Viral marketing is a dream for advertisers, most web marketers will tell you that viral success has the same chance like winning a lottery. How to compete with popular networks and media like Wall Street Journal or CNN over appearance on Digg, Delicious, Newsvine homepage? Wall Street Journal has millions visitors on a website, thousands of them digg, mixx, stumble, bookmark stories. For regular blogger it seems unrealistic to go viral

 Viral marketing is not about how big company or a website, even small blogger or business can hit media with good idea / content increasing visibility, brand recognition, and profit. Step by step i would like to explain how to bring and promote idea through social media networks.

Preparation:

 Step 1: Write good content, citically review it asking yourself a question: “Would you like it if you are just a regular reader?”. Think about possible topics people might be interested in.

 Step 2: Strong name for your story / article. Imagine that you work for “The New York Post” and editor told you to come up with the best headline. Practice shows that readers love to digg stories like: “10 most expensive…”, “200 ways how to…”, or “shark ate entire…”, “amazing survival story…”.

 Step 3: Provide good pictures for your story. It can attract reader and make him / her recommend link to others. There are a lot of services online where you can download pictures for a small price. (BigStockPhoto for example).

 Step 4: Put Digg, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Delicious etc buttons on top of your story… Don’t place many widgets because your site will look spammy… most visitors will run away without reading. Hint: social networks like Furl, Reddit, SpicyPage don’t provide big traffic even after link featured on frontpage. Bet on diggers, stumblers, mixxers, and delicious users.

 Step 5: Post your story during the time when most people are online, check statistic for your website to see when you have the biggest traffic. 

 Promoting your story to go viral:

 Now when your post online what should you do? You can’t rely on regular traffic or search engines: it is simply impossible for a website with 200 daily people receive 100+ digs… search engines will index story only in 1-5 days (depending on your site). You should promote your story to reach people who might be interested.

 Step 1: Before posting your story online join social networks and social bookmarking websites, create good profile and join groups of interest. Invite active members to be your friend and participate in conversations and discussions.

 Step 2: Post story online and begin promotion.

 Step 3: Bookmark story on Digg, Stumbleupon, Mixx, Delicious, Furl, Reddit, Simpy, ClipMarks, BlinkList. You have to create accounts before your story online. Bookmarking process should go fast and take no more than 15 min.

 Step 4: Post story on news websites: Zimbio, SpicyPage, Newsvine, 9Rules, Magnolia, OthersOnline.

 Step 5: Notify your groups and friends on social sites about new post.

 Step 6: Here is a big secret! Bookmark on Stumbleupon your Newsvine, Zimbio, Mixx, Digg account where you already bookmarked your new post. Do the same for other networks by linking your profile. It creates chain: Digg - Zimbio account - your site, Stumbleupon - Newsvine - your site, Furl - 9rules - your site. Be careful and don’t submit on Digg or Stumbleupon all your accounts because you will get banned.

 Creating big presence of your story can give you 20-50 digs / mixx / delicious bookmarks for your post in one hour. It could be enough to be featured on frontpage.

 Remember, if you failed once it doesn’t mean that you are bad in viral marketing… successful viral marketers fail at least 30 ideas to reach result.

  Most companies can only dream about successful viral marketing campaign when brand and product awareness reach millions people and global media. People just talk about how lucky creator of MillionDollarHomepage or how creative BlendTec with their “Will It Blend?” YouTube video. Business owners still belive that viral success is nothing but winning lottery ticket.

  In November I visited seminar where speaker was David Meerman Scott. This charismatic person with great skills of public speaker explained in 1 hour all main principles of viral marketing. Simply, he just let everyone in the room to understand that everyone can create something like BlendTec did.

  Now little about David Meerman Scott. He is author of book ”The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to use news releases, blogs, podcasts, viral marketing and online media to reach your buyers directly”. In the past Devid Meerman Scott used to be vice-president of public traded company NewsEdge Corporation. Today he is popular web developer, advertiser, blogger, and writer. His seminars often sold out and his appearance every where in the world brings a lot of attention in business community.

  Most people / companies who already succeeded in viral marketing fail to repeat success again even after multiple attempts. David Meerman Scott is the person who already came with many ideas which went viral. His blog WebInkNow is a great example how this men brings public attention to his own person. Take a look how his ideas and thoughts was recently covered by Wall Street Journal.

• November 26, 2007 Wall Street Journal interview. More information here.