How to Build a Viral Buzz

Just about everyone's heard of "viral marketing," but for most people "viral marketing" doesn't actually conjure up how-to steps. It's more of a vague phenomenon that either happens on its own or it doesn't.

It doesn't have to be that way. Both individuals and companies have mastered the process of systematically creating a viral buzz, to the point where they can just about engineer a viral campaign from scratch at any time.

Creating a viral buzz is an art, but it's also in large part a science. Here are the most important components of creating a viral buzz.

==> Do Something Completely Off the Wall

Things that are interesting get "likes." Things that are completely off the wall, completely out of the blue and completely original actually get shared and reposted.

The things that tend to go viral tend to be edgy and mildly not politically correct. If your brand supports that kind of marketing, you'll have to consciously decide whether you're willing to take the risk by launching these kinds of campaigns.

==> Write Down Your Crazy Ideas

Once you start thinking about wacky viral marketing ideas, you'll probably start having ideas left and right.

It's really important that you write these ideas down quickly and keep them all in one place.

It's very hard to hold more than one good idea in your head at any one time. If you have three great ideas, chances are at least one will get left in the dust.

Write all your promotion ideas down, even if you won't actually act on them for a few months.

==> The Viral Launching Pad

For a viral campaign to take off, you need to have a base of people who start using your product.

While nobody actually knows how many people need to see your site for it to have a chance to go viral, most viral marketing experts estimate it at more than 1,000 people but less than 10,000 people.

So how do you get 1,000+ people to see your viral campaign?

Of course, the easiest way is to have an existing user base. But what if you don't?

The easiest way is to just pay for the traffic. High traffic blogs will usually be willing to make a guest post for a few hundred dollars. You could even just put up some AdWords campaigns. At $0.25 per click, 1,000 people will cost you just $250 to take a shot at launching a viral campaign.

If you have your viral launching pad of 1,000 to 10,000 people and you have a completely off-the-wall idea that people in the industry have never seen before, you'll have a very good chance of getting a lot of exposure.