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Usually the best viral marketing ideas are also the simplest.

Hotmail got where it got to today by offering a free email account and including a brief message at the end of each email that got sent saying "Get your free email account here". Very simple viral marketing. Very effective as well.

Anything that people actually want to give away works well for viral marketing. Of course, it has to offer value to the person who gets the free item. Generally speaking, nNo-one wants to pass on something that shouts out "I'm an advert".

Of course, there are exceptions even to this rule. They're usually exploited by large companies with impressive budgets - Burger King's subservient chicken advert springs to mind here.

So how do you, the little guy, come up with a great viral marketing idea?

If you're a video wiz then you could submit a video to YouTube. At least one guy has managed to get his record released this way. Plenty of people have used viral video marketing to promote their sites. Ideally, you need something memorable or funny.

If you're not up to creating a video, don't despair. That's not the only great viral marketing idea you can use.

Audio tracks can also go viral. One site I know of created a set of 6 hypnosis CDs. These were sold with master resell rights. The start and end of their CD mentions their website. You can trip over these CDs all the time on eBay and other sites. Which is very nice viral work on their part - getting other people to distribute their name and website.

Articles like this one can go viral. If you produce a top quality article, other sites will use it and the links at the end of your article will point to your site or product.

Ebooks and reports are also a great way to use viral marketing. They fall into the "added value" area and are quick and easy to produce.