In today’s post, we are continuing to look at how to create a viral marketing stampe. We are going to look at creating viral content with eBooks and Videos.

Make sure to read our previous two posts on viral marketing: “Watch Your Profits Grow by Using a Viral Marketing Campaign” and “It’s time to Launch Your Viral Marketing Stampede”.

Creating Viral Content with eBooks

When it comes to eBooks, great content is the key to going viral. If what you’re distributing is just the same old rehashed stuff that’s already out there, you’ll still get readers, but your chances of starting a stampede are much better when you’ve added your unique take on the subject, given your readers something new to think about, or presented the information in a new and exciting way.

For example, say you want to put together a dog-training guide. There are hundreds – maybe thousands – of dog-training blogs, videos, eBooks, and other information products out there. Some of them are free, some are paid, but most of them all say the same things.

What makes yours stand out when creating viral content? Do you offer step-by-step photos of complicated training plans? Never-before-seen recipes for irresistible training treats? Your grandfather’s secret for housebreaking a puppy in just 45 minutes?

Just like your business needs a unique selling proposition (USP), so does your eBook, if you want it to go viral. Coming up with your USP can be a challenge, but consider these questions to get you started:

• What benefit will the readers of your eBook see? Remember, a feature is a description of your product, a benefit is the answer to the “so what?” question. If your eBook shows you a new method to get your dog to sit, the benefit (So what?) is having a well-behaved dog that doesn’t jump all over your company.

• What problem are you solving for your target market? For ideas, read forums about your niche and see what questions come up again and again and again. Solve the problem in your eBook, and you’re practically guaranteed a viral explosion of traffic.

• How does your eBook improve on the eBooks already out there? Do you go into greater detail? Offer handy printable checklists to accompany the instructions? Have professional illustrations to enhance the instructions?

Presentation Counts when Creating Viral Content

Even though you’re giving it away for free, you want to present your eBook (and yourself) in the best possible light when creating viral content. After all, the point of a viral marketing campaign is to get your brand and your products in front of as many people as possible.

If you’re putting out substandard stuff, no one will take you seriously, and no one will buy your upsell product because of the shoddy quality of the free stuff.

If you’re not a writer, it’s an easy thing to hire one. Ask for recommendations from other marketers in your niche, be sure to get samples, and start off with a small project rather than a large one, to be sure you’re a good fit with each other.

Also, it’s a good idea to hire a writer who has some knowledge about your topic, as the learning curve will be shorter.

Once your eBook is complete, you’ll want it professionally formatted and to have a nice cover designed for it. You should be able to get a cover done for under $40, and the formatting is easily done with Microsoft Word or Open Office. When you’ve got everything where you want it, just save as a .PDF file, and you’re done!

Distribution Channels for your eBook

Getting your eBook written and wrapped up in a pretty package is only the beginning when creating viral content. Now it’s time to flood the distribution channels with your content so your readers can find you easily.

Of course, you can – and should – host it on your own site, but there are sites where readers will browse for eBooks to download, so you want to make sure your book is easy to find.

Here’s a list to get you started:

www.ebooksdirectory.com
www.wisdomebooks.com
www.free-ebooks.net
http://books.google.com

You can also distribute your eBook via your partners, which we’ll talk about in greater detail later.

It’s Free! Why do I have to Work so Hard?

You’re probably wondering why you need to put so much time and effort (and even money) into something you’re just going to be giving away for free. Getting your name and brand in front of a bigger audience is the primary objective, but there are ways you can monetize your free eBook as well when creating viral content.

Affiliate links lend themselves well to a free eBook. If your eBook is all about fly fishing, you might include a list of places to buy supplies for making your own flies. Or if you wrote a book of recipes designed for a once-a-month cooking plan, you might link to some places to buy storage containers at a good price.

Another option is to offer an upsell product. We’re all familiar with upselling our list, and adding an upsell to a free eBook is no different.

Just like with affiliate links, you can offer a resources page at the end of your eBook that lists other, more in-depth or differently formatted materials your reader might be interested in. Readers of free eBooks might be willing to purchase an audio version of the same content, for example. Or to purchase videos that provide more information on the subject.

One other way to monetize free products when creating viral content is to get the reader to opt-in to your mailing list. We already talked about why you should not use a forced opt-in (get this eBook when you sign up for my list) in a viral campaign, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ask for an opt-in.

A great way to do that is to keep your eBook up-to-date with the latest information about your topic. And of course, in order to get the latest revisions to your readers, they need to sign up to receive updates from you. Simply put a link in the footer of each page with a note that says they can receive all future updates for free just for signing up. Now you’re building a list that already knows and likes your products, and will be more likely to buy from you in the future.

You can see that the time, money, and effort you put into creating a viral eBook is never wasted. You just need to use it wisely, and leave room to leverage it later.

