No, viral marketing isn’t like a computer virus, but it is a marketing tactic that spreads like a virus from person to person. Catch the drift? This is powerful marketing at its best, and Web 2.0 is the hot breeding ground.

It is otherwise known as “buzz marketing,” but viral marketing just refers to any trick or strategy to establish buzz, while getting other individuals to market you product or service for you. This is all done with no extra effort on your behalf. This can be extremely effective for real estate professionals like investors, realtors, agents, brokers and it’s very lucrative.

Take a look at this example: Imagine that you send an informational email to 100 people, and 15 people pass it on to another 100 and 15 of those do the same. What do you have pretty quickly? You’ve got hundreds of thousands of people who have received your precious information.

This is the very genius behind viral marketing. It’s about getting your message out to exponentially more people than you ever could have by conventional means. It seems sneaky, but you can basically target prospects that will then be converted to your message and begin to promote it.

The key way of doing this is by tapping into the massive popularity of online games, videos, graphics, and the like on social media powerhouse sites like MySpace to create a huge base of online friends and members.

I see it all the time, huge mistakes that inexperienced real estate MySpace marketers make. They try and utilize similar strategies you incorporate on a sales page on their profile. I highly advise against a profile full of product promotions.

In actuality, I caution you against marketing directly on any of your profiles, as it can come across as “spammy” and will quickly turn your potential real estate prospects off. Additionally, MySpace will also delete your account, flag your email and take your IP address so you cannot participate on the network again.

On the reverse, it’s good to have a profile that will draw a massive friends list, and accomplish this in minimal time. From there, you can then market softly to the friends you’ve acquired.