Viral marketing is simply the “spread of an idea”  that helps market your business or cause, attracts attention and discussion. Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions. Off the Internet, viral marketing has been referred to as “word-of-mouth,” “creating a buzz,” “leveraging the media,” “network marketing.” But on the Internet, for better or worse, it’s called “viral marketing.”

There are marketing practices that can quide you and make your online content go viral. Wharton professor Jonah Berger in his (now famous) joint paper with Katherine Milkman called “What Makes Online Content Go Viral?”  and his New York Times  bestseller book “Contagious: Why Things Catch On” had made the best attempt to date in researching and defining what characteristics are often found in a viral piece of online content that went viral.

1. It was positive, dwelling on positive issues or topics.
2. It evoked a strong emotional reaction (joy, fear, anger).
3. It was practically useful.

 Jonah Berger | “Contagious: Why Things Catch On”

Don’t be lazy and check out this video, get to know this influencing marketing figure better. While we’re futher discussing the common content elements that makes your message go viral by Jonah Berger (STEPPS system):

Social Currency

People enjoy sharing things that compliment them, either by making them look “in the know” or by showcasing their good taste or opinion on something. So what exactly can you do to make people look good and create social value for them? Make your content remarkable. This is an obvious one, but the more remarkable (unusual, interesting, extraordinary, worthy of attention) your content is, the more likely people are to share it.

Triggers

If social value is what gets people talking, then triggers are what keep people talking.Thse are things that you can build into your content that can increase the virality of it. Reading Berger’s book, you’ll be surprised to hear about how often very common brands are talked about. That’s because some topics/brands/products have more common triggers. Many viral pieces of content rely on this. If you can associate your message with something that is regularly front of mind, then you are more likely to go viral. What can you associate your content with? Something topical in the news, time, geography, popular culture, routines.

Inspire Emotions

Whether content is in video, text or message form it is important to create maximal emotional excitement quickly. Hit them hard and fast with strong emotions, but remember to keep the branding to a minimum. Heavy use of branding can cause many viewers to disregard the content as spammy or salesy, resulting in loss of interest, abandonment, or even backlash.

As you write your content, think of its many interconnection points and how it can potentially impact your audience – their moods, desires and ambitions. The goal is to find the link to an issue that plagues your consumers and relates directly or even tangentially to your brand or product. At the same time, you must make sure that the topic you choose also positively reflects the position of your brand.

“When we care, we share,” or in other words, as Berger’s findings from his earlier paper show, people tend to share content that evokes a strong emotional reaction. Check out “You Tube’s 20 Most-Shared Adds of March” . Recent “Research the emotions that make marketing campaigns go viral” from Kelsey Libert and Kristin Tynski, published on the Harvard Business Review echoes the fact that high-energy emotions like curiosity, amazement, interest, astonishment, admiration are what truly stir discussion and are far more likely to be shared. See Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotion:

Practical Value

Great news for content marketers, practically useful material was shown to be highly viral. People like sharing “news you can use”, yet, when your content goes viral accept this fact: it is helping others advance their own platforms. Many people intentionally leverage the content messaging of others to advance their own personal brand and cause. For example, article titled “The Most Successful Leaders Do 15 Things Automatically, Every Day” by Glenn Llopis has exceeded 1.7 million views (and counting) and has sparked a tremendous amount of debate and repurposing. It has also been used as a featured article for at least one internal corporate publication across six different industries; a piece of the article was even used in the script of a popular reality television show.

Best way to make your content to go viral is to write a compelling title in the sample above. Your title is what attracts new viewers. The more people you can get to consume your content, the more chances you have for getting people to share it. If you can’t get the initial click, your content is dead in the water.

Humanize your content. People want to know that what is being written is real and not fabricated. Allow others to get to know who you are and what you stand for. Make your content relatable through thought-provoking storytelling that gives it personal depth and expresses your breadth of knowledge and wisdom.

Align your content narrative/messaging to the specific needs of your audience. To be viral content has to solve a problem, start a Trend. Always look through the lens of a problem solver and think five steps ahead. What problems await others that they might not expect? Be bold, stay on message with your content narrative, and be courageous enough to start a trend. The trick is in knowing what people find most interesting at the moment and leveraging that information. For example, when using a search engine, how many times have you clicked on the most interesting content instead of the content most relevant to your search?

When to go viral is the goal, make sure that you accomplish all of the following:
• Did you sufficiently cover the topic? Is it long enough?
• Does the content inspire a high-energy emotion like curiosity, amazement, interest?
• Did your tone convey emotion?
• Your content is practically useful?
• Is it interesting?
• Is it surprising?
• Does the author have fame/credibility?

1. Use Better Targeting Practices
One of the greatest benefits of mobile advertising is that it easier to fine to the locations where the ads will run. Mobile apps can use the phone’s GPS data to get precise location data that can be used to determine which ads to run. Since many apps use Facebook logins or similar methods of persistent identification, there is also a lot of demographic information available that can be used to target very specific groups of people.
“Your mobile advertising campaign will be more successful by geotargeting advertisements to your audience. This makes your campaign more relevant and wastes fewer impressions, ultimately leading to higher engagement and follow through,” said Laura Perkins of Perks Consulting.

