Viral marketing

Virals are an established part of online marketing. Viral marketing usually refers to forwarding messages or links via email, so it runs the risk of becoming a bit like spam. But you can reach so many people this way that it's a good tactic when sheer numbers are important.

One of the most common forms of viral marketing to drive traffic to your website is a video that is funny or shocking. As well as creating the video you will need to spend a lot of time seeding it, that is, putting links to the video on all sorts of relevant sites and discussion forums. Be prepared for a low percentage of sign-ups - it's not uncommon to get 10,000 viral video views and less than 100 people signing up to your campaign as a result.

You can learn more about creating and distributing videos in the video section of this toolkit - this includes material on where you can host your video online.

YouTube is the most popular place to host your videos so it's a good idea to set up your own channel. However, there are some problems with YouTube; it can be hard to link people back to your site, and YouTube have used their Terms of Service to remove campaigning videos like those of Wael Abbas in Egypt, also in some places YouTube is often blocked. So investigate alternatives and look at specialist sites like the Witness Hub and alternatives like Ourmedia or BlipTv.

Simple online games are another good way to generate traffic from something that people will share with their friends.

However, the true essence of a viral is something that people will feel motivated to share, and this need not depend on fancy video or flashy games. Some of the earliest viral emails were simple email communiques from the Zapatistas during their uprising against the North American Free Trade Agreement in early 1993. These were simple communiques, straight from the source, but they served as an alternative information source when information direct from the activists themselves was extremely hard to find.