Going viral seems to be the equivalent of making it to the big leagues: a one-way ticket to fortune and visibility. Similar to winning the lottery, only a few people will ever reach viral status. Fortunately for business owners or service providers who use social media for their business, you don’t have to rely on going viral to make social media work for you.
Even though there are benefits to having a video seen by hundreds of thousands of people, there are other ways to achieve success through social media.
Let’s go over whether going viral is something you should be putting your energy into.
The Positives and Negatives of Going Viral
Going viral means that a piece of content—whether an article, image, quote, or video—has been shared among thousands or even millions within a short amount of time. Right now, you’re probably thinking of a few videos or memes you’ve shared with friends that everyone seemed to be talking about.
But going viral is similar to trying to catch smoke with your hands. It’s like lighting a fire: the first few flames burn bright and big, but the fire eventually dies down. The excitement over a viral post always simmers because virality relies on shock value, novelty, and alignment with current trends. These three things can’t be replicated on a daily basis.
When something does go viral, there are many benefits. A viral piece of content can lead to an increased audience, more website visits, email sign-ups, higher engagement, and even new purchases. Yet what often happens is that people view and share your content, but there’s no direct connection to your business. In other words, no one takes action to learn more about who you are. They are simply entertained or informed by your content and that’s it.
Even if a viral post leads to more product orders or service requests, if your company isn’t set up to meet the new demands, it can eventually damage your business model. You may not be able to respond to the volume of customer inquiries.
Additionally, virality can be hard to achieve. BuzzSumo states that less than 50% of content receives even eight shares.
Bottomline, if you’re lucky and prepared, going viral can change the trajectory of your business. Yet a smarter business move is focusing on other ways of achieving success through social media.
The Three C’s of Success: Consistency, Connection, and Content Strategy
Social media can often feel like a popularity contest. You spend hours finding the right lighting, angles, script, and topic for your video—all to impress hundreds of strangers. Telling people to follow your page or like your content has become part of your small talk. But is chasing likes and shares actually helping you grow your business?
While social media engagement is beneficial for business owners, it’s important to look beyond surface-level metrics and ensure that your actions align with your goals.
Your business goals should be at the forefront of your social media strategy. Once you have a clear idea of what you want to use social media for, you can start creating content that is consistent, builds connection, and follows a strategy that helps you meet your goals.
Connection
Social media can overload and numb us with information. Can you recall what you saw while scrolling on TikTok just a little while ago?
Our minds operate like a roulette table, one minute we’re watching a dance video, the next a skincare tutorial. If your content is going to be remembered or engaged with, it needs to provoke an emotion.
Whether it’s joy, fear, humor, anxiety, or shock, humans are reactive beings and when something grabs our attention, it’s usually because it made us feel something.
The simplest way to provoke an emotion is to know the pain points and desires of your current audience and prospective clients.
Social media is filled with people performing, exaggerating, and withholding the full truth. Now, with the rise of artificial intelligence, people are trusting less of what they see online. However, if you can speak to your audience in a way that makes them feel heard, seen, and understood that’s what will make your content stand out.
Consistency
Staying consistent on social media has more to do with how you show up than how often. It’s about creating an expectation with your audience and delivering on that expectation with the content you post. Can your audience look forward to certain types of content from you? When can they expect it?
When you’re consistent, it’s easier for your audience to build trust with you. Consistency can also help position you as an expert.
To stay consistent, determine which types of content you want to produce each month, and plan a time to create and post that content. Scheduling tools can help ensure your posts go out on time.
Additionally, you can create a brand style guide so that your content stays cohesive across platforms.
Content Strategy
Once you have the basics down, you can start building a content strategy. Start by auditing all the content you’ve created so far. This will give you an idea of what you’ve already posted and which topics and formats perform the best.
Next, develop your content pillars—the core areas your content will focus on. After determining what you’ll post, you can schedule it with a content calendar, as previously mentioned.
Depending on your business goals, your content focus may shift. For instance, if you’re a new business, you may want to post frequently to gain visibility.
If your business has been around for a while and you’ve built a solid following, you can create a strategy around deepening connection with your existing audience.
Finally, your content can also focus on generating leads, such as email sign-ups or YouTube subscribers, rather than only focusing on likes.
Women Who Used Strategy—Not Virality—to Achieve Business Success
- Vivian Kaye, founder and CEO of KinkyCurlyYaki, utilized influencer marketing and partnerships to tap into other people’s audiences and gain traction for her business.
- Shontay Lundy, founder of Black Girl Sunscreen, secured shelf space in major stores like Target by educating the community and appearing on podcasts and at tradeshows—not by going viral.
- Lakeysha Hallmon, founder of The Village Market & The Village Retail in Atlanta, focused on evolving her brick-and-mortar business by building trust within her community—not relying on social media hype.
Going viral can feel exciting—and it might even deliver short-term growth—but it’s not a strategy you can rely on.
Don’t build your business on fleeting trends. Build it on trust, value, and strategy.
