“It has gone viral”. What comes to mind when you hear those words?
Popularity? Success? … Germs?
In the past few years, the Internet has enabled content to “go viral” like never before (by this I mean content that gains exponential growth in awareness over a short period of time). How and why certain content experiences viral growth has always been somewhat of a mystery. Although some have tried to engineer viral content or formulate an equation for creating viral content, there is still never a guarantee that carefully manufactured content will go viral.
Imagine if someone did discover the precise formula for viral content and in the spirit of online sharing, published the formula for everyone to see.
I expect everyone would begin to consistently create massive awareness for their products or services. Every viral-oriented-video would have millions of views, every tweet published would have thousands of RTs and every blog post published would have hundreds of comments.
Hundreds, thousands and millions would be the new norm. However, once becoming status quo, everyone would fall back to square one because they, again, will be perceived as no different from the next online sensation.
So should the focus really be on going viral or should it be on being different and unique?
For your next marketing communication strategy, maybe focus less on trying to be viral and more on creating something that is unexpected (unique), relatable (targeted) and sharable (integrated).
Victor
Digital Strategist
Photo Credit: Caroline Davis2010
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What If …. Series.
What If…Only 100 People Can Visit Your E-Commerce Website Per Day?
What If…Your Twitter and Facebook Posts Were Deleted After 24 Hours?
What If…There Was a 2-Tweet Per Day Limit?
Tags: content, Social Media, viral content, viral formula
