Social Media Optimization For Dummies

Chapter 18

Tapping Into the Vox Populi

In This Chapter

• Planning the creation of viral content
• Finding viral techniques that work

Viral marketing, viral advertising, and buzz marketing are terms that reflect successful attempts to tap the vox populi — that is, the people's voice. A piece of content goes viral when it's picked up, shared, and recirculated by large numbers of people who have no incentive other than sharing something that's cool, fun, or useful. A piece of viral content can have millions of views, and a piece of viral content is hugely influential as it leverages the power of the masses.

Getting a piece of content to go viral is often considered to be the holy grail of digital marketing, and there's a lot to be said that for that point of view. There's definitely value in getting your content viewed by a large number of people; the value is greatest if the viewers are the right audience for your business. Certainly, a lot of ad agencies spend a lot of money trying to create viral content. But big budgets and large creative teams aren't the keys to getting content to go viral. The key is something much, much simpler: great, compelling content that evokes a strong emotional response. Anyone can create it; just ask the guy with the grumpy cat.

The definition of viral content is content with a viral coefficient greater than 1. To put that definition in human terms, ...