People like using file services to download music for two simple reasons, they?re free, and there is an incredible selection. The fact is Pandora?s Box has been opened. In Napster?s wake, other quasi-legal services quickly emerged? a lot of them. Even if they are closed, others will succeed them.

Major record companies would like to thing otherwise but they are never going to stop file sharing. Net users are file sharers?plain and simple. Long before the Internet came into being, people made cassette tapes of their favorite music for their friends?cd burners are so much easier and faster.

So how can you use this to help your viral marketing campaign along? Think about this. Once someone downloads your MP3 files and those files are available on that listener?s hard drive, viral marketing begins. After two users start sharing your files, suddenly, your music is on the hard drive of a second computer?then a third? and on and on. When users are searching and they find your music on a lot of different computers, they are more likely to download the files. It?s just a matter of time before you?ll find your files showing up in more and more places.

No matter what genre music you play?Rock and Roll, Country, Tejano, Mozart sonatas, Heavy Metal, of Brazilian Jazz, there is an audience for it somewhere.

In this new paradigm, you aren?t hawking a product, you are offering free music via a medium that lets you be directly connected with your audience.

[Insert Your Resource Box Here]

301 words

A true viral campaign gets forwarded because consumers are compelled to do so by the glory of the content, not because you bribed them with points or something else.

What absolutely will not work:

Suggesting that e-mail recipients forward your message to their friends and family will not work. Adding a line at the bottom of your e-mail that reads ?Please feel free to forward this message to a friend? is more likely to get it deleted than forwarded.

What absolutely will work:

Offering something worthy of sharing like a valuable discount, vital information or offering an incentive for sharing like additional entries into a sweepstakes or an added discount or premium service will work.

Relevant or timely information, research, or studies that are included in your e-mail might encourage the recipients to share with their family and friends. Interactive content like a quiz or test, especially if it?s fun, will inspire forwarding.

Jokes and cartoons are almost always forwarded to everybody the recipient knows. Why? Because they are entertaining and entertainment is meant to be shared.

A really cool multimedia experience is always going to achieve a lot of pass-along. Rich media is new and the novelty and tech factors alone are often enough to make the e-mail recipient eager to share it.

Oops! Almost forgot one really important thing?.You can craft a brilliant e-mail following all the rules, but if a consumer visits your site and has an experience less that what was promised, you are going to achieve viral marketing, alright?the bad kind. So be certain that your product or service is ready and is as advertised.

[Insert Your Resource Box Here]

330 words

The first thing you want to be sure you don?t do is get over-zealous. The one thing you need to avoid at all costs is spamming. Spamming is still used widely, but with the government establishing more restrictions and fines you don?t want this to be a problem for you. The professional image of your site will also suffer if you send mail blatantly.

Spamming requires a database that contains a huge list of e-mail addresses set up so that the message can be delivered with one click. The problem with it (aside from the governmental restrictions and associated fines) is that it irritates the recipients and kills the validity of your campaign, which in turn kills the factors that would motivate someone to refer your site.

You need to personalize by creating your website with personal appeal. You must see to it that your website makes your customers feel safe, secure and cared for. E-mail is important, because it is going to be one of the most affordable ways to keep in touch with your customers.

The proper way to handle email permission is to first let your customer know that you will not transmit their e-mail addresses to third party companies. The next thing to do is to attach the need for their e-mail addresses to benefits they can receive.

For example: Coupons or discounts that are only available to members who receive e-mail notifications. With each e-mail you send the viral marketing effect takes place.

[Insert Your Resource Box Here]

300 Words

The campaign is based on a web site that features a person in a chicken costume. The actor performs a wide range of actions based on a user?s input, showing pre-recorded footage and appearing like an interactive webcam. The takes literally the advertising slogan ?Get chicken just the way you like it?.

There are more than a hundred commands the chicken will respond to, including:

? Michael Jackson dance moves such as moonwalk
? River dance
? The elephant
? Lay an egg
? Walk like an Egyptian
? Yoga
? Rage
? Spank
? Taco Bell
? Fight

When told to do anything the Subservient Chicken thinks is offensive, like perform sex acts or take off his mask, the chicken walks up to the camera and shakes a scolding chicken finger in disappointment. If he is told to east food from rival fast food places like McDonald?s he approaches the camera and places his finger down his throat but when told to eat Burger King he has a more positive response. The chicken responds to the command ?smoke crack? by smoking but when told to ?smoke a bong? he waggles his finger scoldingly.

