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In a time when the typical person is exposed to 5,000 advertisements per day, it’s hard to sort out which ones are relevant. Search engines remember your browsing history to try to give you results that are relevant to you and entire industries have been built on targeting users based on their purchase history. But let’s face it, ads are ads. What you really want is for someone you know and trust to recommend something to you; people that know you, have had real conversations with you, and have even met you for that matter! Word of mouth is by far the most powerful form of marketing. This is the reason that Bing is showing which of your Facebook friends ‘like’ links in their search results and the reason Google has invented the +1 button. But, we’re not all Bing or Google, are we?

Viral marketing refers to marketing that encourages word of mouth spreading of marketing messages. If you can get your audience excited about your message or properly incentivize them to share your message, the message “goes viral”. Viral marketing to students and youth can be extremely effective. They have a ton of friends and love sharing.

It’s all about the sweepstakes

Wait, so you want your users to do your job for you, effectively, and you want to give them what for it?! Offering students and youth a compelling reward for sharing your message is key. The good news is you don’t need to give something to everyone. You just need to give them a chance to win something awesome. That’s what sweepstakes are all about – entering to win a prize. Here’s the kicker though: you need to give them some control over their chances of winning that prize to motivate them to work for it. In fact, if a user has a chance of winning a prize, why would they want their friends entering to win it as well? That would only decrease their chances of winning, wouldn’t it?

Full disclosure: This is where we plug our services, but we think you’ll like them.

StudentUniverse has developed viral marketing software that rewards students and youth for sharing a sweepstakes with their friends by giving them additional entries into the sweepstakes. When sharing a sweepstakes can actually increase your chances of winning it, students and youth are incentivized to spread the word, and the sweepstakes goes viral.

Your marketing message spreads rapidly through the social graph. Relevant consumers learn about your brand from people they know and trust. Students and youth get excited about your brand and build an affinity towards it. And all the while, you’re gaining new leads.

Contact us today to get viral with your marketing!