The Only Good Viral Infection

The only thing better than seeing a funny viral video on YouTube is actually bing in the video. If you were in a viral video like the one that David Meerman Scott talks about with the 200 liters of Diet Coke and 500 Mentos then you'd be pretty happy if you were either of those companys. Some four million people viewed the video and then it went to major news stations and everyone was blogging about it.

All that attention brings me to my first point about,  

Chapter 8: The Web Helps Audiences Catch the Fever.

Viral campaigns also aren't something that you can sit down and plan out in the board room. You can't guarantee a viral campaign.  I think a few things need to happen for viral campaigns, videos, ect. Things like luck, timing, and the action. You'll need some luck because honestly, not everyone is going to think your grandmas reaction to your product is funny (or something ?). I think timing is important because you could just be sitting around waiting for people to catch on to your video but it prolly won't catch on if it's about gum when a recent study shows that gum is the worst thing on the planet. Not cool. When it all comes down to the wire the action is really what you need for a viral video. That Numa Numa Dance guy; that's action.

Scott likes to talk about his other works all the time and how we should buy his other book to get these other great ideas of his. Yada yada yada, but I'm glad he was gracious enought to present us with some useful tips from "World Wide Rave...". He says to create a TRIGGER. A trigger being the thing that will get people to start talking AND sharing your web content.

Free content sells. The soundtrack for The Graduates was free to download and drove the masses of people to pay to see the movie that was getting all the hype. Similar to The Graduates soundtrack, legend in the making band Radiohead made their second most recent album, In Rainbows basically free to download (they asked for donations). The point is that they are a great band who is offering their stuff for free. That is unheard of! Especially for a group as popular as Radiohead. Their most recent album isn't free, however I can bet that they sell an amazing number of records, cds, and downloads because of the success of their previous experiments. This article sheds a little light on Radioheads marketing strategy that challened the record labels.

The last thing about going viral is that you have to learn to deliver your potentially viral news to the market, and do it right.

Viral marketing is one of the best uses for the web and there are many ways to do achieve viral status. The hard part is always deciding what and how to deliver that news or message that will catch the eye of bloggers and a whole community of online individuals that will spread your message.

Chapter 9: The Content-Rich Web Site

The five most important points from chapter 9 are:

1. Content is the most important thing about a website. Many agencies may get very side tracked when it comes to developing a site by trying to make it look really cool or perform the best. These things are great, however people are at your site to be entertained and more importantly learn something.

2. Think like a publisher. You should start any website design or redesign with the content strategy.

3. Showing a unified personality reaps benefits. Having all of your content be unified is a great way to show your viewer that you've got it all together.

4. Build content especially for your buyers. They will get the most out of your website, and you will be able to truely know them better.

5. A successfull website is a mixture of content and delivery.