Morals and integrity don’t often come into contact with product marketing. The majority of consumer’s feel that some marketing techniques are downright sleazy and are just inches away from being flat out scams. Companies realize this, however and as a result bend over backwards to try and undue the efforts of their counterparts.

What is social or viral marketing? Basically it’s a means that marketers use to spread the word about a product or service. It’s their attempt, through whatever means possible, to get you to talk up whatever they’re selling.

Viral marketing is basically a description of any marketing strategy that gets the individual consumer to pass on your marketing agenda. It creates a potential for exponential growth in your exposure and therefore, your influence. It works like a virus. One person gets sick and gives it to someone else. Those two people then pass it on and on and on and on until now thousands and even possibly millions of people have caught it.

The real world calls viral marketing several different things that can be considered less damning to the marketer. Such terms like “word of mouth”, “buzz building” and “media leveraging” are all used to describe the same thing: Viral/Social marketing.

Hotmail.com was one of the first online companies to use this tactic and it paid off in dividends for them. The strategy of viral marketing is quite simple. Hotmail gave away free e-mail addresses. This got people to finally get mail for free which in turn eliminated the need for buying software to do it. Whenever an e-mail was sent out, it included the same ad for everyone else to get the free account.

Viral marketing is the ripple effect in action. You drop a stone in the lake and the splash ripples outward, getting larger and larger. We all know what happened to Hotmail. Their brand was secured and is still working today. How do you partake in viral marketing?

Keep in mind that not all techniques work. Hotmail made their money through ad sales and click-thrus. Selling products or services differed mainly because everyone used e-mail and it was free. Things change slightly when your personal money is at stake, but the basis of viral marketing is:

1. Give something for nothing.
2. Make the process easy to pass on.
3. Can be catered for 1-2 people as well as thousands.
4. Exploitation. Preying on the consumers’ base feelings and desires.
5. Use already functioning communication methods such as e-mail.
6. Use someone else’s resources.

Free is the most valuable word a marketer can use. There is not a person alive who does not want something for nothing. That is your key to the city. You want your information to be able to be passed on to others easily like built-in signature files.

Remember greed is by far one of the strongest motivating factors in the world today. The need to be cool and unique drives people to get noticed. The Internet is filled with resources that you can manipulate and take advantage of. Whenever you can do it, you should always link your site to others, make affiliate plans, etc. Your goal is to make consumers realize that they’ll get something for nothing if they just spread the word. It works like magic and your brand will go far and above the competition.