Viral Marketing
Viral marketing increases brand awareness, and several companies have used it in the past.
Whenever you hear about a meme or video that has gone viral, you immediately want to see what it’s all about. That’s how viral marketing works. Viral marketing increases brand awareness, and several companies have used it in the past. In most cases, viral marketing messages are often due to a well-laid-out strategy. At times, they can happen due to luck. Irrespective of what makes a message viral, there must be some creativity within it that sparks interest in society.
If you are interested in implementing a viral marketing strategy in your business. Below is a guide on everything you need to know about it.
What is Viral Marketing?
These are marketing messages that create interest in a brand or product. Viral marketing messages spread quickly, and the interest developed usually lasts for a short duration. The goal of viral marketing is for users to be pleased or amazed with the message so that they can share it with friends and family.
In the past viral marketing relied heavily on word of mouth. These days, however, thanks to the internet, messages can be shared on social media. As beneficial as viral marketing is, you need to approach this concept carefully. Remember, with viral marketing, the control of the message falls under the hands of internet users. Therefore, the message can be misunderstood. You and your marketing team need to be very careful when crafting viral marketing messages.
How Do Viral Marketing Campaigns Work?
For an experienced marketer, viral marketing campaigns are easy to develop. First, you need to brainstorm an idea that would be interesting to your audience. The concept can be turned into a message, meme, picture, or video. It can then be shared on the internet. All you have to do is wait for your users to share it.
As mentioned earlier, viral messages occur either due to strategy or luck. The latter can’t often be relied upon because the chances of your message going viral due to luck are minimal. Anyway, when you work with a creative marketing agency, you can strategize and share messages that have a higher chance of going viral.
Some of the techniques used is sharing a visible or concealed message. A visible message is when the viewer knows they are watching a video advert. If it’s hidden, the viewer may not know it’s an advertisement. The technique you develop mustn’t deceive the viewers since that can become a PR nightmare.
What are the Benefits of Viral Marketing?
Before your business ventures into viral marketing, you need to determine if it’s beneficial or not. Here are some of the advantages your company can reap from viral marketing.
1. Viral Marketing Can Significantly Boost Your Brand Awareness
If you can come up with amazing content, viral marketing can significantly boost your brand awareness. Out of the many types of marketing, very few can come close to viral marketing when it comes to creating awareness about a brand or product. When thousands of people share your message, everyone who comes across it will know about your brand or whatever you are selling.
2. It's Non-Invasive
These days, consumers are aware that they are constantly being fed with advertisements and marketing messages. It can sometimes feel like this information is being forced down their throats. However, with viral marketing, the users have the freedom to share the messages on their own free will. This, therefore, gives the brand a positive reputation and image.
3. Viral Messages Can Reach Plenty of Customers
One of the things marketing experts struggle with daily is audience outreach. If you are new to the market, you may have fewer followers. Therefore, your messages may not be reaching a bigger audience. However, if your marketing message goes viral. That’s an opportunity to get thousands, if not millions of new customers. Through viral marketing, your number of followings can change overnight.
4. It's Affordable
Since users share viral messages, companies and businesses don’t have to pay for advertising space on media outlets. That cuts down the marketing and advertising costs significantly. The only thing a brand may have to pay for is content creation. It’s minimal when you compare this cost to the return it would bring.
The Characteristics of Viral Marketing Campaigns
Although viral marketing messages differ in context, they often share the same characteristics. If you plan on venturing into viral marketing, you need to familiarize yourself with these key characteristics.
They are Organic
You can’t force hype about a brand or product. These campaigns need to be organic. Remember, your audience is in charge of controlling the sharing of the message. Therefore, you have to be at the right place and at the right time. The part you need to play is to create an interesting message and put it out there for your clients to consume and share.
They are Short-lived
Viral marketing campaigns don’t last forever. They’re just like trends. Expect them to come and go. Your message could trend for a few days. After a week or two, people would be looking for the next craze.
