Going Viral Shouldn't be the Goal

It seems to be a consistent marketing goal in this current landscape. Countless companies are creating content in the hopes that they get their ‘Old Spice’ moment.

Those 15 minutes of fame that can potentially increase your awareness, your reach, your engagement and hopefully your sales. But this shouldn’t be a standalone goal. Going viral should simply be a welcomed bonus on the back of the quality of your content and marketing strategy. With all the excitement and benefits of virality it is more important now than ever to create authentic, relevant, interesting, inspiring and unique content. It is also important to have figured out how to turn attention into something truly useful....and tangible.

Pokémon Go is a fantastic example of this. It is demonstrated through their analytics that they were not prepared for the sudden popularity of their game. They made genuinely unique content that allowed people to develop a real connection with. However, they had methods to turn any sized customer base into something truly valuable. In app purchases were involved from day one and they had planned to charge a fee from companies that wanted to be used as ‘special locations’. Although they were not prepared for that amount of attention they HAD planned past the initial stage of awareness.

A year after launch in 2017 it reportedly had 65 million monthly active users and was still generating substantially high revenue; removing the mantle of being a ‘fad’. This is a marginal number from the over 750 million who had downloaded it but in comparison to other mobile apps active user bases it is still top tier.

Analysing Pokémon Go demonstrates that whilst virality can be incredibly beneficial, aiming for it as oppose to great content doesn't guarantee success. Secondly, not having long term plans in place to capitalise on it would ultimately render the virality unsuccessful.