Unlike computer viruses, internet viral marketing requires the message to be appealing in some way, in order for people to consciously, and willingly pass it on. A carefully designed viral marketing strategy will rapidly gain momentum, as more and more people pass it on, quite quickly multiplying to thousands or even millions. Think of it like the snow ball effect.

Some viral marketing strategies will work much better than others, but many will not work at all. A lot of planning should go into setting up a viral marketing campaign. There are 6 basic components that can be included in your viral message, in order to maximize it’s effectiveness.

1. Give away something for free (video, game, cartoon, poem, joke, photograph, audio, email, etc.)

2. Can be effortlessly sent to others (via email, social network messages, instant message applications, forums, etc.)

3. Taps into common motivations and behaviors (humor, shock, inspiration, intrigue, urgency, compassion, etc.)

4. Utilizes existing communication networks (YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, etc.)

5. Takes advantage of other’s resources (eg. a video hosted on YouTube will not cost you any money in server bandwidth when more and more people access it)

6. Includes your URL or brand name within the message (to promote your business)

If you are interested in implementing an internet viral marketing campaign, then you will need to create what is called a ‘viral agent’. This is the item or experience that you will use to initiate a dual positive reaction. The first reaction involves the recipient of your marketing message enjoying it so much that they forward the item or experience on to an associate. The second reaction you are going for, is the recipient responding to the message within the item or experience (this can involve anything from exposing them to your brand name or attracting them to your website).

The quality of your viral agent, whether it be a video, game, cartoon, poem, joke, photograph, audio or email will largely effect the possibility of people passing it on. It’s also important that the message can be passed on easily. This might mean including a ’send to a friend’ button, or at the very least making sure that it can be easily passed on by email. It is particularly effective to have the viral agent hosted at one particular destination, as people will be able to send their friends a simple link to it. This will also benefit the viral agent’s exposure in the search engines, allowing even more people to see your message.