Today I will take a look at some of the most amazing and successful viral marketing campaigns ever executed.

1. Burger King: Subservient Chicken
   This chicken was exactly that: subservient. The interactive website allows you to tell the guy in the chicken suit what to do and he would act it out, on command. The site was so catchy to visitors, that it has earned a spot as one of the most successful viral campaigns ever as it was shared millions of times.
   
    
2. Nike: A Touch of Gold
   A Nike rep was dispatched to give Ronaldinho his new Nike soccer cleats, with a camera man covering the whole thing. Ronaldinho proceeds to put the cleats on, and perform some amazing tricks with the soccer ball and his new Nikes. Ronaldinho’s performance is the touch of gold, and the people who were smart enough to decide to use this as a campaign made a really smart move. This has become one of the most viewed sports related viral videos online.

    

3. Gmail: Invite only pre-launch
   One of the best viral campaigns was Hotmail’s in 1996, but that was in a time with much less competition. When Google’s Gmail was first announced, people could only sign-up for the service if they were invited by an existing user. The fact that people felt like they were hooking their friends up with a “coveted” Gmail invite really helped to create cheerleaders for the new email service. That and the fact that it is an excellent email service made this a huge success for Google.
   
    
4. Transport for London Agency: DoTheTest.co.uk Awareness Test Video
   This video presented you with an awareness test where you have to closely watch the white team to see how many times they pass the ball. They then show you how easy it is to be unaware of something if you are focused on something else. Watch the video and see this amazing viral “awareness test” for yourself.

    

5. BlairWitch.com: “Real Events” Leading up to the “Documentary”
   The website portrayed what clearly appeared to be real events that occurred. Their were even reports of missing people, and some really convincing videos to back it up. They used all of this to make it appear like it was  a real documentary. Well as we all later found out it was all acting, but it was also pure genius. The Blair Witch Project grossed over $240 million dollars, with a budget of less than $25 million.
   
    
6. Quicksilver: Dyanamite Surfing
   The video has a very amateur, and thus very realistic feel to it. It shows some kids who take their surfboards to a calm body of water and throw dynamite in the way to cause waves so they can surf. A lot of effort was put into making the video look like it was real, including a real explosion rather than the use of CGI. The Quicksilver video got millions of hits in the first few weeks of its release.

    

7. Threshers: “Leaked” 40% off coupon
   There appeared to be a frenzy over this “leaked”  coupon that was supposedly intended to be for special buyers only. The fact that the coupon was  accidentally leaked had people in a frenzy, trying to take advantage of the coupon and also passing it on to their friends. In reality, the coupon was intentionally “leaked” and it generated a large amount of business for Threshers. A very clever campaign indeed.
   
    
8. Blendtec: Will it blend?
   This series of online videos were made to demonstrate how powerful these Blendtec blenders really are. They would take common objects we can all relate to, such as an iPhone, and throw them in the blender to show you how powerful they are. Many of their videos have gotten millions of views, taking them from a brand most people didn’t know about to an established leader in their industry.

    

9. Million Dollar Homepage: Pixels for sale on an “online billboard.”
   This campaign offered advertisers the chance to buy a spot on the MillionDollarHomepage at $1 per pixel. You could buy as many pixels as you want, and once all 1,000,000 pixels were sold the site would stay like that forever. Well this 21 year old college student quickly sold every pixel, earning a million dollars to comfortably live life as a student.
   
    
10. GuitarMasterPro.net: A teen with amazing guitar skills, who learned to play on a website
    This video shows what appears to be teenager, doing an amazing performance of a track on his guitar. By the end of the video we are informed that the kid learned to play on a website, GuitarMasterPro.net, which is quite shocking considering his skill level.

If you want to share some other viral marketing campaigns, simply post them in the comments below. You can get more articles like these, along with really useful and interesting tweets by following me on Twitter.

Remember to please retweet this and share it with your followers.

After constantly reading tweets from the movers and shakers in social media, I have built up a list of Twitterers that every marketer should follow if you are in anyway involved in the world of social media. The amount of useful information provided by these people will amaze you.

1. Pete Cashmore
   Pete’s bio “Follow Mashable for the latest news on Twitter, social networking and social media.”
   Followers: 64,419
2. Robert Scoble
   Robert calls himself a “Tech geek blogger who writes about and videos innovators in tech industry.”
   Followers: 57,473
3. Chris Brogan
   Chris’ bio: “President, New Marketing Labs, a social media agency and education company. ”
   Followers: 41,140
   
4. Darren Rowse
   Darren’s bio: “Blogger, Author, Social Media Participant. Get a peek behind the scenes with my Tweets. Check out TwiTip.com for Twitter Tips.”
   Followers: 35,595
   
5. Jeremiah Owyang
   Jeremiah’s bio: “Currently employed as Senior Analyst, Social Computing, Forrester Research | How I use Twitter http://tinyurl.com/24lv65”
   Followers: 28,086
   
