Viral Sharing Can Be Bad For Marketing But Strategic Social Media Sharing Creates Results

Have you ever heard at a MARKETING meeting, “what we really

need is for this to go viral”? It makes me think of the millions of

people watching that poor kid on YouTube getting his finger bit by

his infant brother, or the fascination with lol cats messing up

English, “I can has cheezburger?”. Going viral means many things,

none of which might be right for your marketing activities and it’s

worthwhile to think about how you want your message to spread

and to what group of people.

When you get down to it, content that is spread by word of mouth

or by social media has to be worthy of passing on. To me, ‘going

viral’ means an explosive, exponential, sharing of content without

any forethought about hitting a target audience. It’s an organic

event based on the viewer’s emotional response to the writing,

picture or video. Content that makes people laugh, cry, or rant is

pushing emotional buttons and the response is to hit the share

button.

Of course the power of viral communication can bring a wave of

good-tidings towards your COMPANY or a tsunami of problems! A

few years ago a Greenpeace video posted on YouTube criticizing

Nestle for unsustainable sourcing of palm oil caused the largest

protest to-date against the brand. A company must keep a vigilant

360 degree view of social media so they can respond to issues as

soon as possible. Even if you are not currently using social media

for sales, you need to use it for brand awareness.

A positive emotional response to your product or service is a good

thing, unless you are MARKETING on Vulcan. It could be that the

emotional trigger you need to hit is inspiration. Can you inspire your

audience to grow their business or improve their work with your

product or service? Focus in on the benefits of being your customer

and spark ideas in your audience. If they can clearly see the

advantages for their business they’ll pass the information on.

The next time viral messaging is mentioned at a meeting, try to

reframe it as social media sharing. You certainly want to use the

amplification of Twitter or Facebook to increase the reach of your

content, but you want to hit the right target audience so that you

can generate a response that builds your community and turns

prospects into customers. Having large numbers of ‘followers’ or

‘likes’, only means something if those people have a genuine

interest in your COMPANY .

Do – plan your MARKETING campaigns to take advantage of the

amplification effect of social media

Do – identify key INFLUENCERS in your community of interest so

your message gets to the right people

Don’t – ignore the potential of ‘bad press’ going viral in your

marketplace, keep a vigilant look-out