You will often hear people saying that something they have done has gone viral, or perhaps the latest dance craze has gone viral, but what does viral actually mean?
A piece of viral content could be a photo, a song, a piece of written blog content, a meme, a video or something else that is easily sharable, interesting or funny. For this ‘content’ to be classed as ‘viral content’ it means it has been shared on multiple internet channels quickly and frequently.
A very good example of this is the Harlem Shake. It was a craze that involved people in a room and someone wearing a hat, music starts playing and as the beat kicks everyone in the room started dancing like crazy fools.
How can ‘viral content’ help your industry?
You can write an interesting, funny or engaging piece of content (or get a content writer to do it for you) and then put it on your blog and share with facebook fans, twitter followers and connections on Linked IN. If the article is interesting and engaging then it will be shared from person to person, business to business. If your logo or name is on this content then as the content is shared your name is shared so this helps with brand awareness and could gain you extra customers as the content goes viral.
When it comes to things like the Harlem Shake for example, you can jump on the band wagon and get involved. I had a client that got involved with the Harlem Shake and they did it in their office. They put the video on their website (Google is reported to love videos on websites), they put it on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to show all their friends, followers and fans. Everyone loved it and soon they were in the local newspaper and having interviews on local radio stations. This advertisement on the radio and in newspapers was completely free and they have advertised themselves as a ‘fun’ company and sold themselves as ‘good people’ as well as the company!
I had another client that had a special offer, as I shared this special offer with people via Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, blogging and emails the special offer became ‘viral content’. In one month the client had around 1,500 visits to their site. The special offer went viral over night and the next day, in one day alone the site had over 5,000 visits and sold double the products in one day than they sold the whole month before!
Have you ever had something that has gone viral?