2. Improve Your Landing Environment
Getting people to click on an advertisement is only half of the equation for successful mobile advertising campaigns. Advertisers need to make sure that the landing page for the ad is mobile optimized and has content that will close the deal. For example, the landing page should include very specific information that is relevant to the reasons the person clicked on the ad. There should also be a clear call to action.
“For example, an ad for a pair of shoes I’m looking at brings me to a mobile-optimized page featuring the shoes and a way to buy them, rather than pointing me to a more generic page where I have to look around for the shoes I want, and then figure out how to buy them,” said KyeMou, of the mobile research firm Marin, when demonstrating an example of an optimized landing page to a reporter.

3. Do Specific Mobile Keyword Research
When planning mobile ads, don’t use the exact same keywords as you would for desktop campaigns. Google’s Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, and Google Keyword Tool all have features that can be used to filter specifically for mobile. Mobile devices users employ different words when searching mobile devices (like “nearby”) and there are fewer branded searches than by users on desktops and laptops. Advertisers who aren’t specifically researching keywords with mobile in mind aren’t maximizing their budgets.

4. Experiment with Content
The size of mobile device screens can be a limitation when creating ads, but advertisers can make up for this by experimenting with banner sizes, shapes, images, and colors. What may seem like a minor adjustment may turn out to be the key to a higher click-through rate.
Advertisers should take special care to make sure they have chosen the right call to action and be willing to experiment with different offers to find what best motivates customers.According to Adam Root of HipLogiq, “The three most effective calls to action I have seen are discount coupons (e.g., 20 percent-off coupons for nearby mobile users), buy-one-get-one promotions and free items.”

5. Select the Right Mobile Ad Network
The mobile advertiser network a business uses also plays a large part in the overall effectiveness of the campaign. Determining the best mobile advertising network depends on whether you want to advertise on apps, or specific sites, or in search results. Google is a good choice for most businesses but there are a lot of other good options to choose from. Examine the network’s option for relevant localized data, their mobile publisher database, and what their abilities are for ad display and ad search.

Mobile advertising will see great increases in 2014 as more people use mobile devices to search and shop online, and advertisers follow them. Be sure your advertising are being used effectively by always measuring your results and keeping up with the latest news in best practices.

Obtaining coverage in the media (TV, radio, podcasts, online videos, newspapers, magazines, online news sites, blogs, etc.) is a great way to spread the word about your business and your products/ servicings. For achieve results depends on the time and effort that arises and can be very hit or miss. It is essential to know the journalist / blogger and theme (s) that he or she covers. Before embarking to people and need to spend time getting to know your style and topics they write. Be sure to read your content, and, where appropriate, leave comments. This will show them that they had “done their homework, are already involved with their work, and will also help you make decisions about what journalists are appropriate or not for your type of news.

We must always frame our discourse with the relationship that we create, that we climb these stairs in relation to journalists are essential for us to be in his head and when you need immediate news remembers us.

Brevity is key: The speech should be fluent, brave and meeting the needs of each journalist at the moment, if we have what it takes and is part of its publishing schedule, more easily get in and should avoid e-mail attachments. Journalists do not normally “do not have time to read pages and pages of e-mail or even press releases. The initial step should be short, sweet, engaging, and should have highlighted the key points” What we are doing at the moment, as well as why the journalist should want to cover it. If they were interested, they will ask for additional and more detailed information.

Have something interesting to offer: What “is new and different about your story is particularly opportune has an angle, and make it interesting?.
Personalize, show your target you have done your homework. Mention the specific reasons of why it has to offer will benefit his or her readers.

The content in turn has to be smart and be done smartly, you should always use existing relations in order to achieve and get the attention of the media that others do not know us or have never given the opportunity to introduce. Create something viral among our relations (such as video) and cause us to publish all, Twitter is the fastest and most effective tool to achieve this.

In addition to making ourselves using social networks to creatively use this content, we can not forget the traditional methods of sending emails, which can also be reworded to help the life of a web company to grow. Never forget to put the links to the sites, using pictures and videos with links to the various social networks. Are also important keywords in content help in SEO terms. The title short and direct as if these keywords to find us on the web as well as the content can not be too detailed, if you need more journalists will again contact us.

Before sitting down to write a press realese, make sure you have something interesting to communicate.
Novelty, novelty! Every day thousands of journalists receive news in your mailbox, and it does not mean that all will read and use them for your articles. Often leave the emails on the side, run to search the internet, whether in blogs and in social networks. Press releases are placed by a firm on the company. In a way, this is a form of advertising (self-promotion). There is nothing wrong, but it gives a different credibility than one written by a journalist or blogger respected history level. After all, the journalists see hundreds of press releases and news in the course of a week, but only choose a number of stories to write.

Consequences for the news of a company is a top blog at strategic sites in the social networks that capture the attention of those journalists is halfway to call together differently attention and we note among many other mundane press releases.
There is no doubt that stories are effective in reaching potential buyers directly, I also believe that journalists and advertising play a vital role in the overall marketing strategy.

Filipa Mendonça