You have a terrific website with incredible design, compelling content and proper coding, and now, you think about the next thing on your to-do list; promoting this website. There are lots of easy steps to promote a website, but I would like to talk about a tough one here, creating content for viral marketing. First, you create an interesting content, then you release it on the Internet. If people like it, they will talk about it, they will share it on web pages, blogs and social media sites. All the hard part is creating this content, then it will make the marketing work for you while you are observing the massive traffic coming to your website. This creative content will increase your leads, sales or ad revenue. This concept is called viral marketing, named after viruses or computer viruses. If you can begin to infect users one by one, at some point, your viral content will bring you traffic with an exponential growth.
What are the types of content for viral marketing? I will try to summarize the main ones below. I believe you will find at least one model that is suitable for your website and your marketing efforts.
Games If you have an online game portal; online flash or shockwave games, video games, games for smart phones and other devices are great for viral marketing. If the game is exceptional, it can boost the website traffic dramatically. You can create your games if you have employees and knowledge or you can hire an outsourcing company for your custom game. You can always use advergames to promote your brand, products or services, even though your website is not game-related.
Applications Applications for smart phones and other devices can spread like a virus. The key point is your application must be related to your niche. For example, if you have a store for mobile phones, an application in which your customers can compare prices of mobile phones might be very useful. In addition, if you give this application for free, it will bring targeted users to your website. Do not forget, people love free stuff.
Videos Funny videos, interesting commercials can get millions of views. If you create a rare video about your topic and put your website address at bottom right corner, users will wonder about your website regardless of where they watch the video. Do not think only popular sites like YouTube, Dailymotion or Facebook videos; if a video is fascinating for your niche, even your competitors can embed that video to their website.
Sounds and audio tracks Let’s assume, you have an online store for mp3′s, audio tracks. If you create a fabulous audio track or mp3 that people will listen on their iPod’s while running or cycling and if you put an audio signature somewhere on that track, it will spread among their friends. People will start to hear your brand on their iPod’s and wonder about you. Finally, targeted visitors will come to your online store.
Images For image related sites, distributing freebies is golden. All you need to do is put a tiny website address somewhere over your image. Images, vectors, logos, source files for programs like Photoshop, Illustrator or Corel; these are suitable for viral effect. These will spread to the far away lands where you can not reach easily. Infographics is another great example for this category. Charts combined with attractive graphic design and useful information for specific topics can spread faster than any other images.
Widgets There are a lot of good examples for creating link baits; gadgets, toolbars, viral software, screensavers, badges, polls and other social media applications can create a huge amount of traffic to your website.
Articles and e-books Article marketing is another effective tool to increase traffic, credibility and brand awareness. If you respond to rarely mentioned questions or create an exceptional work for a hot topic related to your niche, it will spread among the users, blog owners and webmasters. Being an authority in your area is key to success for any business, and e-books are powerful ways to climb to the top. You can collect your short articles in an e-book and release it as PDF; it can go viral.
The way you use them: Being creative is the key Opportunities for viral marketing are limitless as long as you are creative. Even if you say something controversial, it can start a viral discussion. You will never know which of your snowballs will cause an avalanche, and turns to a delicious link bait.
Put your ads on your content It is obvious but put your ads on your viral content. This can be an intro for your videos, links for your e-books, “play more games” buttons for your games, a funny jingle for your website on your mp3′s. However, be careful about your ad, do not overuse them; users can get angry and can close your viral content at the very start.
Make it easy for your users to share your content Although I talked about creating new viral content, first thing you should do after reading this article is putting some sharing scripts to your web pages. This can be an automated script from leading companies like AddThis or something else you will find through ready scripts. You can also code something custom for your website. The point is even if you have not “viral” content for now, let your users “tell their friends” or share your content on their social network. RSS feeds are also used by many websites, try to integrate these feeds into your blogs or web pages.
Power of word-of-mouth marketing You will get the full potential of word-of-mouth marketing if you give your users an indispensable content for free. All you need is something that people will want to share with others. If your content reaches the right people, it will spread like wildfire, and you will observe the extraordinary power of a viral content.
