Viral Marketing: Beyond Social Media

Before Facebook and Twitter took over the universe, there was viral marketing in its infancy. In fact, it began in the year 1995 with a little service you may have heard of – Hotmail.

Hotmail was the creator, if you will, of viral marketing. How? Well, they included a link that resided in the footer of every Hotmail email message that allowed others to create their own free, web-based email account simply by clicking on it. The service, thanks to this linking campaign, went “viral.” Hotmail grew rapidly, by leaps and bounds, and hence the birth of viral marketing.

So, as hard as it is to believe, viral marketing preceded social media. Before there was MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, there was, well, email. Yes, believe it or not, we actually used to send messages by composing messages to specific groups of people, rather than simply posting updates for the world to see. And we won’t even get into what the world was like before email… that’s just archaic.

However, its important to understand just how important social media is to the success of viral marketing. Can it work without it? Of course it can. That’s how it began. Hotmail created viral marketing almost by accident, and didn’t have the option to rely on social media to make their campaign work. So, we know it is possible. But now that it is available, it is a valuable tool that only enhances your viral marketing efforts.

For the full guide on releasing your own viral marketing campaign and for a leaked report visit: http://bit.ly/eGFBf8