Viral marketing is an advertising technique that uses social networks to promote brand awareness or sales. The unique point is that the advertisers try to accomplish the goal of spreading their message through self replicating processes, hence the name viral marketing since the idea of self replication is similar to a computer virus. The tools advertisers use to employ viral marketing include advertisements on television but more importantly the internet. Posting a video on a popular internet media site such as YouTube is essentially free and it has to potential to be seen by many more people than a 30 second television ad. The idea of self replication is applied to viewers who see the ad and pass along the message voluntarily to others. The key here is “voluntarily”. Thus advertisers try to embed their message within things that may catch the viewers attention. I’m sure most people have seen one of the many flash ads that are designed as interactive games which you can actually play in your browser. You may predict that such advertisements draw in a relatively small crowd since most people do not want to stop what they are doing to play a simple game usually involving simple mouse clicks. It may be surprising then that on average 50% of people who see such advergames stop what they are doing to play and the average playing time is 25 minutes! These “advergames” are just one of the many techniques that advertisers employ to attract a costumers attention. You can read more about advergames at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advergaming Other forms of viral promotion include videos, online books, email, software, and images.

Research shows that the average customer will tell three people about a product that is marketed to them in a way that they find interesting. This effect can cascade and grow exponentially which is what viral marketing tries to take advantage of. By targeting social networks which have a high potential to spread viral messages, viral marketers are always looking for a way to spread their message fast and effectively.

You can read more about viral marketing at http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles/viralmarketing.htm