What is Viral Marketing & How It Works in 2025

The digital experience has completely changed our lives, but you already know that. And you also know that captivating the attention of digital customers everywhere is essential. What you might not know, though, is where to start. There are endless digital campaigns, pushes, and efforts that you can make to capture an audience, but deciding which route to take might not be so simple. Becoming a “trending topic” isn’t easy, but with these five viral marketing techniques, you can start expanding your online presence in record time.

While viral marketing tactics have roots in word-of-mouth marketing, they amplify the power of peer recommendations by using social networks and other online channels. Consider these viral content examples, which you’ve likely heard of and may have even shared or discussed:

The Old Spice “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign: This marketing effort centered around one witty commercial launched during the Super Bowl in 2010. Once uploaded to YouTube, the video gained over 220,000 views in just a few hours.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge: What started as one viral video led to over $115 million in donations for the ALS Association in the course of eight weeks. Widespread awareness of Lou Gehrig’s disease was also achieved.

The 2019 Spotify Wrapped campaign: Brought users a decade’s worth of data about their streaming. Soon after its launch, it was shared by users—including major influencers—across multiple social media channels.

 Viral marketing: What Exactly Is It?

Viral marketing encourages your customers to share your messages, products, or services with their social network (either through word of mouth or on their social media channels), which results in faster message spread. Think of it in the sense of how a bacterial virus replicates: you create content that is so engaging or valuable to customers or that is so entertaining that people share it quickly. Viral marketing ultimately creates exponential growth in reach and visibility—while avoiding higher market costs.

Some of the characteristics of viral marketing include:

• Compelling content marketing that’s incredibly shareable
• Easy-to-share messages via social media, word of mouth, messaging apps, or email.
• Using an individual person’s network to share viral content ads on their community channels
• Content designed for organic growth (e.g, content that grows without heavy paid promotion)
• Content that leaves a long-lasting impression with viewers

5 Viral Marketing Techniques

While there’s never any guarantee that your marketing campaign will go viral, there are a few proven viral marketing strategies you can use to increase its chances of taking off. After all, viral content usually doesn’t happen randomly and is more often the result of careful attention to consumer behavior.

In this section, we’ll describe the techniques you can use to make your marketing efforts as share-worthy as possible.

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1. Understand Your Audience Deeply

Consumers are surrounded by loads of content every second they spend on the web, whether they’re on a computer or mobile device. To get them to pay attention instead of scrolling past your campaign, you must have an immediate attention-grabber that stops them in their tracks.

Having a visual element in your digital marketing content (and as part of your viral marketing strategy) can help. Beyond that, you need to pull your target audience in with a message that instantly translates as bold, funny, wild, awe-inspiring, or something in between.

As an example, the 2019 campaign to make an egg the most popular picture on Instagram was insanely successful because of how weird and hilarious it was. There was no rhyme or reason to it, and that was exactly what drew people in to “like” the photo.

2. Utilize Impactful Visuals To Communicate

A piece of content will rarely go viral if it doesn’t encourage its audience to engage. Viral marketing works best when it’s designed for the audience to interact and easily share.

At the very least, your content needs to include some sort of call to action (CTA), telling users what action they should take after hearing your message. Some of the most successful viral social media campaigns also include opportunities for the audience to comment, create their own content, or otherwise play along.

Your goal is to ensure your viewers don’t take their eyes off the screen until they’ve shared your content with their own networks. If your campaign can engage media outlets as well, that’s all the better to help you gain publicity.

3. Prioritize Creativity in Your Approach

Consumers are heavily driven by how they feel. When you create viral marketing content that leads to a strong emotional response, your viewers are more likely to engage.

Think about some pieces of viral content that you remember. They may have made you laugh or cry. Perhaps they’re particularly heartwarming or appeal to your sense of nostalgia. In some cases, the content may have been shared by a celebrity you already follow or admire. Whatever marketing campaigns come to mind, it’s likely because they impacted you in some way.

Bland informational ads don’t do well when you’re aiming for virality, so make sure you’re helping your audience feel something that spurs them to action. Take a look at P&G’s successful “Thank You, Mom” campaign as an example of how you can inspire your audience.

4. Foster Emotional Engagement

All viral content marketing campaigns have one thing in common: their messages can be summed up in just a short phrase or sentence. Having more than one CTA or overarching message can confuse or distract your audience, reducing the overall effectiveness of your campaign. Limiting your viral message to one simple takeaway makes it memorable and approachable.

The whole of your content should be fairly simple, too. When sharing on social media, don’t overload your text with hashtags, which can create a cluttered look and distract from your main message. Ideally, keep videos to no more than 30 seconds long—just enough to get your message across without any fluff.

Keep in mind that simplicity shouldn’t limit creativity in viral ad campaigns. When brainstorming for your viral marketing plan, think outside the box to express your message. This viral marketing video from Dove’s “Evolution” campaign, which helped the brand become well-known for its commitment to real beauty, is a great example of how you can send a big message without saying much at all.

5. Clarify Your Campaign Goals

During viral marketing campaigns, ensure your team is working behind the scenes to enhance your targeting, re-engage audience members, and keep the world focused on your brand. To do so successfully, you must have marketing objectives guiding you to improve your strategy in real time.

A marketing objective should be a specific, measurable goal. This way, your data can tell you whether you’re on the right track or if you need adjustments. Think about how many people you want to reach in the first hour, and how many shares you want by the end of three weeks. How should the campaign impact your company financially, and how your can organization track the results?

Doing some market research about any of your competitors’ past campaigns can further help you define a realistic goal without selling yourself short.

The Top 5 Benefits of Using Viral Marketing

When viral advertising is done right, it’s able to take your business to new heights. And that’s just the start of what viral marketing can do for your business. Some additional benefits of going viral include:

• More exposure: Viral marketing puts your brand in front of audiences far beyond your initial scope. This allows your content to organically spread as customers share it with their networks.

• Better lead generation: As your content starts to go viral, people who previously didn’t know your brand existed are suddenly visiting your website, filling out contact forms, engaging with you on social media, or signing up for your company newsletters.

• Higher sales: More exposure naturally leads to higher sales. Once a campaign goes viral, it builds a lot of excitement around your product or service, which turns into curiosity and conversions—and potentially more sales.

• Enhanced company credibility: Today’s consumers trust content that comes from their friends and family more than traditional advertising. When your content is shared in a viral campaign, it increases your brand’s reputation and credibility, ultimately positioning you as a trusted name within the industry.

• More customer engagement and interaction: Viral digital marketing campaigns aren’t passive. Individuals actively liking, commenting, sharing, and engaging directly with your brand in real-time all improve customer engagement and investment in your brand.

Master Viral Marketing With Podium

The internet—especially since the rise of social networks—presents an enormous opportunity for businesses like yours to reach thousands, even millions of people in a day. When your brand creates compelling, shareable content, you can spread your message further using the power of online connections, rather than just using the power of your budget. The marketing viral techniques in this guide can help you increase the likelihood of your next campaign taking off.

Of course, not every marketing campaign needs to go viral to be successful. See three of our digital marketing strategy examples to learn other ways you can get the results you want on the web.

Want to see Podium in action? Watch a demo today.