Tricks to Viral Web Marketing

Excellent post by Thomas Baekdal:

Viral marketing (word-of-mouth marketing) is a really cool thing. Just think about it... instead of spending an insane amount of money on newspapers ads, TV commercials or banner ads, you spent nothing - and let your fans do all the work for you.

1: Make people feel something
The most important trick of all is to create a very strong emotion. You need to have an opinion, to express an idea with commitment and dedication. You want people's blood to be pumping of excitement. Forget neutral, trying to please everyone, supporting several target groups or any of the many ways to be unbiased. Viral marketing is 100% about emotions.

2: Do something unexpected
This one explains itself. If you want people to notice you campaign, you have to do something different - something unexpected. Forget about trying to promote your products as just being great - everybody does that. Forget about trying to make it look cool - everyone else has "been there, done that".

5: Allow Sharing, downloading and embedding´
You need allow people to:

• Download the content, in a usable format (videos in MPG, pictures in JPG etc.)
• Allowing them to easily embed the content on their own sites (Note: remember bandwidth issues)
• Sending it to friends, either using a link or by sending the content directly.
• Publishing it on varies social networks - Digg, YouTube etc.
• Allow people to add it the bookmarking sites
  

7: Never restrict access!