There is no exact science to going viral. There are tips. There are strategies. There are best practices. But no matter how much you follow them, there is nothing close to a guarantee.
But there is however a recipe to not going viral. An exact playbook that can help you avoid even the chance of one of your videos suddenly transcending the normal reach of your audiences. A path to dodging the millions or tens of millions of views that some content captures. It’s strange to me that so many companies, companies that would kill for a breakout viral piece of content, stick to this path like bubble gum to a shag carpet.
For those of you looking to walk this path of non-virality, and for those looking to avoid it, here are the four decisions that brands consciously and subconsciously make that stunt the growth potential of their content:
1. Limit the Quantity of Content You Share
If you’ll allow me to mix metaphors, going viral usually requires you to not put all your eggs in one basket, to cast a wide net, to throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks. Remember Keyboard Cat? Of course you remember Keyboard Cat. That YouTube Channel launched 17 videos over the summer of 2007. To this day, most of those videos have only a few hundred or a few thousand views. Keyboard Cat has 64 million.
How about What Does The Fox Say? Couldn’t get that weirdly awesome song out of your head for a while? That was the 85th video that Ylvis had posted to their YouTube channel. We tend to think of these crazy viral sensations as totally out of the blue, flash in the pan, overnight success stories, but most aren’t. The path to viral success is paved with all the videos that didn’t go viral.
2. Only Post Super High Quality Content
If you’re still treating YouTube or TikTok or Instagram the same way you would treat a Super Bowl Ad, then congratulations, you’re probably on the path to not going viral. Your social media videos don’t need to be in 4K, they don’t need to be directed by Steven Spielberg, they don’t need fancy actors, and they don’t need big production budgets.
Some of the earliest YouTube sensations were filmed with bad lighting, crappy cameras, and little to no planning. Remember The Evolution of Dance? Charlie Bit My Finger? David After Dentist?
YouTube has certainly changed a lot in the last 15 years, with way more professional content and serious production companies getting involved. But at it’s core, YouTube is still random people sharing random bits of their lives. Most YouTube viewers are equally, if not more comfortable watching something filmed on an iPhone or a GoPro than something filmed in a professional movie studio.
Don’t get me wrong, the Super Bowl stuff is great too, but if that’s all your posting, you’ve got too narrow a scope. You never know what will take off and what won’t, so the more types of content, the more styles, the more looks and feels you can create, the better.
3. Focus Only on Your Brand and Your Message
One way to really help yourself avoid going viral is to force your creative and your message to do all the heavy lifting. To drive all the views. It would be a tremendous undertaking to make a truly compelling ad that drives millions of views that is strictly focused on that widget your selling.
Alternatively, you can let other factors do some of the heavy lifting for you. I wrote an article a year ago (Reactive Marketing- From Pepsi Milk to Peloton) about a YouTube creator called Badlands Chugs. Badlands Chugs capitalized on uniquely captivating cultural moments to create more interest in his content. In other words, find the thing that everyone is talking about already, the meme that’s trending, the TikTok dance everyone is doing, the news story everyone is sharing. Find that thing that is already driving eyeballs and put it to work for your content.
Being culturally relevant and timely is a path to virality. Staying in your lane and keeping your head down on your brand and product is the path toward irrelevance.
4. Play It Safe
Perhaps nothing is a better deterrent to virality than playing it safe. Creating content that makes every single person at your company feel comfortable. Content that every single person approves of.
So many brands fear failure and scrutiny to such a degree that they’ll never go outside of the box. They don’t want to try to be funny, because what if people don’t think it’s funny. They’ll never try to be exciting, because what if people find it boring. They’ll never try to be weird, because what if some people don’t like things that are weird.
It might sound scary, but sometimes you just need to accept the fact that not every video is gonna work. Not every video is going to be a success. Not every video is going to get you a congratulations from your CEO. That’s the beauty of digital content. When something doesn’t work, you post something else. Believe it or not, the digital world is a forgiving and fast moving place. If you want to go viral, you’ll have to take risks. And if you take risks, you’re going to fail… A lot. But I promise if you get that one video that drives 5 million views, the 15 you posted that got 200 views are going to feel like distant distant memories.