Dreams Do Come True: Make Your Business Go Viral!
Dreams do come true in business. The concept of viral marketing is a highly effective one if a somewhat complex one to utilize.
Before we go any further, let’s define exactly what viral marketing is and how it can benefit business to ensure your dreams do come true.
Viral marketing is the rapid sharing of an idea via social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Usually, a portion of the idea that has gone viral contains a marketing method of some sort.
That being said, all kinds of things go viral, from hilarious cat videos and tantruming toddlers to music stars like Miley Cyrus whose video for ‘Wrecking Ball’ went viral in record time back in 2014.
Which of these video types contain a marketing method? The Miley Cyrus video, of course – when a celebrity shares a music video on social media they are conveying the message ‘buy my music’, it’s subtle, but it’s there.
An important thing to understand about viral marketing to ensure dreams do come true is that it’s not just about selling products. All sorts of things can go viral, from blog posts and tweets to videos and memes.
Websites themselves can also go viral, as is the case with Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, YouTube, and an array of other popular sites that get used by billions of people on an hourly basis.
Like various other marketing types, the aim of viral marketing is simple: to increase the reach of a brand or product and boost sales. Viral marketing techniques can be a highly effective way to get the results that you want or need. The question is, what are the best methods of viral marketing?
Dreams Do Come True: Bring your products into the real world
To go viral, the usual marketing methods aren’t going to work. You need to reimagine your products and services and find unique ways to use them. Instead of simply placing them in a famous person’s hand and photographing them, you need to be more creative.
Take Samsung’s LED TV advert, they strapped LED lights to sheep and used sheep herding to create pieces of art. There’s seemingly no link between sheep, LEDs, and TVs, but it worked – the video went viral.
Whether you choose to use content marketing, tweets, statuses, or video sharing, it doesn’t matter, what matters is that the concept being used is unique and a little weird.
Say you are advertising chocolate via content marketing or video, creating content that shows you how to cook with chocolate is boring because it’s over done.
However, creating content that describes the benefits of chocolate when smeared over your skin and hair, is more interesting and more unique.
Dreams Do Come True: Team up
Working with companies outside of your usual sector can allow you to create a buzz for your brand and the company that you are collaborating with.
The company behind Oreos teamed up with indie band Owl City, for their new advert, using their singing style to create the jingles.
The buzz around this was huge because people recognized the singing style but couldn’t put their finger on who it was, which blew up social media. This was an unlikely collaboration that worked wonders.
Dreams Do Come True: Go extreme
If you sell a product or service that is perceived as being boring, you need to change that. Take the publicity stunt outside of Harrods that was used to market a Range Rover – it took an everyday product and made it blow up social media.
Range Rover placed their new model outside Harrods and covered it in pink spray paint saying ‘cheater’ and ‘I hope she was worth it’, making it look as if an angry girlfriend had got revenge on her cheating partner.
Photos of this went viral because it was so shocking and unexpected. Because of this, the new model got attention around the world. The more extreme you can be with your marketing, the higher your chances of going viral.
There you have it, a guide to making your dreams a reality and going viral. Because, yes, dreams do come true.
Insanely Clever Marketing 