Whatever you do in your viral marketing campaigns, you have to rememeber the most important viral marketing principle of all:

Even if you have put a great collection of viral vehicles together and start out with a huge viral seed, your efforts will be wasted if your viral marketing message is:

• #1 Weak or boring
• #2 The viral creatives are poor quality or confusing

Give your prospects and customers a reason to pass the message on.

The time you spend creating an intrinsic reason as to why anyone will pass your message on will be the most important and will offer the biggest return on investment you can hope for.

Keep asking yourself the question “Why would someone want to pass this on to a friend?”

When you have one solid reason (and it’s obvious to the distribution agent or you tell them why), this will save you a lot of time, effort, money and heartache.

Abraham Lincoln was once "What would you do if you had eight hours to cut down a tree?"

To which he replied "I'd spend my first four hours sharpening my saw".

Remember to “sharpen your saw”.

So now you know the most important viral marketing principle, let's look at some of the properties you will see common to many great viral marketing campaigns.

What makes a good viral message?

What are the characteristics of a good viral message?

When you incorporate as many of the below into your message as possible, you maximize your chances of success:

Anticipation
Is there any way you can start the ball rolling without giving the game away?  Build Buzz in a pre-launch

Funny
Humor is a great way to get your message across, everyone likes a funny joke/story/video

Innovative
You don't have to reinvent the wheel – you could create a lot of buzz merely by combining existing “items” in a fresh new way.

Inspirational
Does your message touch the hearts (and minds) of others, how can you tell your story in a way that does?

New
Is it something new, new is good – new is different.

Reliable
How reliable is it, does it deliver what it said on the tin?

Simple
Complex viral ideas don’t work – KISS

Unique
Is it totally unique, outrageous, bizarre, funny, “secret”, remarkable?

Useful
Does it fulfill a useful task for someone or convey a message effectively?

Valuable
Does it give some form of value, is it cost effective and usually is it cheap?

WIFFY
Check! - WIFFY: What's In It For You – is there a way you can incentivize passing your message on?