Andrew Warner recently commented on my article, 3 Tips For Viral Marketing Success. It turns out that Andrew recently interviewed viral marketing ‘guru’, Hiten Shah, partner at ACS SEO and a guy who has helped grow online traffic for major tech players such as TechCrunch, Guy Kawasaki, HP and Samsung.

During the interview, Shah revealed a number of powerful techniques he recommends for optimizing viral marketing campaigns. Here are six (6) such techniques - techniques you may wish to consider using in one or more of YOUR viral marketing initiatives:

1. Use a ‘beat me’ or competitive approach. Websites that allow users to challenge each other are inherently viral. For example, eduFire.com went viral by allowing its users to play language games and then challenge friends to score higher.
2. Require people to refer others to the viral application or content in order to benefit. Put it this way, no-one can use Skype… unless others also use Skype. And the same goes for numerous other applications and services, ranging from email to PayPal.
3. Let people show off - let people create or contribute content, and share what they’ve created. Doing so is a major reason behind the viral success of GE’s online whiteboard.
4. Encourage people to share - make it super-easy for users to share and embed your content. Who does this exceptionally well? YouTube!
5. Give people something to boast about - give people something to brag or boast about… and they will! For example, when Feedburner created a badge allowing bloggers to show how many readers they had, bloggers everywhere began displaying Feedburner badges – leading to Feedburner’s growth.
6. Measure your progress - measure your viral growth to see what is working… and what isn’t… and make changes accordingly.

To learn more powerful viral marketing techniques, click here to listen to the full interview between Andrew and Hiten Shah.

Source: Andrew Warner, “7 Essential Tools of Viral Marketing - The Hiten Shah Interview”, Mixergy.com, September 5, 2008