EPISODE 103 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: WHY GOING VIRAL SHOULDN’T BE YOUR AIM WHEN CREATING CONTENT

Sonya:

Viral posts can do amazing things for your business. There's no denying it. But trying to force a post to go viral or building an entire social media strategy around recreating viral content is a recipe for disaster. From resources to supply and demand to plain old customer alienation, a lot can go wrong when you try to go viral online. Let's dig in.

Welcome to the Boom Your Biz podcast, a podcast for the movers, the shakers, and even bigger action takers in business. I'm your host, Sonya McIntyre-Reid, and each week I'll be exploring the question of what really makes businesses and organizations thrive. I'm on a mission to educate, empower, and inspire business owners and myself along the way.

It's every business owner's dream, a post goes viral and they're flooded with orders or booking requests overnight. If you have the stock available, appointments and the infrastructure to handle the demand, a viral post could be the best thing to ever happen to your business. We've all at least thought about purchasing a product from one of those Amazon gadget's "You've Got To Try" posts or the latest drop of affordable Kmart fashion we've seen from a cheap but cheerful fashion page. And I'm the first to put my hand up and say I've fallen victim to the late night hunt for stock available in a store near me after seeing a cute dress on Instagram that's sold out online. And while going viral could just be the answer to your cash flow problems, it's not really something you can plan for, nor should you, in my opinion.

Imagine a room painted and decorated in all primary colors. No neutrals for balance, no light and shade, just a total assault on your eyeballs. This is a good idea of what happens when you try to make every post bigger, better, brighter, and better performing than the last. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't always be striving to improve, of course you should. But just as a feed filled with Buy Now posts is going to get annoying pretty quickly, so to is a feed filled with trends designed to grab attention. Sure, it's entertaining, but how are you actually providing value? Unless you run a course teaching business owners how to go viral and demonstrating trends helps get your point across, I would argue that you're probably not providing value at all.

We've all seen a business that tries to jump on every bandwagon that comes along, hoping to get a bump in followers and sales, but not every trend is appropriate for every business. And while I am the first to encourage clients to give new platform features a go, if you're doing so at the expense of connecting with your ideal customer, you're missing out on the opportunity to build that know, like, and trust factor that not only attracts customers but solidifies those relationships to create lifelong customer relationships. An example for the Swifties out there. What would happen if Taylor Swift only released albums of hits? Sure, we all love Shake It Off and I think reputation is criminally underrated, but if Miss Swift didn't release full balanced albums with tracks designed to take the listener on a journey, there would be no surprise hits like Cruel Summer, cult favorites like False God, and there probably wouldn't have been a Folklore album at all.

Metaphors aside, here are the four reasons I think going viral should not be your aim when creating content. Number one, you can't plan for it. Viral posts happen in this weird space where the timing, the message, and the delivery all hit a certain sweet spot. It's usually a combination of luck and time already invested in building a profile and your relationships.

Number two, viral post posts aren't a long-term plan. If I asked you to think of five viral posts you've seen this week, I'm willing to bet that you couldn't. This is not because those posts didn't have an impact, it's because that impact is so short-lived. Just like those artists who have one-hit-wonders in the music industry generally don't have longevity, neither do those accounts who have a post go viral. Sure, you'll get a lot of new followers initially, but those new followers aren't likely to know, like, or trust you, and you're likely to see a massive drop in your engagement statistics.

Number three, you probably won't hit the mark. When you try to create a viral post, you're trying to create content that appeals to a much wider audience than you usually do. And as with all things in life and business, when you try to please everybody, you usually end up not pleasing anybody. We've all seen those accounts that try too hard to be cool or jump on trends a few weeks late. Don't be one of them.

Number four, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Once you've had a post go viral, it's easy to get addicted to that high. It's easy to spend more and more time on your content, hoping to replicate those viral results. You may not believe that I'm about to say this, but social media is not the most important part of marketing your business. How you do business is your best marketing tool. And if you're replying to emails two days later or not paying attention to customers in your physical store because you're too busy creating reels or TikToks, you're doing your business a real disservice.

So, going viral. Great, love it. Ride the wave if you do. But trying to go viral, a waste of time and energy often makes you appear like you're trying too hard and usually comes at the expense of the actual serving of customers and clients in your business. A good content strategy balances the timely and the timeless. You need to know your business objectives to build content pillars around them. And once you have those content pillars, you actually have more freedom when it comes to creating content.

As always, I'll be continuing this conversation over in the Boom Your Biz Podcast Facebook group. It's free to join and we're building a lovely network of business owners and leaders over there. Just search Boom Your Biz and request to join the group.