On the Internet, viral marketing is any marketing technique
that induces Web sites or users to pass on a marketing message to other
sites or users, creating a potentially exponential growth in the message's
visibility and effect. One example of successful viral marketing is Hotmail,
a company, now owned by Microsoft, that promotes its service and its own
advertisers' messages in every user's e-mail notes.
Sites that serve an immediate need when they are first launched seem to
get the kind of viral marketing known as buzz marketing. Everyone simply
tells everyone else. ICQ, a service that tells you when selected friends
or colleagues are also online, is an example of a service that is viral
by its nature. Its users want to tell their friends about it so that it
will be more useful for them. |
