Viral Hall of Fame 2006

Marketing Sherpa just released its Viral Hall of Fame for 2006. I love the ones they've selected. They stretched across a number of industries and a number of techniques. The article points out four key trends this year,two of which struck me as very important in our world:

1. Track your results by *goal* not merely traffic - Too many people only worry about the number of unique impressions or page hits. Like every campaign, establish the objective and then figure out a way to measure it.
2. Blogs are now the seed campaign of choice - Seeding blogs that cover or are interested in your topic is a great way to get the message out. Of course I'm defining as talking to bloggers who cover your area in an open and honest fashion, not randomly placing unrelated comments like "that's a good idea, check out my link".

Here are my favorite campaigns from their winners:

Wadsworth Atheneum - Surrealist Exhibit
I like that you can create your own artwork.
Overview                                
Campaign

The Quantum IT Challenge
Nice use of a game to reach a high level IT
audience.
Overview                                
Campaign (use code 66ZBX0DML192)

Monk-e-Mail
Add your own voice, add music, nice integration with offline campaign
Overview
Campaign

Have some that you like? Leave a comment and share the info. - Paul Herring