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Viral Marketing is a way to receive a lot of traffic on your webpage with only a small initial investment. The concept is that if the viral campaign is interesting enough, people will forward it, which creates new visitors for free. Here are some pointers for when you're thinking about trying to use viral in affiliate marketing.

Use of Forums

A Forum can be great way of exposing the first few people to your campaign, but Forum moderators can destroy your viral campaign easily. It's important you stay on the good side of the moderators if you're using Forums to launch the campaign.

Only post your campaign in relevant Forums and even then only in relevant categories. Ideally, don't use affiliate marketing links in your posts. Viral campaigns are best used to generate traffic to one place, not for already making money on the way over there.

Stay out of the discussion that arises after you launch the campaign. The downside of the free traffic a viral campaign can bring is that you don't control how your campaign will be dealt with on the net. You have to accept that the internet community can very well do as it pleases with your campaign. Trying to interfere afterwards more often than not reflects negative upon the campaign.

Stand out from the crowd

Standing out from the crowd is the name of the game. But the most common mistake is too create something that is too far-fetched. The simpler an idea is, the better it probably will work. But of course, too simple won't work either. Avoid evoking cheap emotion.

Avoid using traditional ways of advertising. You can use existing platforms such as Youtube of course, but if you can find a way of using a platform in a new and creative way, go for it. Try to find ways to mash-up platforms even.

Make it shareable

The point of a viral campaign is that people can share it. Ideally your whole campign can be condensed in one URL, one e-mail , one video or even one image. People don't forward e-mails as much anymore as they now share on social networks. Make sure your campaign is easily shareable on the most common social platforms.

Be your own parody

If you manage to launch a successful campaign, try capitalizing on that success by creating your own spin-offs before somebody else does. Bloopers, deleted scenes, parodies .. any unpublished bit of content you have on a successful campaign, can become a successful campaign on it's own.