There’s no scientific formula for predicting whether or not something will go viral on the Internet.

But a monolithic social network like Twitter certainly has the massive data pool from which to at least glean insights into the path to virality.

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Viral YouTube videos are no longer one-time flukes.

Now an entire industry surrounds YouTube stars – JennaMarbles, the third most popular channel on YouTube, earned almost $350,000 in one year from ad revenue – and Twitter plays a critical role in that by facilitating the spread of viral content.

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Getting a message to go viral on Twitter is the holy grail of social media marketing. If you can get one person to share your content with three people, who share it with twenty people, who share it with one hundred people… there’s really no end to how far your message can go.

The #CancersNoJoke campaign from @AbolishCancer is a perfect example how a little elbow grease, smart marketing and some celebrity endorsements can make for a massively successful viral campaign – and all for a good cause, too.
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We’ve all seen our share of viral videos. And by now I bet you can identify a few features that – if not guarantee – at least help a video go viral. Does it have a cute kitten or a baby? Check. How about a college prank gone wrong? Check. Or maybe it is ultra-mysterious and intriguing and doesn’t give any information whatsoever about what it’s about. Makes me want to share it!

There are certainly some guidelines that video bloggers and makers can follow to create a viral video, but what about Twitter? Is there such a thing as a “viral tweet”? And if so, how do you write one?
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Jeff Jarvis was mad this weekend. Really mad. And like a lot of angry people, he took to Twitter to vent his frustration.

But unlike a lot of angry people, Jeff Jarvis’s frustration struck a chord with Twitter, and his expletive-ridden catchphrase took off like wildfire to quickly become a viral Twitter phenomenon.
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You know those often-frivolous hashtags you see trending on Twitter at almost any given time of day? The ones like “#Idontunderstandwhy” and “#questionsidontlike”? Well, it turns out there is a scientific explanation as to why some of them rocket up to a trending topic and others fall dead in the water.

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