Viral Marketing is the name given to marketing that is designed to spread like a virus through a social network. A successful piece of viral marketing makes it easy and compelling for people to pass it on to their peers.

The term Viral Marketing was coined by a Harvard Business School professor, Jeffrey F. Rayport, in an article in a 1996 issue of Fast Company. It was further popularized in 1997 when it was used to describe Hotmail’s hugely successful e-mail practice of appending advertising for itself in outgoing mail from their users.

To create a successful viral marketing campaign the marketer needs to identify individuals within (or with access to) their market segment with a large social network. They must then create compelling content that appeals to this audience.

Viral marketing promotions usually take the form of video clips, interactive games, images, or even text messages. With the ability to send messages quickly and cheap the Internet has greatly accelerated the speed at which such messages can spread and increased their reach to be worldwide.

Some great examples of viral marketing are:

• Hotmail using appending it’s advertising to users emails, meaning every email sent was an advert for Hotmail.
• The Blair Witch Project made extensive use of viral marketing to create the impression it was a true story/documentary.
• The Mastercard below.
• The Kylie Minogue video below.

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