A viral marketing campaign can be a valuable asset for your business, but it can also be a bit unwieldy. Going viral isn’t an exact science and there’s no guarantee that your advertisements will gain traction with a wide audience, much less be shared with an even larger group. As a result, you’re essentially playing the odds and hoping that your marketing messages are well-received before eventually becoming mild sensations.
While there are no exact methods for going viral, there are a few best practices that small business owners have had success with over the last few years. Read on for an examination of what steps you should take to create a viral marketing campaign.
Take a risk
Most advertisements are the results of tireless effort and dedication. Marketing messages are usually tested, optimized, edited and revised multiple times before a company even considers publishing them to generate leads and increase brand exposure. In many cases, ads are checked to ensure that they aren’t offensive and won’t alienate any potential customers. This makes sense – after all, you want consumers have positive opinions of your brand. However, this usually strips away any personality that an advertisement may have, and it’ll become just another generic message that the public sees online.
According to Inc. Magazine, you have to be willing to take a risk with your marketing campaign to help it go viral. The news source uses Old Spice as an example. The company went viral and revamped its image by introducing The Man Your Man Could Smell Like. Old Spice was essentially gambling that its new message would introduce the brand to younger consumers without damaging the bottom line. Ultimately, the company was rewarded with an enhanced image that differed from its older version.
Always be optimizing
In some cases, small business owners are their own worst enemies when it comes to viral marketing. Entrepreneurs focus so heavily on the content that they forget about the technical side of their advertisements. Marketing messages must be optimized for sharing to ensure that consumers can easily disseminate the information. The simpler it is for a potential customer to share an ad, the more likely they are to do exactly that.
According to Forbes, this means including important features like sharing buttons. Consumers should simply be able to click a single icon and send your advertisement to their entire social network. Additionally, the function should extend to other media like email to ensure that you’re using every resource to help your viral campaign.
The news source also notes that a unique hashtag is essential to your marketing initiative. The slogan is especially important if you’re debuting your advertisements on social media, particularly Twitter and Instagram which track hashtags. Develop a short and clever catchphrase that describes your campaign without being overly promotional. Ultimately, you want your hashtag to sound natural like it’s been written by someone’s friend, not a sales personal trying to land new clients.
What tricks have helped your marketing campaign go viral?
