Social networks not only allow people to connect on a social level but they also provide marketers with a fertile ground to promote their respective brands, and this can be done through self replicating processes. And such campaigns can take many forms such as ebooks, word of mouth, text messages, interactive Flash games and brandable images. The notion behind the use of the term viral marketing is that when a target ad reaches a receptive user the individual is thereby infected (influenced) and as a result will communicate the message with others, thus infecting them and the cycle revolves (in an epidemic sense). The result achieves a brand awareness effect which in turn could assist in driving sales, experts in these areas have gone further to indicate that it is possible to identify and target ‘the hubs’ or focal point members who can be used to drive a successful viral campaign, also known as alpha users.

Other forms of viral marketing are multi-level marketing which involve the marketing of products by participants targeting those around them, and also offering them a chance to join in and market the same products so as to grow the circle of distribution – in the end bringing hefty benefits to those in the top hierarchy. The World Wrestling Entertainment in 2007 promoted the return of Chris Jericho using binary code videos containing encrypted messages, the campaigns spread their viral tentacles to the internet through many (now defunct) websites. Another strong example was the BMN films campaign aimed at propping the career of Clive Owen, it managed to attract up to 55 million capture viewers, while YouTube and Facebook platforms were employed successfully to promote Cadbury’s Dairy Milk through the Gorilla advertising campaign.

Sporting Portugal Football Club in 2007 put together an impressively innovative campaign designed to convince fans to book season tickets, a video beamed on their website required visitors to input name and phone number prior to playback, it then showed the team’s coach Paulo Bento, with the players in the locker rooms while he makes a phone call to the site visitor asking them to buy season tickets to enable the start of the season. Seamless synchronization of the video and the phone call, captured the imagination of multitudes of people resulting in staggering page views and calls (200,000) in a 24 hour period. The viral marketing expansion loop cannot be sustained indefinitely but good campaigns can guarantee expansive action and the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Paypal etc, enjoy strong loops.