Marketing Thursday - Learn what viral means.

Two articles I’ve seen today and one website have one thing in common - they misuse the word viral. Calling something viral before it happens is just wrong.

The examples I’ve seen today (sarcasm in italics):

1. website says ‘just posted viral videos’ - hmmm…. just posted and viral? that’s amazing.
2. blogger says ‘it’s a good idea to put your videos on youtube for some viral marketing’ - oh, as soon as they’re on youtube they’re viral? Awesome.
3. newspaper says ‘local businesses are using MySpace for viral marketing’ - Wow, I’m on MySpace, I must be viral too. That must be why everyone is talking about the daily j.d.a.

Things aren’t viral because they’re on YouTube or Digg or because your business is on MySpace - at some point someone looked at how these services spread and how they let some things spread and said ‘that’s what viral marketing is.’ But it’s not. Viral marketing refers to the ways in which ideas spread - no service can guarantee viral marketing. You can use these things (and others including real life human interaction) to increase the chance that your idea will become viral, but things aren’t viral from the start - they have to spread first.

If you really want to know what viral marketing is, read Unleashing the idea virus - it’s free.