With massive viral marketing successes like BlendTec's Will It Blend, the Old Spice Guy and Tourism Queenland's The Best Job In The World capturing people's attention, everyone can appreciate the power of viral video. What's interesting about these campaigns is they didn't go viral by accident, there was a well-developed strategy behind each video to maximize its chances for viral success.

In the case of the Old Spice Guy, it was launched in conjunction with SuperBowl ads, social media outreach and a large online advertising campaign. For most businesses, ad spending of this magnitude is probably out of reach, but with social video marketing you can take advantage of the power of viral to dramatically increase your audience. You may not get 32 million views like the original Old Spice Guy video, but you can surely get an impressive amount of targeted views if you understand the strategy and tactics of social video marketing.

The magic of online video is how inexpensive it is to reach and engage an audience. For a fraction of the cost of a television ad, you can get just as much reach and engagement using social video marketing. And most importantly, you can measure your results and your campaign can be managed and optimized in real-time to maximize its effectiveness.

Social Video Marketing and the Power of Word of Mouth

Every marketing professional and business owner understands the importance of word of mouth for building a successful business. With the emergence of influential social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Youtube in the last few years, businesses are realizing that social media is a powerful way to facilitate these word of mouth recommendations and increase social sharing.

In the online world, social engagement is essential for businesses to succeed. Traditional methods of advertising are not nearly as effective on the mobile devices and social networks where people are now spending so much of their time. Instead of ads, what works better is providing interesting content and information that engages and moves people enough emotionally to share it with their friends and colleagues.

It is far too easy to ignore or block ads in a web browser. But more importantly,  the interactivity of digital mediums provide much better opportunities for savvy marketers to capture their customer's attention. And the best way to do this is with video, the most powerful digital medium to communicate a message, tell a story and influence people emotionally.

To learn more about what Social Video Marketing can do for your business, download my new white paper on The Strategy and Tactics of Social Video Marketing.