The viral marketing session at Boston BarCamp was led by Matt Peters of Pandemic Labs.

His basic premise was that the field is too new, meaning there are no real “experts” yet. I wholeheartedly agree, but I believe that this sentiment isn’t limited to viral marketing. In fact, it seems to extends to most new and emerging forms of digital marketing. Which basically includes everything except straight-up online media buys for banner-ads, homepage take-overs, and the like.

Most people misunderstand what viral marketing actually “is.” They definitely know it when they see it. They recognize the OKGO video, the End of the World video, or the “Charlie bit me” video. But being able to identify the great successes doesn’t necessarily translate into being able to facilitate their own success.

In addition, much like SEO, viral marketing is primarily based on theory. You work to learn, understand, and use the principles, but no matter how hard you might try, there remains a certain element of luck and timing involved with any success in viral marketing.

Viral marketing refers to the method of dissemination, not the results. People don’t understand that you can’t simply “pay” for a video to turn into a wild success and garner 27 million views practically overnight.

Why? Because viral marketing is basically a new version of the oldest form of marketing: Word-of-mouth. Or, as Matt put it, “word-on mouth on crack.”

Matt keenly explained that viral marketing can be simply defined as getting in front of a massive amount of eyeballs without actually paying for the eyeballs. And since you can’t pay to get in front of the eyeballs, the objects used in viral marketing must have intrinsic value, which could be entertainment, informational, or otherwise.

Moral of the story? Instead of spending tons of money trying to game the system, invest your money in creating content.

Engaging, valuable content is absolutely the most vital element of viral marketing. There it is. The secret to viral marketing is out.

However, it goes deeper than that. You still cannot simply “buy” your way into having great content. Sure, you could pay somebody a lot of money to do it for you, but it will feel empty and contrived. Viral success can’t be had with just smoke and mirrors and really cool special effects. Sure, all of that might get a decent amount of views, but it has to amount to more.

This is because authenticity is paramount. Internet users, particularly savvy ones, have a highly tuned, sensitive meter for bullshit. Trust me on this one, you cannot easily fool them. So stop trying. Quit wasting your money, and put some brain and heart into your efforts instead.

And if truth is important, then truth of origin is imperative. You might be doing an unbranded viral marketing effort, but once people start figuring it out, own up. Claim it. Whatever you do, don’t deny it. News travels far too fast on the internet. Worst of all, alienated evangelists turn into enemies. And evangelistic enemies are basically your worst marketing nightmare.

Furthermore, with viral marketing, there is no end-all-be-all, one-size-fits-all solution. So instead seeing it as a means to an end, view it as an multi-level, multi-stage experiment instead. The bottom-line is that viral is cheap. Try multiple approaches instead of binding yourself to one. You can afford it.

On a related note, Matt upheld that viral marketing is not the right fundamental approach for everybody. A company needs to carefully evaluate if it’s the right approach for them. To make this assessment, you must examine the value being created for your potential users/customers/clients. Matt gave a good example: With respects to database management systems, there are probably better ways to get the brand or product out there.

I agree with to a certain extent, but then again, who knows? Maybe there is a way to make viral marketing work unexpectedly well in seemingly strange applications. Maybe viral marketing for database management systems will work simply because it is so completely out there. If they really want to give it a shot, then more power to them.

In any case, any success in viral marketing must possess that intangible, mission-critical element of ’stickiness.’ It has to make me want to watch it again. It has to make me want to come back for more. And most of all, it has to make me want to send it to my entire network of people.

Hence the newest buzzword compliant term for what is, again, basically word-of-mouth 2.0: A “viral loop” refers to an application or service where the first step upon downloading and/or signing-up requires you to recruit other people.

Prime examples of this phenomenon include essentially all of the most annoying, worthless Facebook applications like Zombies and Vampires. You obviously can’t prey on people when you have no people to prey on. Duh.

Finally, one of the people in the audience asked Matt a great question about viral success in the area of mobile advertising. He truthfully (remember: truthfulness is key) admitted that there really had yet to be single stand-out “great success” in mobile advertising.

Meaning? It’s still a wild frontier folks, so get out there and own that space.