not let any chances of triggering that pass by.

Thank you and if you ever need me you know where to find me. Can not wait to here your thoughts as always!