How to Create Viral Content

When done right, strategic viral marketing can help your brand awareness and build customer loyalty. These nine tips can help brands achieve long-term growth.

Know Your Target Audience

Defining your target audience–a group of people who will most probably be interested in your brand or product and often share interests, hobbies, and behaviors - will be an important first step in trying to go viral. In addition to external factors, pay attention to how your audience interacts with your brand and why they follow it.

Post at the Right Time and Place

Social media platforms have unique audiences and functions within the vast ecosystem. When you figure out your target audience, you should then pinpoint the platforms on which the audience spends most of their time and why, and figure out when your audience is the most engaged. Posting at an optimal time can give you an advantage in helping your content stand out.

Creating Emotional Connection

If you want a community that is consistently engaged with your brand, putting the work into creating a strong emotional connection will be vital. Being aware of emotions that you want your audience to assign your brand, and use the content you make to instill the feeling your audience trusts you. When you stir an emotional resonance in your audience, you compel them to take action.

Quality over quantity

For a better chance of going viral, spending time making quality content is more effective than pumping out a lot of content. Overproducing or posting to post can cause your audience to tune you out, decrease morale with your team, and negatively affect your engagement.

Authenticity

Authenticity is another key component. Creating genuine, original content that ties back to your brand’s identity can help you become authentic to your audience. Going through a checklist can help you determine if your content achieves authenticity:

• Does your content resonate in some way with your target audience?

• Does your audience feel like you understand them?

• Do you stay true to your brand?

Audience Participation

User-generated content (UGC) and unpaid or unsponsored social posts about your business can be invaluable resources for your viral campaign. One of the best ways to gather UGC is to directly ask your audience about the type of content you want to share. Other ways include creating hashtags and hosting contests to nudge your audience to join in.

Useful and Shareable

Consider creating content that can be quickly digested and is still relevant but valuable enough to be shared. Infographics, short videos, and interactive content are good examples of this.

Partner With Influencers and Creators

Influencers and creators can be an important part of your affiliate strategies since influencers help your viral marketing campaign as they can help the brand’s reach. Make sure you find a creator whose brand aligns with your mission and whose audience overlaps yours and know what metrics are the most important.

Current Trends

Awareness of current trends can help you capitalize on virality, but don’t attempt to participate in every trend. Find out which conversations are taking place concerning your brand and industry. Should your community's conversation intersect with any viral posts or campaigns, try acting fast and adding flair to the trend.

Conclusion

Even though going viral can’t be guaranteed, there are things to learn and ways to gear your content to have a long-term reach. Using these tips can help your content resonate with the right audience.