Ebooks and Viral Marketing

When can you say that an ebook is viral, or that it shows aspects of viral marketing?

When you say "viral marketing", you are referring to a message that you deliver to someone, who then goes on and delivers that to someone else. In other words, even if you are able to directly reach 10 people, your message may eventually get sent to 100 people if each of those original 10 you spoke with goes out and tells 10 of their own friends.

When Harvey Segal comes out with an ebook that has people like Lynn Terry calling it the "greatest viral marketing idea of all time", you might be wondering what that truly means.

It means that Harvey reached out to certain people, who then told others about Harvey's ebook.

In other words, if you want to directly benefit from ebook viral marketing, you will need to publish your own ebook and insert in it viral marketing elements found in Harvey's ebook:

1. Your content should be useful or entertaining.
2. Your readers should have a compelling reason to tell others about your ebook.

In this case, the largest viral effects are felt mainly by the ebook author, and not by the people who pass the message along. So, if you are interested in ebook viral marketing, become an ebook author. And if you do not wish to become an author, then enjoy your affiliate commissions and the new friends you meet. :-)

[ First posted on 11/28/2008 by Manuel Viloria ]