Viral Marketing
Every business owner and marketer has a dream of creating a marketing campaign that goes viral. However, it does not have to be a dream. Creating a viral marketing campaign may be difficult, but it is not impossible. We at Guttulus have created a few tips that can help you get started in the right direction. There is no guarantee that a campaign will automatically go viral. However, if you follow these tips, you will at least be giving your campaign a chance of going viral.
Keep things visual
Things that go viral are usually visually appealing. If you want a campaign to go viral, you will need to add videos or images to the campaign. This is the cornerstone of every viral marketing effort.
Even if most of the message is in text form, find an image or video that complements the message. Most people will be attracted to the image first, and they will then read the text. When choosing the visuals, ensure that they match with your brand. It is thus important that you do not create a video or image that might compromise your brand.
However, you need to balance this with visuals that are worthy of being viral. Ensure that the images are humorous while at the same time being informative. If the visuals are surprising or funny, it increases the chances that they will be shared by the masses.
Have a message
While there are viral campaigns that occur by accident, most of them are carefully planned. You cannot plan to have your material go viral. However, you can plan enough so that if it does go viral, there will actually be a message embedded in there. Ensure that the message is clear and concise.
If you are creating a video, ensure that you have a nice script or infographic. This way, your audience will not only laugh, but they will also get the message. Any campaign aims to get a message out there. If it does not happen, it will have been a waste of effort.
Ride on emotions
Another factor that causes campaigns to go viral is tagging on people’s emotions. In most cases, they are humorous, but they can be sentimental as well. As you are planning your campaign, try to bring some emotion to it.
It is not to say that an informative visual cannot go viral. However, information on its own has a very small chance of going viral. You will need to get the person hooked on some emotions. For success, play on their dreams, hopes, fears, and even their sense of humor. If you do this, there is a good chance that your campaign is going to go viral.
Understand the audience
If you want to trigger your audience emotionally, you will need to understand what drives them. Thus, you will need to study them and understand their interests, fears, and hopes. The last thing you want to do is anger the audience.
If you can find the right triggers, you can secretly work them into your content. Remember that your target audience is not just any audience. For instance, if a celeb goes around taking selfies without any makeup, that may work for a beauty company. However, such a campaign is not going to have any effect on executives in the banking sector.
Keep it simple
Most viral campaigns are usually not complicated. Most people want to click on an image or video, get a laugh, and move on. In most cases, these videos are usually short. If you use an infographic, do not use too much content. If you have to write an article, do not turn it into a novel.
Besides that, you have to think about the messaging. Keep it to just two or three messages. Once you have attracted your audience via the viral messaging, you can provide them with more information later.
Launch the camping perfectly
Planning and creating content for the viral campaign is just one thing. Now you have to launch it perfectly if you hope for it to go viral. That will entail knowing where to find your audience. It means you have to time when they are most likely to be online and the social media site they are most likely to us.
Once you understand these things, you can now launch the campaign. You will now have to work on ensuring that it spreads throughout social media. Besides that, you should encourage your followers to share it. If you are lucky, you will get to sit back and watch as things go viral. Sometimes it can take hours while sometimes it can take days or weeks.
Never force it
If you are trying to get something to go viral, do not force it. It will either go viral or not. If that does not happen, start working on your next project. Making something that goes viral may take a lot of effort, but it will be worth it when it happens.