If you are a business in this digital era, you might have come across this word being thrown around. Let us tell you, right off the bat that virality is a hit or miss opportunity. However, there are a few elements that are found in every viral marketing campaign. But what is a viral campaign? It is a marketing strategy where the content a business/brand creates is shared wildly by its audience, so much so that it spreads like wildfire or goes “viral”. A viral campaign can be a noticeably big advantage for a brand and prove to be extremely beneficial for business. However, ever wondered how a campaign goes viral? Let’s dig into it...

SECRET TO VIRAL CONTENT –

The secret to viral marketing is, drum roll please, there isn’t any! Having a piece of content go viral can really benefit a business - using the social media network. However, architecting virality isn’t possible.

Although there are no magic formulas to making viral content, there are some key elements that every campaign that has ever gone viral contains. Let’s discuss them.

Also Read- IMPORTANT TOOLS EVERY DIGITAL MARKETER MUST KNOW

1. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE -

Before you start working on any content, you need to know who you are making the content for and what you want to communicate through it. Determining these plays an important role in the success of your campaign. So, figure out who your target audience is, what are their common interests and behaviors, which platforms are they hanging out on online etc.

2. PLAY ON EMOTIONS -

All the viral marketing examples have one extraordinarily strong factor rooting for it - a genuine message. Make sure that your campaign has a message that evokes emotions in people. Be it surprise, empathy, awe, envy, or sympathy - an emotional campaign has a much bigger chance of resonating with your audience than a campaign with no emotional value attached to it. The reason behind it is people love sharing their emotions and feelings with the world. Hence, adding an emotional touch to your marketing campaign might just be what is missing from it.

3. VISUAL APPEAL -

You might have already noticed that every viral piece of content is visual. That’s because visual content like videos and images are easier to understand and have higher recall value to them. Visual content is also shared more.

4. LAUNCH YOUR CAMPAIGN -

Once you have all the elements in place, you must launch your campaign. Your campaign won’t go viral on its own, you will have to play your cards and launch it to let the audience decide it’s virality quotient. Deciding on a time for the launch of your campaign, the best place to look into is your own insights. You will get much more relevant information there rather than blindly following some blog post about the timings to post on social media.

5. OPTIMIZE YOUR CONTENT -

After launching the campaign, make sure to keep an eye on the insights. The beauty of every marketing campaign, and especially viral marketing campaigns, is that you can always look at the data being gathered and optimize your content for future campaigns accordingly. Remember, not every marketing campaign will go viral but you can always work towards virality and you will achieve it someday.

CONCLUSION -

Although a tough nut to crack, viral marketing strategy is one of the best marketing strategies a business can adopt. It makes use of the strong online networks and spreads far and wide, and quite quickly too. Once a campaign goes viral, it brings in more business - in the form of leads, inquiries, sometimes direct purchases too. If you’re a small business, you might have to move swiftly to take control of your now Viral campaign. That’s what we’re here for. If you need to get a campaign in place for your brand/business, feel free to contact us on business@sociomark.in or DM us on our socials!

To get a glimpse of some campaigns that we’ve worked on previously, for some of India’s leading brands, check out our case study page.

Author : Heta Desai (Managing Director)