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One of the biggest questions posed by content creators, in regards to digital content, usually surrounds the following questions:
What method of digital marketing is best for me? What kind of role does each of the different styles have on my overall marketing goals?
I’m here to answer a piece of those inquiries.
In total, there are 9 different types of digital marketing that are defined today. One of those types is content marketing which is considered to be the most authentic type of inbound marketing.
Today we will be focusing on the role viral content marketing plays on your overall digital marketing strategy.
Viral Marketing’s Role
First, let’s understand what viral content marketing is.
Viral content marketing involves a piece of content in the form of a blog post, infographic, or another digital format that generates enough emotion from readers that it makes them want to share it with their peers via social platforms.
As you can see from the general definition, viral content marketing is shared through social media platforms and the web to grab the attention of as many people as possible. This is how your business can generate brand awareness on a mass level.
What makes viral content marketing different from other types of content marketing is the emotion involved and the large audience appeal that can generate new traffic longer than the life of the campaign. Viral campaigns are similar to a lot of big news stories. One big publication gets ahold of the information and it begins to spread quickly for a few days. Once the hype dies down, the story or campaign might become newsworthy again and generate another media frenzy down the road. This results in a reoccurring trend of link generation over a long period of time.
Now that we understand the basics, let’s check out some examples of brands that have successfully used viral marketing in their digital marketing strategy.
Successful Viral Marketing Example
A great example of a viral marketing campaign is one we did for InsuranceQuotes.com called Germs at the Airport. This campaign highlighted the dirtiest surfaces that people are likely touching while they are traveling by plane.
This campaign had all of the key elements needed for viral content marketing: emotion, timeliness, and mass audience appeal. The topic was able to grab the attention of the general public because most people have been on an airplane and it also makes the readers want to spread awareness to their friends on social platforms. It also helped that this campaign was given to publishers right as the busy travel season was underway.
In the end, this campaign was able to rack in over 15,000 social shares, which yielded a ton of SEO juice and many new potential customers looking at the InsuranceQuotes.com domain. This campaign was just produced this year but is expected to pick up more traffic during the next big travel season.
Speaking of SEO juice and potential new customers, being able to track and measure the success of a campaign is one of the key elements for continuing to create viral marketing content.
Tracking and Measuring The Success Of Viral Marketing
It’s important to track your marketing efforts to see if what you’re putting your money into is working for your brand. Not every campaign with viral intentions is going to be viral but that’s why it’s important to track your success.
By tracking the success of your viral marketing, not only will you be able to physically see where your money is going, but you will also be able to make better judgment calls over time to get the most out of your marketing efforts.
