What is viral, or exponential, marketing? Do you remember the old Breck shampoo commercials? (I know, I am dating myself here!) A beautiful blonde model stating she loved the shampoo so much, “I told two friends. And they told two friends. And so on. And so on. And so on.” As the screen kept adding in split screen images showing how many women now loved Breck shampoo. The same thing is happening to sweepstakes. Viral marketing is mainly occurring on blog-based sweepstakes.

Blogs usually run a sweepstakes to increase their readership, so the more people that know about the sweepstakes the better. The standard format for the sweepstakes usually goes like this:

1. the blogger will ask you to post a comment on the sweepstakes page.

You can garner extra entries by doing some or all of the following:

2. sign-up for their RSS feed.
3. follow them on Twitter.
4. tweet the sweepstakes.
5. be friends with them on Facebook or a fan of their group/page.
6. tell your Facebook friends about the sweepstakes.
7. blog about them on your blog.
8. add the bloggers blog widget on your blog or website.
9. viral the sweepstakes in various other ways such as posting to Digg, StumbleUpon, etc…

You usually get those extra entries by going back to the original sweepstakes page and adding another comment for each extra action you took.

Here are some viral marketing blog-based sweepstakes you can enter today:

Metropolitan Mama Mother’s Day Giveaway Extravaganza You can win a laptop.

Look What Mom Found Kolobags Laptop Bag Giveaway.

Look What Mom Found New Balance Giveaway You can win running shoes.

Natural Mommie G Kissr You can win natural lipbalms.

Canadian Contests & Giveaways Our 2^nd Giveaway You can win a Webkinz.

Any Lucky Day has a new contest everyday! Today’s Contest

Most prizes given away on blogs, Twitter, and Facebook tend to be smaller prizes as the marketing budgets for individuals and small companies do not compare to Fortune 500 firms.  However, the odds of winning are far greater as fewer people are entering these types of sweepstakes.

ENJOY, GOOD LUCK & HAVE FUN!