Wanna Go Viral? Here’s How…
Not too long ago, I had the opportunity to make one of my clients go viral. The client was a rapper by the name of Nathan Fouts, out of Nashville, TN. We met about 2 years ago at a show in his hometown when a mutual friend of ours booked both he and an artist I was managing at the time for a show. Fast forward to 3 months ago, he and our mutual friend both call me, saying they had an interesting piece of content from which he could go viral from.
It was a video of Nathan in his room, listening to his then-unreleased single “Educated.” He proceeds to dance around his room to the song while smoking a blunt and waving his gun around. Suddenly, the gun goes off. Nathan drops the gun and the blunt and looks around his room dazed and confused. His mom then proceeds to angrily rush into his room and give him one of the most savage beatings of internet mom history, right in front of the camera!
I called them back to let them know that they were right! This was definitely something that I was confident would go viral. So we got to work the next week, and surprise, I was right. The video went extremely viral, amassing over 25 Million views between Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and YouTube. It was picked up by Worldstar, and Desus and Mero even did a segment on it on their Vice show. His song also benefited from being attached to it as well, garnering over 250k streams in total to date.
I learned a lot from the situation, mostly that with the right content and strategy it could definitely happen again. If you clicked on this article, that must mean you’re interested in going viral. Or at least trying. So, with that being said, I want to share with you some tips that you can use in your pursuit of viral fame.
Create Viral Content
It’s rare that something as simple as a clip of someone vibing out in the studio or chilling with their friends goes viral. The internet is too complex for that. People are being exposed to information and content all the time, so you have to do something that grabs the people’s attention. Something that competes with memes and 6ix9ine videos!
The best way to do so is to create a piece of content that triggers one or more of the 7 high-arousal emotions. This Social Triggers article goes into it a little more deeply, but they are awe, anger, anxiety (try saying that 3 times fast), fear, joy, lust, and surprise. So in Nathan’s instance, he triggered two of those emotions: fear and joy. Fear because there were a lot of people who were deeply offended by his use of a gun in the video, as well as the caption that he used for it on his own page. Joy because there were people who genuinely found the video hilarious and got a real kick out of it. It doesn’t always have to be something dangerous or stupid though. Don’t let 6ix9ine fool you into thinking that. Just take a look at this or this. Two pieces of fun content that are great examples of viral content. Just take the time out to create something that is out of the norm and triggers a response from people.
Distribute Content Accordingly
So you’ve taken my advice. You’ve created an amazing piece of content that just shocks and awes everyone you show it to. What do you do next? Do you just post it on your page and wait for flocks of people to swarm your page and carry it to viraldom? You could, it happens, but unless you already have a large following that’s probably not going to happen. You’ll want to give it a boost by having the content posted on relevant media channels. I say relevant channels because it has to make sense for the content and the audience.
In Nathan’s case, we decided to use Instagram and target meme pages (because it was funny) and music pages (because of the song attached). So, I reached out to numerous meme accounts (@hoodclips, @dailyhoodclip.s, etc) and numerous music accounts (@rap, @theviralmusic, etc), and got them to post the video. That’s when it really spread. Soon, other Instagram pages started picking it up and reposting it. It then spread to Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. From there it was over. You can also solicit the help of influencers to help expedite the process.
Now I’m not going to lie to you, this part of the plan is definitely costly. Most of these pages and influencers charge to post content and sometimes the price can get crazy. If you can afford to, I would definitely start with the larger ones. It tends to spread quicker since it trickles down to other pages. But if you can’t, start small! I’ve run across meme pages who get crazy engagement and only charge like $10 bucks for a post. You just have to be more selective and strategic since you won’t have the luxury of extremely large numbers at your side. If you’re looking to kick the viral process off though, it’s definitely something you have to do. How can it spread if nobody sees it?
Final Thoughts
Going viral is definitely not as hard as it seems. It can literally be as easy as the steps above. However, if you don’t have the budget for the content distribution part, I would say just post viral content to your socials consistently and use your friends to spread it out. It’ll be a slow grind, but eventually, you’ll build a base who helps you go viral. On a final note, also remember that you don’t dictate what goes viral the people do. If they don’t like it they don’t like it. Don’t sweat it. Take what you learned from the experience and go back to the drawing board. People are always looking for the next viral sensation.
