First, the main objective of a viral marketing campaign is to get your product recognized. The name viral comes from the word virus and is similar to the way a virus spreads, from computers or people. The point of a viral video is to get people to watch the video, enjoy it, and then share it with their friends.

The reason that viral marketing is extremely effective is that the internet has allowed people to connect in ways that they could not before. Over 75% of the people that use the internet belong to some type of social networking site such as YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook. More time is spent on these sites than on email. This means that a video can spread at a much faster pace.

Viral Videos that Worked

Chances are that you have seen one of these videos because these were classic ads that went viral and worked. The first is Numa Numa. This video features Gary Brolsma lip-syncing to a song by O-Zone. The video was uploaded in 2004 and in 3 months had over 2 million people view it. Now, over 40 million people have seen this video. This video is different from a marketing video as it was made by an individual with no real product to market, other than maybe his humor.

An ad campaign that really worked was the Old Spice Guy. After being uploaded, this video hit six million views after only 24 hours online. The video is simple; it stars sexy Isaiah Mustafah talking directly to his audience. The campaign was followed by responses on both Twitter and Facebook from Isaiah Mustafah himself.

Failed Viral Campaigns

Several marketing campaigns have tried and failed to go viral. One of them is from Cisco. The company tried to replicate the Old Spice Guy, by using a person from accounting. Needless to say, you probably have never heard of this ad or the person named Ted.

Another ad that failed was from Nike and involved Kevin Durant and stalking his every move. These videos only got around 40000 hits; this is like a grain of sand in the world of the internet.

Viral Marketing Secrets

1.    It is Not Easy

When you watch a video that has gone viral, you may think, this looks easy. However, it is anything but. Most companies spend millions of dollars on these ad campaigns, more than they are spending on a television.

2.    Think Less

It is important to not overdo it when it comes to releasing viral videos. If you do this, people will think that you are trying to hard and will likely not view your videos. Think about making it more of a story and less of a commercial.
Another piece of advice, do not try to use a concept simply because it fits the product, instead think of a great concept, and place your product into it.

3.    Use a Company

When it comes to getting your video viewed, you have to understand that there is a secret behind getting those big numbers. Literally tens of thousands of videos are uploaded onto YouTube every day. You will want to hire a company that specializes in helping companies do this. To make it onto YouTube’s most viewed list, you have to have over 50,000 views. To get these views you are going to have to tap every source available, forums, blogs, Facebook, twitter, emails, even your friends. It takes a lot of work to make a video go viral.

4.    Release Simultaneous Videos

When it comes to marketing campaigns, many people make the mistake of thinking that if they wait a week before uploading the next video, people will anxiously wait for it. The truth is, the internet has made our attention spans much shorter. People want all the information now. Releasing your videos at the same time if a viewer likes the first one, they will want to see more. If they have to wait a week, the will likely have moved on to something else.

5.    Title Shockers

The final tip for creating a viral video is to make the headline shocking. Think about Jennifer Aniston’s add for smart water. They headlined the campaign “Jennifer Aniston’s Sex Tape”. This title alone makes people want to watch and see what it is all about. The better your title, the more likely you are to start getting the views that you want.

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This is why you should proceed carefully and choose the right social media that will best promote your brand. Choose two or three that are suitable to your business niche and then start the registration process. The top three for many business or private concerns are LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Although these social networks involve different public trends, they do have a common trait. They can make your brand a success.

LinkedIn is a social network which encompasses a more professional networking public. Through LinkedIn you will no doubt find some important business relationships. Twitter, in contrast is a more laid back social network where people make friends, share interests and enjoy a general social contact. The advantage with Twitter is the response time, which is immediate. Facebook is the social network. The benefit Facebook offers is that you can generate your own profile page, create groups and make contact with possible clients or frequent customers. It is an excellent way to interact and generate new business-related connections.

It is essential the information you provide on these networks, is the same for all of them. If potential customers and users find different information on the various social networks, your brand will be considered unreliable. This will also help your brand to be easily recognizable.

When creating an account, make sure you have a good profile picture or a professional brand logo that has a positive impact on the public. The tagline is the next point users check on within your professional page and is usually located in the “about” area within the social network profiles. This is because a tagline provides a short sentence describing your brand, which must be relevant to your business and attract your readers’ attention.