Creating Viral Content with Videos

We’ve already seen how videos can become wildly popular. From funny cats to dancing wedding parties to blended iPhones, the Internet is full of viral videos that get passed from email to Facebook to blog and back again, gaining new followers along the way. You can use video in your viral campaign, too.

Whatever You Do, Don’t Bore Them

Great viral videos start out the same way great viral eBooks start – with good, compelling content. The difference is, instead of instruction or pure information, people want videos to be entertaining.

They want to laugh or cry or be touched in some way. Information is secondary in a viral video, but it can be done.

Look again at the Will it Blend? videos. They’re entertaining first and foremost. Tom Dickson is so silly and sincere, you can’t help but like him. And the blending itself is like watching a suspenseful movie. Will it or won’t it?

But make no mistake, these videos are selling that blender. How? By showcasing the quality construction. They’re not about how the iPhone blends, they’re about the fact that the blender itself survives the blending.

The message is subtle, but it’s there, and when it’s spread over one hundred videos and millions of views, the branding is set. The world knows that BlendTec makes a great blender.

So how can you use viral videos in your business? How-to videos are the obvious choice when creating viral content.

Whether you’re into soap making, dog training, or weight loss, a how-to video can be a great way to introduce yourself to potential customers.

But beyond the how-to, virtually every form of content can be turned into a video. The key is in making your video compelling, entertaining, and the kind of thing your users will want to pass on to their families, friends, and colleagues.

Think about the kind of videos you’ve passed on to your friends. What made you share them? Were they funny? Heartwarming? Shocking? All these are great qualities for a viral video to have. When you’re planning your video, try to incorporate some of the traits you admire in other videos into your own.

Distribution Channels

Just like eBooks, videos can be distributed in a number of ways. YouTube is the most common distribution channel for free videos, but check out some of these other options as well:

http://www.youtube.com – allows for easy embedding of hosted videos on other web pages and social network
http://www.viddler.com – allows direct recording to the site via webcam
http://www.flickr.com – free accounts are limited to two video uploads per month, pro accounts have no limits
http://www.dailymotion.com/us – 2 gigabyte and 20 minute limit

You can, of course, host your video on your own site, but as we said before, you need to use caution. Video files are huge, so you run the risk of exceeding your bandwidth limitations.

Further, you want users to be able to easily share your video with their followers, so be sure to choose a service that allows for that.

What’s in it for Me?

Producing a video isn’t easy, nor is it inexpensive. A professionally edited video can cost you hundreds of dollars for a couple of minutes of finished video. Putting together your own video will involve hours and hours of your time. So why do it at all?

Next to written content, video is the second most popular format online. So popular, in fact, that YouTube is the third largest search engine. Think about that. Your potential customers are going to YouTube right now and searching for your keywords.

Are they finding your videos? Are your happy customers spreading the word about your business by sending their friends and family to watch your latest video? They could be.

Since there’s no place to put an affiliate link or offer an add on product to a video, it’s clear that video is all about branding. But that’s okay.

Building your brand and getting your name in front of potential customers is one of the most important marketing tasks you can undertake, and producing videos that get passed from viewer to viewer is a fantastic way to get your message heard thousands of times over.

Creating Viral Content with Software

Free software lends itself quite naturally to a viral campaign. It fits all the requirements we discussed earlier for successful viral marketing – it’s free; it’s easily transferable; it’s easily scalable; it uses other’s resources; and it’s unique.

Some examples of software that’s gone viral include:

• Article submission programs
• WordPress plugins – and WordPress itself!
• Games
• iPhone apps
• Browser add-ons
• Note-taking and organizing applications like Evernote

But before you decide you want to write a software package, you need to consider the special requirements of software when creating viral content.

First, it has to work across multiple platforms. Unlike video hosted on YouTube or a pdf file, software has the added problem of so many possible configurations of computers to deal with.

Is your end user running Windows XP? Vista? Or even Windows 97? What about the video adapter? You can see that a lot of thought has to go into the development of a large-scale software package, so it’s not something to be taken lightly.

The second obstacle to software creation is ongoing support. You can’t just throw out a piece of code and let it drift off without a support plan – not even a free piece of code. If you don’t have plans to upgrade, fix bugs, and improve your software down the road, you might be better off sticking with eBooks and videos.

What’s in it for Me?

With that said, though, software can quickly go viral and build a fantastic revenue stream for you, even if the software itself is free. Here’s a few ideas you can use to monetize free software:

• Offer a limited functionality free version, with an upsell to the fully functional paid version. Remember though, the free version must be useful as it stands if you hope to get a viral stampede started.
• Sell ad space in the software itself. Evernote does this well, with one small, unobtrusive ad in the corner.
• Use a link-back strategy to build brand awareness. This is perfect for WordPress plugins.

Distribution Channels

Distributing free software isn’t much different than distributing other forms of content. You can host the files on your own server (remember to use caution here if you plan on going viral!), host them on free file sharing sites, upload them to CNET or ZDNET or SourceForge servers, or – in the case of WordPress plugins – distribute them through the WordPress Codex.