Content virality is a characteristic that shows how often users will share it on social networks. In practice, it may also refer to the volume of traffic received from reposts, i.e. the number of subscribers who have seen the post.
For example, your text about lightning roulette India was reposted by 10 people; each repost was seen by 10 users. It turns out that the viral reach was 100 people. Ideally, it should greatly exceed the number of your subscribers. In this case, you will get a strong increase in brand awareness.
In simple words, content virality is a parameter that shows the rate at which it spreads virally online.
Why Create Viral Content
The main objective is to reduce the cost of promotion. Due to the active distribution of such creative content by users it is possible to reduce the cost of one interaction with a potential client. Although there are other reasons for the use of such a method of promotion:
- Growth of coverage. In fact, this is viral marketing, when advertising attracts people so much that they begin to repost and promote it on their own. In some cases, fragments of advertising messages can become a stable expression.
- Naturalness. All marketers know about banner blindness, when users do not notice advertising. In the case of viral content, it masquerades as a naturally distributed post.
- Increased visibility. It overlaps with the first reason, but there the main task is to get the maximum coverage at a minimum cost. In the case of recognizability, the main thing – to make such content, which not only will be reposted and liked, but also remembered.
- Reducing the cost of advertising. When content is distributed by users, you can reduce the cost of promoting your brand.
To summarize the main goal: maximum reach and increased visibility while reducing promotion costs.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Viral Content
Here are the advantages of this promotion:
- High coverage. And advertising covers even those users whom you would hardly reach with usual advertising tools.
- Small budget. You only need to spend money for content creation, and it will be users themselves who will distribute it. Although, in some cases, you may need a little push in the form of paid advertising.
- Naturalness. Potential customers don’t perceive it as advertising, which means they’re more willing to sign up and remember your brand.
- Strengthening your company’s image. With the right strategy, your brand will be talked about for a long time and in a positive way.
There are also a few disadvantages:
- Unmanageable processes. Even if you want to stop the process of advertising, it will be impossible to do so. For example, there may be a situation where the company has already stopped operating under the brand, or the advertising creativity has begun to violate the changed laws. In both cases, to put an advertising campaign “on hold” will not work.
- Loss of reputation. In some cases, the content may be perceived negatively. This risk should be considered when launching.
How to Create Viral Content
First, you need to decide how you will target users. Usually one of the following options is used:
- Emotion. You can make posts that evoke joy, tenderness, sadness and similar feelings. A common example – cats, everyone loves cats. But you have to work with emotion carefully: one extra movement, and you get a negative effect.
- Benefits. Telling something useful to the consumer, necessarily related to your product. This could be a guide or just a useful tip.
- Teaching content. In this case, trying to make the world a better place – give information about using your product.
- User-generated content. Meaning reviews, unboxing, reviews, and other types of content that are done by the company’s customers.
- Story. Tell an interesting story about your brand. It can be a legend or just a related real story. People love to read and share this kind of text.
- Humor. On the one hand, it can be emotional, on the other hand, it’s still a separate type of posts and videos. Make funny texts and videos and get effective promotion.
Having decided in what way we will attract the attention of users, we move on to the selection of the type of content.
Usually the choice of content type is based on the characteristics of your audience and product.
There is another way to create viral content – attracting a famous personality. It could be a famous expert or a popular blogger. Such content will cost more, but you’ll get more coverage.
And now step by step:s
- Choosing a trigger. Determine what will catch the audience. Consider the characteristics of the product and audience.
- Choosing the type of content. Here you need to choose a way of communication with users that is convenient for you and assess the possibility to use it for the selected trigger. For example, it’s difficult to combine humor with infographics.
- Hypothesis Formulation. At this stage, assume what will work best: posts, videos or pictures.
- Production. Order shooting, preparing memes, and writing texts.
- Placement. It’s necessary not only to post the content and give it the initial impetus for growth. Depending on the situation and budget, this could be a request to colleagues to like posts or videos, paid advertising, or a nativka from a blogger. You can only hope for organic coverage, and maybe you’ll get lucky. But in practice, it’s better to spend a little money on advertising first: that way you’re sure to spin the flywheel of viral coverage.
This completes the process of working with content. All that remains is to calculate how much viral coverage you’ve managed to get.
