Going Viral is a Fluke. Here’s Why and What to Do Instead
Everyone wants to go viral. That glimmer of a little bit of fame is so appetizing.
Yet it’s one of the most difficult things to achieve on social media. You can ask any influencer out there. Most of them have never gone viral, and the ones who have always said pure luck was highly involved.
I don’t know about you, but to us, luck is not a reliable strategy you can execute every month! (Learn some legitimate growth strategies on our blog).
There are millions of accounts vying for the same audiences and sharing targeted content with them as well.
The odds are not in your favor when it comes to competing with them.
Why? Because there’s also no rhyme or reason to what goes viral.
You might have the perfect truthbomb video that gives your followers a ton of value and you’ll get a thousand views. But then a dog skateboarding will get millions. It’s just something you can’t rely on.
What If I Do Go Viral?
But to play devil’s advocate, let’s say you do go viral, what exactly would that mean for you? Does it guarantee that you’ll get more:
targeted followers?
engaged community?
consistent reach and visibility?
It definitely does not, but those are the metrics that really matter. So what should you do instead of focusing on a random shot at going viral?
1. Focus on growing consistently and cultivating your community.
Your ideal community should be filled with people who see value in what you post. Focusing on speaking specifically to them is absolutely key to success.
How do you know if you’re reaching the right audience? You should see these metrics go up:
Comments, shares, and saves
Reach
Profile views
These all show if your posts are resonating with followers. Comments correlate with really loving the content and wanting more.
Shares and saves tell you that followers found the content so valuable they either wanted someone else to know about it or they wanted to come back and reference it again. That’s a huge compliment!
Reach is like a present from the platform algorithms. It’s like saying this did so well with your current set of followers, we want to show it to others too!
Profile visits are another form of compliment. It means of all those people who’ve seen your content, this many took the extra step to go to your profile and are more likely to follow you in the future.
2. Another secret to social media success is showing up consistently with branded content.
You probably hear this all the time, but what exactly does that mean?
To be consistent does not mean posting every single day for the rest of forever. While that would be fantastic, it’s not usually feasible for most accounts. Instead, focus on the top 3-5 days that your audience is active and stick to posting on those days.
You also might hear that there is no “perfect time to post”. We don’t believe that. If you have an audience that is active and is likely to see your content at 12 o’clock on Thursdays, that’s a perfect time to be posting for you.
Look for those highlighted times to focus on putting your posts up. One industry trick is to post just a few minutes before your highest engagement time so by the time people hop on, your content is already there.
When it comes to the branding side, it can be confusing. All we mean by that is that you should use the same filtering, fonts, style, and colors for all your posts. This keeps your feed looking consistent and will help people quickly decide whether they resonate with your “vibe” or not.
Related Content: 5 Ways to Grow Your Business on Social Media
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