Why The Viral Effect Is Still Going Strong

We’ve all come across viral emails before and there’s no doubt that they appear to be here to stay.  Provided the message is a good one, it takes on a life of its own and is capable of reaching thousands of people in an amazingly short amount of time.But why is this viral effect so good?  Why does it work so well?That’s the beauty of the viral effect of any advertising or promotional message.  It’s that good that when we see it, we instantly have to tell other people about it.  This could happen via emailing someone else, forwarding a message on or simply telling them face to face.  We might even jot down the website address where we saw it so they can take a look for themselves.  And then of course the whole cycle starts again.The main venue for this type of message is on the social networking sites.  There are plenty of these that are well established on the internet today, and the website design is such that they attract millions of users.  In this sense half the job of viral marketing is done for you.  There are millions of people all congregating in the one place; all you need to do is create the right message and get it out there… and they will do the rest.You do need to be a bit careful though.  If you aim it at the wrong demographic it will hit a metaphorical brick wall.  What you need to do is to set it going and aim it at the specific group of people who will be most interested in the message.Why should this be the case?  It’s really common sense.  Let’s say you read a message that doesn’t interest you.  The chances are you’ll skim over it and then forget it.But if you read a message that is aimed squarely at you and your interests, you are far more likely to pass that message on to other people with those same interests.So you see, viral promotions and marketing can really drive a whole internet marketing campaign if they are done properly.  But while they can deliver great results, you can never quite be sure how well they will work.  Since the driving force behind the campaign is the people that it’s aimed at, they hold the ultimate power for the final results that are achieved.It’s clear that we should all make the effort to learn as much as we can from each viral marketing campaign we enter into.  That applies whether the results are good or bad too, so that we can achieve still more the next time we attempt to set a viral reaction going.Because when we get it right, the results are amazing to see.