Andy Sernovitz makes a great point in his recent post on his blog:

Viral = Me (Not You)

If you want something to go viral, it can’t be about you, your company, your product, or your message.

No one cares what you’re selling.

They care about themselves.

That’s what caused the success the Obamicon project: Upload a picture of yourself, add a your own message, and you want to share it. Show off your message, your picture, your cleverness.

It also worked because they got the viral essentials right:

Easy to make
Easy to share
Shareable everywhere, especially in super-viral contexts like Twitter icons and blog sidebars
A simple tell-a-friend form to share your message
Plugins to all the big social sharing sides like Digg and Facebook
Popularity contests, so users have a reason to get their friends to come and vote
Kudo’s to Paste Magazine for a well-done project.

Create your own at http://obamicon.me.

Reprinted with permission from Andy's blog www.damniwish.com