Don’t Worry About Going Viral on Social Media
It can be tempting to try every trick in the book to make the content on your social media pages go viral. You would think that more social media views, likes, and shares would be a good thing, but going viral can actually cause you to lose touch with the audience you’re trying to reach. Here’s why you shouldn’t worry about viral content when developing your social media strategy.
Viral Content Appeals to Mass Audiences
When you’re creating content to appeal to the masses, your target audience will get lost in the shuffle. The customers you’re trying to reach have a particular set of interests, problems, likes, and dislikes. If you don’t cater your content to them, they won’t be interested in your brand and you won’t develop a relationship with them. Content that reaches a much smaller audience is usually much more effective than viral content because the smaller audience is more likely to act and connect with your business.
You’ll Lose Focus on What Matters Most
If you become too focused on creating content that will go viral, you’re going to overlook the daily work that needs to be done to engage your target audience. Developing relationships on social media can take time. You must be very consistent and persistent in order to achieve good results. If you’re too caught up in going viral, you’ll miss opportunities to look at the data that sheds light on what type of content your target audience enjoys the most.
Going Viral Has Nothing to Do with Your Customers
Going viral may provide you with the satisfaction of achieving a goal, but it does nothing of value for your target audience, so if this is your focus, you’ve probably lost sight of what’s really important for your business. Social media is a great place to broadcast all that is great about your brand, but you also need to put a lot of attention and focus on the interactions you have with your audience. Respond to messages and share other user’s posts. Although these don’t do much to build your following, they do help build a community of people who have the potential to become customers.
The Quality of Your Content Suffers
If you’re more interested in posting something that goes viral, chances are you’re not thinking much about the quality of what you’re posting. A lot of viral content gains popularity by accident, and if you really examine it, it’s not the best quality. There’s not magic formula that you can follow to successfully go viral, so it’s much more important to focus on creating social media posts that are well thought out and consistent. Viral content will be forgotten after awhile, but creative, strategic content will keep your target audience engaged and coming back for more.
Failed Attempts to Create Viral Content Create a Lot of Pressure
If you’re spending a lot of time, energy and money on creating content you think might go viral, you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself to succeed in doing so. If these attempts fail, you’ll have lost money and time that you can’t get back. Instead, invest your time and money on creating content that appeals to the people you want to reach. They are the ones who are most likely to take action and lead you to success.
Viral content may seem like the quickest way to get your business or brand on the map, but it certainly isn’t the most effective long-term solution. Not only is it difficult to go viral, but content that is targeted to a smaller, more specific audience is much more effective at generating good leads.
Categorized in: Social Media
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