6. Steve Rubel
   From Steve’s blog: “Steve Rubel explores how emerging technologies are revolutionizing marketing communications”
   Followers: 17,294
   
7. Wayne Sutton
   His bio: “New/Social Media Technology Evangelist, IT & Mobile Consultant, tech company, Marketing, News, blogs, video, podcast, vlog, blogging”
   Followers: 16,455
   
8. Brian Solis
   From Wikipedia: “Solis is a co-founder of the Social Media Club, a national organization which convenes events for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing standards and promoting social media literacy. He is an original member of the Media 2.0 Workgroup, and also contributes to the Social Media Collective.”
   Followers: 15,192
   
9. Brian Clark
   Brian’s bio: “Copyblogger, Teaching Sells, DIY Themes, Lateral Action and sub-radar sites.”
   Followers: 14,622
   
10. Maki
    Maki’s bio: “Philosophy student. Anime Otaku. Concerned citizen of the world.”
    Followers: 11,107
    
11. Scott Monty
    Scott’s bio: “Head of social media at Ford, husband, dad, host of http://ihearofsherlock.com, and a generally nice guy. Formerly from Boston.”
    Followers: 10,992
    
12. David Armano
    David’s bio: “The perfect balance of left/right brain thinking from a highly imperfect man. http://darmano.typepad.com”
    Followers: 10,819
    
13. Jeff Jarvis
    From his blog: “JEFF JARVIS blogs about media and news at Buzzmachine.com. He is associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York.”
    Followers: 8,485
    
14. John Jantsch
    John’s bio: “Small business marketing and digital technology coach and author of Duct Tape Marketing”
    Followers: 7,777
    
15. Todd Defren
    From Todd’s blog: “Hi, I’m Todd Defren. In my primary role, I am a principal at SHIFT Communications.”
    Followers: 7,738
    
16. Lee Odden
    Lee’s bio: “The GENUINE Twitter account of Chief Digital PR, SEO & Social Media Enthusiast for TopRankMarketing.com”
    Followers: 7,500
    
17. Andy Beal
    Andy’s bio: “Founder of Trackur and internet marketing consultant, always trying new stuff.”
    Followers: 6,898
    
18. Tamar Weinberg
    Her bio: “social media consultant and blogger among other things.”
    Followers: 6,668
    
19. Mitch Joel
    Mitch’s bio: “President of Twist Image. Blogger and Podcaster of Six Pixels of Separation. Speaker, Author, Journalist.”
    Followers: 6,324
    
20. Peter Kim
    His bio: “Working on changing the world of work.”
    Followers: 5,637
    
21. Neil Patel
    Neil is “Kinda A Big Deal”
    Followers: 5,496
    
22. Shama
    Her bio: “Online Marketing Expert, Speaker, Blogger, Texas Gal“
    Followers: 5,951
    
23. JD Lasica
    JD’s bio: “Blogger since 2001. Socialmedia.biz was named the #1 site covering the social Web. Strategist, author, journalist, entrepreneur, travel addict.”
    Followers: 5,358
    
24. Muhammad Saleem
    From his blog “i started my writing career with the mu life, covering social media, however, after joining pronet advertising i stopped maintaining the former site and moved that content to this site.”
    Followers: 4,078
25. Jennifer Laycock
    Her bio: “Kid Wrangler, Online Marketer, Professional Blogger, Buffy Addict, Bento Maker. Chair of http://www.unleashedconference.com”
    Followers: 2,919

I know that there are more than just 25 people who are making useful contributions to those of you looking to keep up to date and learn more about social media marketing, so if you remember someone you think should be on this list feel free to let me know in the comments below.

My name is Mustafa, and you can add me on Twitter too.

Note: The follower count is as of February 10th 2009.

Here is a list of the different chapters

1. Twitter for Newbies
2. How to Use Twitter Effectively
3. How to Increase Your Twitter Followers
4. Why Twitter Helps Bloggers (and How they Can Use It)
5. The Ultimate Guide to Twitter for Business
6. Here are the Best Twitter Marketing Resources… Period
7. Does Twitter Provide Any SEO Benefits?
8. Where Else Does Twitter Apply?
9. Twitter Case Studies: What are People and Companies Doing?
10. (Bonus Chapter) More Twitter Tips

You can see the full twitter resource book here.

He noted that “historically, the specialists stick around.”

• 1996: “Once advertising agencies figure out HTML, they’ll do all the web development. These interactive agencies will be absorbed.” Should’ve been true. Wasn’t.
• 2000: “Once the interactive agencies figure out the tricks of SEO, specialists in search engine optimization will go away.” Again, didn’t happen.
• Today: “Once the PR people, or the ad people, or the digital people, or maybe the SEO people, figure out this social stuff…”  Not going to happen.

So basically he is saying that bigger, broader, traditional advertising agencies simply cannot take all the work away from social media marketing specialists. Naturally the firms with the smartest HR people realize that recruiting these specialists is their best bet.

Read more on why the social media genie is staying out of the bottle.

You can find out more here, and see how this marketer actually contacted Chris to remedy the problem.