Burger King?s Chicken Fights campaign was recently introduced. The two cockfighting chicken characters are modeled off this chicken.
There seems to be no end to the variations on the theme from Burger King. There has also been a lot of criticism leveled at the chain about the Subservient Chicken but for now it looks like Burger Kind is crying all the way to the bank.

A successful viral campaign isn?t always in good taste? maybe that?s what makes them so tasty.

[Insert Your Resource Box Here]

305 words

Buzz works! It can work for small and start-up businesses, as well. The planning stage of a viral campaign will set out objectives and develop the viral theme for a buzz. There are three core components to any viral campaign and businesses of any size can use them. They are:

1. The creative material: the viral agent that embodies the message you want to spread in a digital format (image, video, text, etc). The trick is to put together material that people will be eager to share with their family and friends and people are much more eager to share ?advertainment? and advertisement.

2. Seeding: distributing and placing the agent online in places that provide the greatest potential spread. Direct viral material downloads or links on specialist viral third-party web sites in order to create awareness and spread before users get to the campaign destination site.

3. Tracking: Measuring the spread of the campaign to provide accountability and prove success. It is absolutely vital that you know what is or is not working. The only way to get that information is to track the results of your seeding.

Lessons have been learned, trends have been developed and there is definitely some science involved in creating a buzz successfully. The buzz technique is here to stay and, if used strategically, it can make a difference to the success of your e-business.

[Insert Your Resource Box Here]

312 words

Do Your Homework: Prior to joining any forum, you must do some research.

1. Join relevant forums that are in some way related to the promotion?s primary sales market. For example, someone involved with a health related product, many types of forums could apply?.everything from holistic medicine to stay-at-home moms.

2. Choose popular forums. There is no point in wasting your time and energy on forums that few members and few posts. Page raking and the amount of active members are two good ways to check for this.

3. Choose forums that allow sig tags. If it?s possible read the rules before joining and pay attention to them. Your time is important, too. It is better to find out that a forum doesn?t allow posts with sig tags before you go to the time and trouble of joining.

After You Have Joined: OK?you have chosen two or three forums that meet your requirements?now what?

1. Keep your sig tag short and update it regularly. The ideal thing is to limit yourself to one link, preferably to your main website.

2. Never create posts that are nothing more than an advertisement. This all but a universal rule and only displays the marketers lack of experience if he does so. At best this kind of post will be deleted by the monitors?.at worst, it is grounds for being banned.

3. Work the room. Be an active member on the forum. Plan to spend at least an hour each day there and take the time to get to know the users. Take the time to introduce yourself with intelligent questions depending upon the forum?s topic.

As a marketer becomes a regular member, they will hopefully develop a good reputation and without saying a word about their promotion, those who are interested in their product will approach them.

[Insert Your Resource Box Here]

326 words

Public health nurses offer sage advice at flu season: stay away from people who cough, wash your hands often, and don’t touch your eyes, nose, or mouth. Viruses only spread when they’re easy to transmit. Viral e-mail marketing works great on the Internet because instant communication has become so easy and inexpensive. Digital format make copying simple. From a marketing standpoint, you must simplify your marketing message so it can be transmitted easily and without degradation. Short is better. Remember the K.I.S.S. standard?.Keep it Simple Stupid. The shorter and easier to remember is always better than long and complicated.

Clever viral marketing plans take advantage of common human motivations. The desire to be cool and greed drives people. So does the hunger to be popular, loved, and understood. The resulting urge to communicate produces millions of websites and billions of e-mail messages.

Most people are social. Nerdy, basement-dwelling computer science grad students are the exception. Social scientists tell us that each person has a network of 8 to 12 people in their close network of friends, family, and associates. People on the Internet develop networks of relationships, too. They collect e-mail addresses and favorite website URLs. Affiliate programs exploit such networks, as do permission e-mail lists. Learn to place your message into existing communications between people, and you rapidly multiply its dispersion.

If you can design a marketing strategy that builds on common motivations and behaviors for its transmission, you have a winner.

[Insert Your Resource Box Here]

306 words