Viral Marketing is a subject that has been cropping up on marketing and sales training courses these days. It’s a strategy that capitalises on the popularity of social network and media sites on the internet such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and others.

With the ability for any individual to build and publish a personality, profile or message in minutes on the web, these sites have boomed in popularity. The beauty of them for the marketer is that because the whole point of these sites is to network, they are an ideal platform to spread a product or service message throughout that network. In effect, it spreads like a disease, hence the term Viral Marketing.

Small businesses are now able to use technology and the passion of the social networker, whereas in the past they may have had to employ an expensive marketing company. There are quite a few ways in which tools can be used for viral marketing, including Video Podcasts, Audio Podcasts, Blogs, RSS Readers and sites that let users create and edit content on a variety of topics (such as squidoo or Wikipedia).

If you can come up with an innovative way of promoting your product or service (such as a crazy video on YouTube), people watch it, enjoy it, and pass it on to others to view. Its popularity could explode, and the content could spread like wild fire in a dry forest. There’s even the chance than it could be picked up by more conventional and national media publications.