Viral content can be good and it can be bad for your business. Personally, as a Marketing Strategist, I’d rather have our content not go viral, but on message, on brand, and connects with our audience.
Connection and engagement with the right audience are more important than going viral. Viral is excellent for building profile and it is excellent for reach, but only if it’s the right people you are reaching.
The Bad Side of Viral Content:
You’re not seen by the right audience
Let’s say you’ve had a viral video and hit 20 million views. It’s great. But my question would then be, are these people your target market or did you just chase viral to say that you got those views?
Because even if you’ve only got 100 people who are following you, but those 100 people were greatly engaged with your content, they love what you did, they bought and engaged with you, then they are your people. They are the people you’re going to serve, and the people you want more of.
However, if you chase a viral outcome, you’d need to break through hundreds of thoousands of people to reach your target market of 100 people that were engaged and ready to buy from you.
Think about that before you start going to chase viral. Just remember, big doesn’t convert sales. Engagement converts sales. Engagement grows your business.
Opening yourself up to the trolls
Another thing when it comes to viral business, is that viral opens up the door for trolls. Trolls are individual beings of their own. They come after people. They don’t care about the person behind the brand.
Now, that is part of social media. And yes, we can all share our comments and opinions, but people trolling with negativity can come. So when you’re looking to be viral, ask yourself what are the reasons you want to be viral. And if you’re going to be viral, can you take it?
Most of you know that we run a community called Business Business Business. We have 33,000 business owners there. We’re not viral in a sense, but we’ve got a fair amount of reach. I can tell you from personal experience that when the trolls come out, they come out in force. So make sure that if you want to go viral, you are comfortable with what comes with it.
The Good Side of Viral:
Going Viral with the Right Audience
The positive thing about going viral, especially if you build the right audience, is that you are seen by more of the right people. You are seen by the people that you need to be seen by. They’re connected and they’re engaged.
Engagement will trump viral every time. If we’ve got an engaged audience, we’ve got an audience who’s watching our products and who’s following us.
Algorithms deliver more of what we feed it
Search algorithms will deliver us what we feed it. We want to make sure that we are feeding amazing content. Amazing content that will reach our people. And rather than chasing a viral video, a viral social post, or a viral piece of content, we chase engagement.
Stop chasing viral! Chase engagement instead.
When you’re putting your content plan together, stop chasing viral. But if you do go viral, go viral for the right reasons. So when you’re putting your content plan together, always look at it with engagement in mind.
Rather than looking at the numbers, look at the statistics instead. What are the statistics showing you? Have you got 10% of your audience engaged? Have you got 20% of your audience engaged? Have you got 30% of your audience engaged?
If you are hitting at that 30% to 40% mark, then congratulations to you. If you’re 50% above, amazingly well done and great work because that means that you’re getting in front of your audience at the right time when they need to see you.
Tools to help increase engagement:
Get those search insights
Tools like Insights can show you from search algorithms when your audience is online, to see what content they’re relating to, and make sure that you’re sharing more of that content with them on a regular basis.
Optimise your keywords
Make sure that you’ve optimised your content by putting in the right keywords and tags, using tools like vidIQ.
Develop the right keywords
Using great content development and keyword tools like Bramework allows you to connect with your audience using the terms that they’re going to put into search.
Be grateful for the audience that you have
Instead of chasing viral content, be grateful for the audience that you already have. Be grateful for the people that are already following you. Be grateful to see them turn up on social media.
Gratitude will go a long way for you to attract more of the right people.
Highlights:
[0:00] Introduction
[0:20] The viral side of social media
[0:50] The bad side of viral
[1:00] You’re not seen by the right audience
[2:35] Opening yourself up to the trolls
[4:10] The good side of viral
[4:15] Going viral with the right audience
[4:45] Algorithms deliver more of what we feed it
[5:15] Stop chasing viral. Chase engagement instead.
[5:48] Tools to help increase engagement
[6:20] Be grateful for the audience that you have
Resources Mentioned in the Podcast:
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