Going Viral One of These Days

There is a lot of hype around social media. Businesses are trying to figure out the best way to engage with it. Many are feeling the burden of having to run a social media campaign. Many others are questioning the benefits of even focusing on it at all.

Social media is still a relatively new phenomenon. Businesses are still unsure of the way they should incorporate social media activity. Many acknowledge more than anything they need to have a presence.

Most well rounded business with all facets covered have at least one social media account. Depending on the industry, social media can be used effectively as a way to reach out to people.

In the skip bin hire industry it is probably not as important as say the copywriting industry. Still businesses of all shapes and sizes know that they should at least be on there. After all it is free.

Many experts like famous fashion designer Alex Perry believe that you need to become known in the real world before you begin to dig your teeth into the social media world. They argue it is best to become well known in your expertise in the real world, later on this success will translate onto the online world. The adage here is "kick butt first, takes name later?'

For those working in the online media space it is a different story. They are trying to incorporate social media into their employer's online strategy. This is an easier situation here because now they can leverage the success of the brand to curate a decent social media representation.

This is much different than trying to build something from nothing. In this situation the person is trying to find new ways for the business' customers to engage with their brand.

Now we shall move along to those poor content marketers who are trying to create something from nothing. Often this is a side project for many of them. Because as we all know, creating something from nothing is not easy. However this also presents a unique opportunity for the social media person.

Their greatest skill is going to be their ability to make something go 'viral'. To create something that out of nowhere generates a bunch of likes, views and clicks. The social media manager then has the ability to create some kind of a brand around this new audience.

Most people who go viral do not expect it happen and it is not something that they should bank on. The amount of content that actually goes viral is still incredible small.

Most marketers will focus on their clients who already have a large and well known brand.  They will create content around this brand that represent the mission statement of that company. They must also tap into the various aspects of the business that have made it a success in the first place.

The best social media managers will be those who are already able to use content that has become or is becoming popular and leverage that for their own use. To use popularity elsewhere to create new content that they can use to build their own brand.

The savvy marketer will ride on the coattails of popular content. Once something goes viral they will use this content themselves. They will find a way to put a creative twist on the original.

As a social media manager it is important to not only focus your efforts on yourself and creating something that you think is great. Take advantage of the content that is already popular and change it around a bit. Baby steps, baby steps.

A social media manager's success will lie around their ability to work with whatever is already working. There is no point trying to reinvent the wheel and go off on your own tangent. The social media manager needs to ensure that what they are doing is not something completely random, that they are tapping into popular content out there.

Mind you when something goes viral it is often unexpected and random. But a social media manager should not rely on their content to go viral. It should not even be part of their strategy. They should focus on producing engaging fresh content. This way they will ironically stand a better chance of going viral.

A good social media manager needs to be tapping into the cutting edge of their industry. They need to ensure that they have a hand on what is going on. This is why it is important for them to have a few extra pages that they can experiment with. They can test new things, see what works and see if they can create something popular out of nothing.

Again, the chance of content going viral is so slim that the marketer should not focus on this whatsoever. In fact focusing on something becoming really popular is going to hamper their efforts. Instead they should just focus on creating great content. Their profile will naturally improve over time regardless of whether or not something goes viral.

Those working in social who are clever will know how to ride off the back of others. They will be able to effectively build up a small following for themselves using the content that has already become popular.

The best social media person must be able to feed off other popular content in a way to benefit themselves. They must have their own techniques for achieving this. What is most important is that they are constantly experimenting and are not afraid of putting themselves out there and pushing then envelope.