To be viral, marketing piece should contain a reason for people to remember it (an anchor), a reason for people to pass it (a carrier) and carry your message forward (payload). A good example of viral information is an anecdote. People remember it because it’s funny and pass it… I don’t know why, but they do. It probably helps us to get the time, when we speak and others listen, and that feeds into our social status circuitry.

However, not any anecdote is good for that purpose. Consider taking some old anecdote and putting your name on it (let’s say, the name is Nil Nihil – literally “Nothing nobody”, sum of two zeroes). For example:

Nil Nihil sits under a palm tree and eats a banana.

A rich guy passes by and tells him, “Get me a banana too and I’ll pay you.”

“And what will I do with the money?” Nil Nihil asks.
“You’ll hire other guys, and they will start getting bananas for you. So you’ll get even more money.”

“And what will I do with the money?” Nil Nihil asks again.

“Well, you’ll hire even more guys to get bananas, sell a lot of them and get a lot of money. So others will work and you will sit under the palm tree and eat your banana,” the rich guy answers.

“But I am already sitting under the palm tree and eat my banana,” Nil Nihil answers.

Is it funny? Most people I know say “Yes.” Will they pass it? Yes. What’s wrong? Two things:

First, you pass a wrong message about yourself. Sitting under the tree doing nothing is not exactly what most of us want to be known for.

Second, they’ll pass an anecdote but they have no reason to keep the name. It does not have to be “Nil Nihil”, it may be just “a guy”. Name does not have a purpose in this anecdote. In fact, I know the original of this anecdote in two national cultures, and in both of them it’s politically incorrect.

Consider a different story. I am not saying it’s perfect, but still check it out:

A cruise ship full of Internet marketers sank and they’ve got marooned on a tropic island.

“Nobody buys my eBook anymore”, Shawn Casey complained. “The sales were great but now they flattened out!”

“Don’t blame me,” Ryan Deiss answered. “My autopilot Million Dollar Napkin site sold your eBook to everybody on the island… twice.”

“We can try my Product Launch Formula… again,” Jeff Walker suggested.

“You should use my GPS system for guidance,” Rich Schefren disagreed, “Your constraint is the lack of women. With enough women we could repopulate the island and we’d all get more new prospects.”

“Yep, that’s your problem, guys,” Frank Kern agreed. “I’ve got them all using my Mass Control.”

“That’s why my business on dating advice is booming”, Eben Pagan added.

“But we’ve all got our affiliate or JV share,” John Reese reasoned.

And only Mike Filsaime sat quietly under a palm tree writing down this Ely Asher’s anecdote as a pattern to start his new viral marketing campaign.

You may say that the name still may be changed and some guys will do so to promote themselves. You are right. However, then versions from two different guys will collide and people will get curious, which one is correct. And that’s good for you!

Also, guess which one would it be? Not to mention that those guys did not write the book on memetics, which I forgot to market four years ago.

By the way, if you wonder about legalities, feel free to use this anecdote in your own posts, articles, wherever you want. Just keep it the way it is.

Why is it here, at ViralMarketingEtc.com? Because submitting free articles is one of the forms of viral marketing. You provide the content with your links and other people cheerfully spread it. If it’s good, of course. That’s viral marketing, all right.

Unfortunately, not all article directories are equal, and eZineArticles.com, although picky, still #1 and most important article directory around.

A short list of the reasons is (but check the videos anyway):

1. Combination of isses 2-10
2. Stolen or ripped content (includes PLR articles because they may be submitted by others; if you ghostwrite, request exclusive rights)
3. Blatant sales and promotion – that’s not what articles are for. Use resource box for that.
4. Keyword abuse – yes, we all want search engine ranking, but don’t make your article a gibberish, unnatural or spammy. About 1 keyword for 100 words and write for people, not for search engines.
5. Spelling and grammar (yes, that’s my sin, especially because of jumping between normal and notebook keyboard). Also, just one space after commas and periods, no more, no less. Ask somebody to proofread.
6. Affiliate links. Not even in the resource box! Not even redirecting link (unless you are ready to sacrifice the whole domain for that one link, see more in video).
7. Excessive links. Only two self-serving links are allowed in the resource box. Two more for other (not yours) sites. None of self-serving links in the artcile itself. Other two (non-self-serving links) after the third paragraph only.
8. URLs with no content or dead links. Your links should work and point to something sensible, not pure advertising, empty pages or sites under construction.
9. Localized niche articles. Not just generic, if writing an article about a particular locale (like city), give specific information, e.g. specfic coffee shops in Chicago if your article is about coffee shops or flavors in Chicago.
10. Formatting issues. No special MS Word symbols (quotes, ellipsis, dash…). Simple text format is the best. Empty line between paragraphs (hard line breaks). Limit HTML tags. Don’t use <ul>, <ol>, <li>, just include numbers and bullets into the artcile.

All social networking sites are not actually social networking. They are just the tools that make social networking easier and father reaching. You still have to do social networking yourself, you just can reach more people, but robots cannot make friends! That’s not Futurama yet and your spambot is not Bender.

Anyway, I always respected Seth Godin a lot, and now I respect him even more. Here it is:

That said, “social networking” is probably a misnomer. If you consider it your personal media outlet, that’s about what you get from Twitter or YouTube. You don’t become friends with people just because they saw your advertising on TV, but it does not mean it’s useless. Cost/value ratio — yes, that’s a big topic for sure.

Overall, that’s an application of Seth Godin’s ideas (whom I respect immensely) but in a very old (15-20 years old) way.

The core is to be remarkable. Like “The purple Cow” Just keep in mind, that does not mean “be remarkably stupid.” Not everything remarkable is good. These guys fancy formatted the book, laid it out horisontally, stuffed it with advertising… Well… most of that is not so much remarakable as annoying. Like Frank Kern doing his “sneak attack” on John Reese while people are waiting when he’ll stop fooling around and get to the business. Or, like a telemarketer saying “Good day, mister …your misspelled name… How are you today???”

Back to the eBook. Basically, Jim says, get a web domain name that stands out and that may be your ticket to prosperity. Like www.795MarketingPlan.com (that’s where you can get his book). Or, www.IQuite.com. Or, www.YourPRSucks.com. You’ve got the idea. I still remember the times when domain names broke their length limit, and marketers of that times were spamming everyone in the world with outcries “Wait until midnight when the registration will open and REGISTER YOUR DOMAINS!!!” I wonder, if GoDaddy sponsored this book. If they did, that’s a very repecatble piece of PR, hats off!

Let’s get serious, a great domain name is very important, but it’s not enough all alone. So, why do I write about this book here? Because of two points worth mentioning.

First, that’s a really good example of truly viral campaign. It does not matter that I am critisizing the book, all that matters is that I am writing about it and passing it by (which, I actually, don’t mind at all). Most viral reports include a BRIBE as a carrier, this one has a luxury of not doign so. Respectful. Very respectful piece of work. Don’t rely on that in your own campaigns, it’s not that easy to reproduce, but you should certainly admire what others achived.

Second reason is a bit off the viral marketing topic and falls more into Internet marketing and marketing in general. If you go to page 17 (kind of, they did not put page numbers in an attemmpt to be remarkable – another remarkably stupid idea), then you’ll see a great exercise to create your Unique Selling Proposition. That’s just beautiful. That’s why I wtrite about this eBook. That’s worth reading. Two pages, page #17 and page #18. If you printed it, you can throw other pages to the recycling, but these two you shoudl read.

Not much of a post for today, right? By the way, I also introduced a new category on this site: “Random Stupid Notes”. Enjoy!