Word-of-mouth marketing or advertising has always been considered “king of all marketing” concepts, it could be used in a good way to boost your business or in a bad way to destroy your business reputation within your industry.

The creator of the word-of-mouth advertising dates back to the 1970′s by George Silverman, a psychologist, who created teleconferenced peer influential groups in order to engage physicians in dialogue about new pharmaceutical products in the industry.

Today in 2013, word-of-mouth marketing has taken on a new role, as information travels faster with the world wide web with online marketing portals such as email newsletter, Facebook interactions, YouTube online marketing, blogging, as millions of users create eye balls, that spreads a massive amounts of information in such a short-term timeframe from in-between personal connections.

So what are some types of word-of-mouth marketing strategies that are in place, and how to they begin, engage the user, and then spread the process to the next user?

Here we go!

Viral Marketing is what I call the “fly by night” marketing mixed with mostly luck. Most internet content that goes viral through the internet, is usually shocking content (mostly humorist, very sexual or extremely negative).

Charles Ramsey is considered an example of humorist viral content, as Ramsey was notoriously funny with his remarks relating to the Cleveland Kidnapping, and this spread across the internet as him being a hero and funny at the same time. This sparked him getting free hamburgers for life a McDonald’s. Now the question is what Ramsey does with his viral marketing attention that he is receiving to benefit his business endeavors.

Google Breakup (picture shown) is considered another example of humorist viral content, as lpmark04 posted this picture on his Reddit account with the caption, “Google Streetview captures the glorious moment when my buddy kicks his now ex-gf out of his house.” The supposed image of a girl after a break up with her boyfriend, and she has to put her stuff in the car. Now users have stated that this image was probably a fake, as the floor mats of the car are on the ground as well, and it could be contested that she was just cleaning out her car. Unfortunately, lpmark04 did not list any other URLs to expand his marketing trend, and its considered a one hit wonder viral content marketing.

Nina Agdal is considered an example of sexuality viral content, as Agdal was featured on Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition, and since then has been getting more appearances in magazines and event shows. Recently, Agdal has taken a high school senior to a prom as Kate Upton backed out last minute, and she has been in the news for dating Adam Levine, which created even more mainstream exposure. The main reason we think Agdal became mainstream media now versus 2012, is more exposure in 2013.

Windows 8 is considered an example of negative viral content, as Microsoft came out with the operating system, Windows 8, it was great for tablets, but was considered a failure for the desktop operating systems. The new user interface of the desktop operating system has been widely criticized for being confusing and difficult to learn for the user (especially when used with a keyboard and mouse instead of a touchscreen). Since then, Microsoft, has been trying to quickly make this change for Windows 8.1 release in the end of 2013.

So how do you create something that users can connect to or related to on a personal level, and then share it with their friends or business colleagues, create content through social media or video production conception on a YouTube Channel using the humorist or sexuality viral content, but it has to have that WOW factor.