How You, Too, Can ‘Go Viral’

How you, too, can ‘Go Viral’

An old adage goes, ‘Every battle is won before it is fought.’ It means that the success of an effort heavily depends on the preparation. The same goes for online campaigns. The reason an online campaign goes ‘viral’ is because they are created to do just that. Every critical factor is carefully kept in mind by the marketers for the successful development and execution of an effective online marketing campaign. There is something unique in every advertising campaign that has gone viral, and creativity is key. However, there are a few steps that guarantee success regardless of the type of product or service being promoted.

1. Understand Target Market

Researching your target market is as important as executing the marketing campaign. Either effort is worthless without the other. Hence, to develop an effective viral campaign, determine what and how your target market is. Find out demographic details including age, education, income, gender, marital status, profession, and geographical location. Also, conduct surveys/research on psycho-graphical information to identify needs, wants, and aspirations of the target market.

2. Identify Achilles’ Heel

Not everything pleases everyone. What is entertaining for one may be offensive for another and vice versa. Once the homework mentioned above has been done, you will be able to find out exactly where to strike potential customers. Following are some elements common to many successful viral campaigns.

• Comedy – Humor has the power to brighten up the moods of even the most critical people. The genre of humor is an element that varies from market to market though.
• Parodies – The video created by Saatchi & Saatchi for T-Mobile currently has 28.4 million views. It capitalized on Kate and William’s wedding even before the grand event took place. It features look-alikes of the royal family and its guests dancing at the mock royal wedding. Parodies of events, performances, and conversations have the potential to attract consumers.
• Flash mobs – Flash mobs are yet another great way of attracting positive attention on more than one platform. Unlike the general perception, flash mobs don’t always have to be sudden dance performances. For example, ‘Frozen Grand Central’ is a video depicting 200 people who froze for a minute or so and then unfroze, leaving onlookers baffled. The video was uploaded four years ago and today has 30 million views.
• Celebrity Endorsements – Celebrity endorsements are one of the most secure ways of gaining attention. But not all star studded advertisements go viral, especially those with celebrities whose appeal has been diluted due to appearing in too many advertisements. One example of a successful celebrity-featuring viral video is that of Fiat’s ‘Life is Best when Driven’ advertisement. It has been viewed more than 30 million times and has Jennifer Lopez in it.

3. Promote Content

When content is created, it will not automatically share itself. It will have to be actively shared by marketers in the initial days by employing techniques including SEO, SEM, blogging, social media, and press releases. Once the campaign takes off, marketers can step back and enjoy the results.

About The Author: HostPapa is a website hosting company serving over 100,000 customers around the world. Since launching in 2006, HostPapa has offered reliable, budget-friendly, easy-to-use http://www.hostpapa.ca web solutions for small to medium-sized businesses.

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