TL;DR: Why going viral is bad for your business:
- Can you handle the volumn?
- Creating for virality means youre not creating for your brand
- take up a lot of time
- not your brand
- wrong focus
- Right back where you started. Except everyone knows your name.
Let’s go viral!
It’s a phrase that should be banned from language. Why? Well first, going viral is a bad thing for your business.
That phrase implies that you can control what goes viral or doesn’t. That you know what millions of people will want to see and share at any given moment. When I put it like that it does sound crazy right?
In fact, here’s a secret. Going viral is bad for business. Yep, it’s bad for your business. There are a lot of reasons why but i’m only going to share 3. But these are 3 good ones.
The first reason why going viral is a bad thing for your business.
You ain’t got no processes.
Are you ready for the flood gates? Seriously, do you have the structures set up in place to have an increased spike in traffic? How will you handle the follow ups? How will you handle the web traffic? Do you know how to re-target the people who don’t purchase immediately? And if it’s a product, do you have a back order plan in place? These are just some of the things you’ll have to contend with if you go “viral”.
What you should do is make sure you have the processes in place to support your business and have it grow without you. For example, can you take a vacation for even a day? Can you not touch your business and still have your clients be happy? Make sure you have the processes in place so you can handle a big unexpected influx.
The second reason why going viral is a bad thing for your business.
You’re not creating content that represents your business.
If you’re creating content to be popular, you’re creating content that doesn’t represent your brand. Generally, when we think of thing going viral – we think of funny, wacky, weird things. But does that represent your brand? And if it does – has it worked. You are also taking up a lo of time focusing on one aspect of you business. That’s not a bad thing – but have you delegated the other tasks you have to manage? The most important thing about going “viral” is not to try to go viral.
What you should do is create content regularly, consistently, steady, routinely….you get the point. Not only do you have an active and engaged audience when you are dong this but the chances naturally go up that your might happen to go viral. (Keep in mind that going viral is like winning the lottery)
The third reason why going viral is a bad thing for your business.
All the buzz and no extra business.
Unless you are preared, you end up right back where you started except everyone knows your name. If you have a piece of content get 500,000k views do you know how to convert those to customers? How will you keep them engaged?
What you should do is create a strategy, funnel, or whatever to automate your follow up and customer engagement. Maximize the customers you have now. Make more money with what you have now.
Going viral isn’t going to save your business. It’s what you have in place to capitalize on the publicity that will save your business. And if you don’t have those things in place then don’t try to go “viral” In fact, go get a business coach and plug in the holes.