Your profile page should include an impressive review of your business or resume of your professional qualifications, again this information should be identical throughout the social networks. Facebook and LinkedIn allow for more space as far as profiles are concerned. Here you can describe your brand in detail and use a more concise description on Twitter. Make sure you include the link to your business’ website on all the social networks.

Contact information is essential and must be included in all the social media profiles, as well as your blog or website. Be sure all contact information is coherent and keep in mind that communication software such as Skype, Yahoo and Windows live messenger and Gmail chat are useful and provide direct means of communication.

Do not forget to include your e-mail signature that should carry all information related to contact, tagline, profession this will help introduce and put your brand in the forefront. If you have an e-mail signature all those you contact from your social networks will have immediate information about your business as you will too.

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Once you figure out your ideals and convictions, it’s time to start portraying them, using social media.  Keep in mind; you always have to monitor what you say. Don’t ever say anything that you might regret later.  If you are upset about something, make sure you have cooled down before you hit the keyboard.  If you have had too much drink, step away from the computer.  You don’t want to wake up and have a terrifying flashback.  Once something is said on the internet, it NEVER goes away.

If you are a freelancer, and I assume you are, you have to consider whether to use your actual name, or company name.  Which draws more attention, your name or the name of your company? Use your answer to this question to decide what to use for your social brand.

With either of these choices, consider how easy or difficult it will be to control what is said about you.  Of course, you can’t control everything, but try to control as much as you can.  If you use your name then monitor personal online activities that you partake in.   You don’t want to do anything personally that will affect your business persona.

If you are part of a group or company and will be linked to others via your brand, such as a logo, analyze who your fellow members are.  If you are co-branded with others and they have a poor error in judgment, it will have a negative impact on you.  Keep this in mind.

There are many social media sites.  The most popular for online business is Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  So, of course, it is good idea to become members of these.  There are others that may be of interest to you, depending on your type of business.  You can also look into Stumble Upon, MySpace and Delicious.  The trick to success with branding on multiple social media sites is consistency.

There are millions of people doing business online.  Consistency is the only way for you to drill your brand into people’s minds.  To do this, you have to keep your information, status, contact information and photograph the same.  Some people even try to match up their background color with their website, as an extra identifier.

To keep consistency is a little tricky because of the different atmosphere of the main sites.  Facebook is the social club, Twitter is the office and LinkedIn is the stuffed shirt.  Your status needs to be acceptable to each audience.  This is a situation where you want to fit in and become popular.

Doing all this, may seem like work, but cheer up, you only have to set your profiles up once.  After that, maintaining them is quick and easy.  Always keep in mind your target market. You want to connect with the right people, those who are looking for your products or services.

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Mobile development isn’t at all simple; there is a lot of complexity involved. The entire working has to be done cross-platform; the varying platforms have made it such. Unless the phones are working along browsers such as Opera Mini and , your site cannot be opened up easily and you need to make sure that you do wonders just to make it accessible by all.

Here’s how you should start working on giving your website the mobility.

Begin by embedding a stylesheet so as to adjust the CSS for mobile devices. The stylesheet detects the phone and directs the user to the mobile domain of the page. A very good example of this is when you type www.facebook.com from your mobile phone, you are immediately directed to m.facebook.com. This may seem the way out to all mobile development features but there is still a lot that stops the website from being displayed on your screen and you should be taking care of them.

Some sites have put up the option of mobile version or full version on their site. It’s up to the user if they want to take a mobile look or a full version look of the page. A very good example of this feature would be IKEA’s site.

To make it quite a forceful tool, make sure that your mobile website displays just the information you want to have displayed. Avoid embedding several columns and do not focus on the horizontal view of the phone, since that tends to add up cost. A tight layout of your content can help you save numerous pixels.

You should also try to reduce the bandwidth on which the websites open up. If your website takes too long to load then you might miss out on the opportunity of capturing the mobile audience.

Bring about other changes such as giving the option of font sizes. Some may be too large while some may be illegible; so give the people a choice to pick the one they’d like and view the website accordingly.

You could simply opt for another feature. For this, I’ll again refer to Facebook; embed in the SMS option from the website so that you’re frequently updated on your page. All that the user has to do is, set their carrier and put up their number. This enhances user experience and they can stay updated with your website whenever they want.

Mobile website is another whole world and you still haven’t capitalized on the thought then you’re missing out on a huge market.

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