The "beauty" of viral marketing is that it often appears to be accidentally successful, an expert has commented.

Henry Palmer, director of communications agency Society Media, explained that the web is an extremely important platform for charities and other organisations, particularly those which are trying to boost their profile without spending vast sums

Some charities have had enormous success with viral campaigns, he continued.

"There's some really good examples, like Friends of the Earth who launched the Big Ask campaign… That had a huge success, it circulated around everywhere," Mr Palmer added.

Earlier this year, Total Marketing Solutions commented via its blog that viral campaigns could provoke low-cost "word of mouse".

It suggested that although the difficult platform had once been used only by large corporations, small and medium-sized enterprises are now attempting to launch viral marketing campaigns of their own.

However, the organisation warned firms not be tempted into trying to deceive the public – for example by bribing popular bloggers – as this can backfire if the truth leaks out.

A recent Connect survey found that the two major concerns about outsourcing services like IT support were 'loss of control' (56 per cent) and 'budget over-runs' (43 per cent)