Sharpe Partners' study on viral marketing also found that 63 % of the respondents share content at least once a week, with 25% sharing daily or almost daily, and as many as 75% of the respondents forward this content to up to six other recipients.

These results are good news for proponents of viral marketing, a self-propelling "word-of-email" technique in which a company sponsors -- often with subtlety -- entertaining or informational content that is forwarded from one email recipient to another, especially when living in an era when digital video recorders make it easy for consumers to skip traditional paid advertising.

"We knew a lot of people were sharing content, but even we didn't expect it to be so pervasive," said Kathy Sharpe, CEO of Sharpe Partners. "But, the real challenge for interactive marketing agencies like ours is developing content that these people will want to consistently share with a wide, yet focused circle of acquaintances."

Humor is Hot for Viral Marketers
In addition to highlighting the rampant frequency of content sharing, the study generated some interesting results regarding the type of content that is sent. The most popular content is humorous material, with 88% forwarding jokes or cartoons. The second most popular category is news (56%), followed by healthcare and medical information (32%), religious and spiritual material (30%), games (25%), business and personal finance information (24%), and sports/hobbies (24%).

"Humor is clearly the golden child of viral marketing, but it is also very subjective," cautioned Sharpe. "That is why we recommend a viral conduit that allows the target to define the humor, rather than presuming that we always know what the audience will find funny."

For companies looking to employ a viral marketing program, the study found that adding overt brand messages only slightly reduces the likelihood that the content will be shared. 56% of the respondents are less or slightly less likely to forward such content, whereas 43% said they are more or slightly more likely to send marketing-related messages. Only 5% refuse to share content that contains a clear brand message.

As for the impressions branded content leaves on the respondents, it is clear that viral marketing is a low-risk approach. While the vast majority (75%) says that brand sponsorship has no impact on whether or not they will forward a message, 19% say that it actually has a positive impact whereas only 7% say that it is negative.

"While subtlety is often the key for branded content in a successful viral marketing campaign," noted Sharpe,"it appears that overt branding will do little harm to the efficacy of the campaign. "We also discovered that those who share content more frequently are less inclined to view brand affiliation as a negative, so the key becomes targeting those individuals."

Profiling the Catalysts
The study found that the most likely person to share content -- and share it widely -- is a woman in her late 30ss/early 40ss who resides in the South or Midwest. Sixty-four percent of the female respondents share content at least once a week versus 58% of the males. Residents of the South (68%) and Midwest (66%) are likely to be more frequent forwarders than their counterparts in the West (58%) and East (55%).

Ethnicity is a factor as well. Blacks/African-Americans and Whites/Caucasians share content most frequently, with 63% sharing at least once a week, followed by Hispanic/Latin-Americans at 56%, and Asian-Americans at 46%.

The study also found that education is only a slight influence, with 64% of those without a college degree sharing weekly versus 61% with a college degree. Marital status, the presence of children, and household income did not prove to be factors, similar to the length of time someone has been using the Internet.

Methodology
Sharpe Partners' Viral Marketing Survey was conducted online by Greenfield Omnibus from September 23-26, 2005. The respondents were 1,071 adults residing in the U.S. In addition to standardized demographic information, they were asked about the incidence and frequency of sharing content via email, the type of content shared, and attitudes regarding brand-sponsored content.