Your goal should be to make the most out of the viral message for a short period. Before implementing such, you should be present on all social media platforms. That will ensure people who have just heard of your brand have something to see when they check out your social media pages. You can also create landing pages to capture the audience who wants to shop for your products or services.
It would be best to use the little time you have in the spotlight.
They're Bold
With viral marketing, you either have to go hard or go home. There is an element of risk associated with such campaigns. The information should be passed across boldly for a message to go viral. Even though it can work in your favor. Sometimes, the message may be misinterpreted. To ensure your messages don’t spark controversy, work with an experienced marketing agency that understands how to create organic content free of controversy.
How to Succeed in Viral Marketing?
Marvel Marketing has been in this game for a while now. For brands that want to utilize viral marketing, here are some proven strategies that we have successfully used in the past.
1. You Need to Figure Out Why You Want to Go Viral
Yes, you want attention. But what do you intend to do with it? Most of the time, many businesses get the attention of viral marketing and end up not utilizing it fully. Similar to other marketing campaigns, you need to evaluate your goals. If your goal is to create brand awareness or get more mentions from your audience, ensure that your message aligns with this objective. That’s the only way you can reap maximum results from viral marketing.
2. Work Closely with a Social Media Manager
Not unless you are very lucky, it’s going to be hard for you to go viral without investing in social media marketing. Many small businesses lack an active social media presence. This is why we are advising you to hire a social media manager. With such an expert by your side, your business can access social media metrics that will help you create and share viral messages.
When you identify which platforms your business gets the most attention and the type of content your audience likes, it will be easier to narrow down viral marketing ideas. When you go viral, your manager will be in charge of converting traffic into customers.
3. Publish Shareable Content
The goal of viral marketing is to get content shared amongst your audience members. Because of that, you will need to publish shareable content. First, you will need to figure out which social media platform is best for your viral messages. These days, image and video-based content are more shareable. You can consider platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.
On most social media sites these days, users can limit the ability of other users to share their content. It would help make your content easily accessible to the public and shareable. You can also go the extra mile of making the content easily shareable with other platforms.
4. Make Use of Hashtags
Hashtags have made it easier for content to go viral. If you want your marketing campaigns to go viral, you can try hashtags. When choosing a hashtag, make it short, engaging, and memorable. Remember, you can always use several hashtags in a post. All you have to do is ensure these hashtags are related.
5. Hop onto New Trends
At times, viral marketing may not work on your first attempt. But you can always keep trying. One of the ways to do that is by hopping on trends. On most social media platforms, TikTok, for example, there are new trends every week. Your business can jump on these trends. If you are creative, your videos can go viral, which would be an opportunity for you to market your business.
6. Humanize and Personalize Your Content
This should be a no-brainer in 2022. Gone are the days when brands strived to sound emotionless. Your customers need to interact with the human aspect of your business. It’s crucial that your messages are genuine and organic. You will get more shares if your content is personalized.
7. Stick to Short and Simple Messages
A long message can be confusing, and most of the time, it will distract members of your audience. Viral messages need to be short and direct to the point. Internet users are bombarded with a lot of adverts. To capture their attention, your message needs to be concise. As you brainstorm ideas, think of something that would be simple but creative.
8. Grab their Attention Fast
A trait shared by most internet users is impatience. If you want your messages to go viral, grab their attention within the first few seconds. Visual content is an excellent way of capturing internet users’ attention as they are scrolling. You can try being funny, bold, or inspiring. Find whatever works for your brand.
Go Viral Today with Marvel Marketing
As you can see from the above guide, viral marketing is complex. You will need all the help you can get. Because of the nature of viral marketing, our agency uses creativity to produce engaging and attention-grabbing content. Marvel Marketing has a team of highly trained social media managers, content creators, and marketers that will help you come up with creative messages that have the potential to go viral. We can help your business utilize social media to gain more awareness by notifying you of new trends. Book a consultation today, and we can brainstorm ways to make your brand go viral.
