Today I prepared a presentation on viral marketing for a client, so I thought i’ll publish it here for all of you folks. Unfortunately the length won’t allow mee to post the whole thing at once so stay tuned, there’s more coming. 
Viral Marketing How To’s
Viral marketing is a communications process to spread a message trough induced buzz that has found the optimal medium on the Internet
A viral marketing campaign normally requires to create one or more custom sites to last only for the time of the campaign itself (unless you want to use them for a longer period) that are different from the company’s main site, and that will display a differnt message almost always after the campaign’s end.
The first step is to build a strong Web positioning for the site using the proper meta tags and keywords inside your pages. Fully dynamic pages built in Adobe Flash or using scripting tools (ASP, PHP, etc.) are to be avoided. Both technologies are welcome if embedded inside of HTML pages. This must be done differently on each of the site’s page (30% importance).
The second step is to obtain as many possible links from other sites to ours. You can use directories and press release sites too, as long as the allow a “do follow” for the links. And remember to change each post, otherwise search engines may think they are dupes and will penalize your site instead of promoting it (40% importance).
The site can be supported by one or more minisites (one or two pages long) using different content from the main site. Generally minisites contain videos, an advergame, or even press releases or landing pages leading to the main site. Minisites are more helpful if they are third level domaind of the main site (30% importance).
Using the proper mix of the above factors will bring your site on the first page of search engines in a very short time.
once the the site si set upo and ready to use, you can switch to the viral phase, using two kind of channels, self managed ones and spontaneous ones.
Self managed channels are the ones that are straight under the seeder’s control, like paying ones (institutional pages, banners, etc.). Spontaneous one are free (social networks, on theme forums, on theme blogs). You must find out the most suitable ones to build your mix. Purpose is to produce and diffuse a message that other people will want to make their own and diffuse further..
And now, ladies and gents, a little lecture on viral marketing:
