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The review uses the paradigm funnel to examine the development of VM, key research contributions and categorises the published literature according to their objectives, analytical approaches and their contributions to theory. The literature addresses many subjects of study (e.g. E-Marketing, E-Word of Mouth, Social Media, Peer-to-Peer Communications, Viral Marketing, Buzz Marketing, Stealth Marketing, Viral Advertising, Viral Videos and other aligned research areas). The findings illustrated that there are various gaps in the literature that require further investigation. 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