The typical content marketer will slowly build content that attracts attention and traffic, often through blogging. This has become a large part of the digital marketing playing field. However, there is another method that can give this activity a exponential boost – Viral Content. Viral content is media that becomes very popular and contagious online, so much so that it is shared extensively and becomes ‘Viral’.
Videos are king of viral content, although it can take other forms, such as graphics or infographics. The most shareable content is usually always positive and typically humorous, emotional or useful in some way to the recipient
There are strong SEO benefits from viral content through inbound links and widespread brand recognition is another valuable outcome. But viral content can’t be one long advert. The central theme of the content has to be around the problem or issue your product or service resolves rather than a descriptor of product or service itself.
Once the content has been produced you’ve got to get it sharing. There are sites that accommodate all forms of content, YouTube for videos or pdviz.com for inforgraphics. The SEO benefits rely on the content appearing on numerous sites that are themselves high-ranking. For sharing purposes you can get the ball rolling by asking employees and acquaintances to share your content on their personal social media accounts.
Here are two great examples of video content that has gone viral recently:
Evian Baby & Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfxB5ut-KTs
Created by Evian this video has amassed a huge 92,407,958 views on YouTube. The equation they seemed to have followed is cute babies + catchy music = huge online following.
Test Drive Pepsi Prank
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5mHPo2yDG8
A great example of viral marketing on a budget. Pranks are great for viral content, and for the cost of make-up, hiring the stunt driver, and the hidden camera this video has generated 42,804,683 views.
There’s no guarantee you’ll get 10,000 unique views a week, but there is a science to viral content. We highly recommend further reading. To start with try this article from Mashable for more insight into this subject.
