what is viral marketing 
viral marketing seeks to spread information about a product or service from person to person by word of mouth or sharing via the internet or email the goal of viral marketing is to inspire individuals to share a marketing message with friends family and other individuals to create exponential growth in the number of its recipients understanding viral marketingin the case of viral marketing viral refers to something that spreads quickly and widely across its audience viral marketing is a deliberate enterprise though the distribution of a message happens organically as such social media provides the perfect ecosystem for viral marketing though it has its roots in traditional word of mouth marketing while the practice was much more widely used in the early to mid 2000s as new internet businesses were being created in extreme numbers it is still common among internet based business to consumer b to c companies the widespread adoption of social media networks including youtube x formerly twitter instagram snapchat and facebook has enabled modern viral marketing efforts and increased their efficacy examples of viral marketinga frequently used example of early viral marketing is hotmail the free web based email service launched in 1996 that included in its users outgoing messages an embedded advertisement and direct link inviting recipients to sign up for an account this practice led to the fastest growth among user based media companies at the time another example that illustrates how varied viral marketing can be is the als ice bucket challenge the ice bucket challenge existed before the als association utilized it to raise awareness and generate donations however the massive dissemination on social media of als ice bucket videos created a worldwide sensation that tremendously increased als awareness the amount of donations raised from the als ice bucket challenge 1viral marketing characteristicsall viral marketing examples deliberate or accidental have three things in common the message messenger and environment each part must be leveraged to create a successful viral marketing campaign viral marketing campaigns may be created by any size business and can stand alone or be a part of a larger traditional campaign these campaigns may use several tools e g videos games images email text messaging and free products to appeal to the emotions of users or viewers raise awareness of a worthy cause and make it easier to consume and share viral marketing often relies on the help of an influencer who has a large network of followers with the help of social networks as a force multiplier viral marketing is quicker than traditional marketing campaigns as well as less expensive since it can receive so much traffic in a short time it can also lead to mainstream media attention social media can also cause viral marketing efforts to misfire as messages are altered misconstrued considered spam or called out for missing the mark viral marketing success can also be hard to measure advantages and disadvantages of viral marketingviral marketing allows companies to better market their products by reaching consumers that ordinarily would not be targeted by its traditional marketing campaigns this expanded reach allows the company to enter new markets and potentially expand its customer base 