Chapter 8 is full of great viral marketing case studies. The most interesting part, and David points out, most of these weren’t planned acts of marketing. Well maybe the GoldenPalace.com strategy of buying random things on eBay, hoping for some news pick up, was a bit planned. Sometimes it worked so maybe you can plan buzz that goes viral?

B2B Lead blogger and Viral VIP, Pam O’Neal Mickelson, also created buzz that went viral. Check out how she built a viral campaign around a simple video an engineer at NetQoS created. Pam – please jump in here – As an experienced viral marketer, are you now trying to create new ideas to build viral campaigns around or do you think these kinds of things just happen and you have to know when to jump on something?

Whether a viral opportunity happens to you or you create one of your own I think the most important thing to remember is to make sure you are doing everything you can to support and drive the “viral aspects” of the video or campaign. One of the case studies in this chapter was the Mentos exploding when dropped in Diet Coke. While neither brand created the video, Mentos embraced it and Diet Coke ignored it. Mentos leveraged the video to help boost their brand. So the lesson here – If people are talking about you or your brand online, don’t ignore it.

David does a good job of closing this chapter. I’d like to close with it as well.

“Viral marketing – having others tell your story for you – is one of the most exciting and powerful ways to reach your audiences. It’s not easy to harness the power, but with careful preparation when you are sitting on news and with clever ideas for what has the potential to create interest, any organization has the power to become famous on the Web.”