Why You Shouldn’t Chase Virality
As a brand navigating social media, it's tempting to fixate on vanity metrics—the flashy numbers that seemingly validate your online presence; however, beneath the surface, virality often falls short of portraying success. Going viral should never be your goal, but rather, a strategic approach that prioritises the metrics that help you reach your individual goals as a brand is what creates a genuine impact. Sure — going viral can skyrocket your business, but here’s why having it as your goal and main priority is an illusion.
The Illusion of Success
Chasing virality creates a false sense of accomplishment. While a viral ad, video, post, tweet, etc… may generate a surge in followers, visibility and engagement, its impact is often short-lived. Vanity metrics like these fail to capture the depth of engagement or the conversion rates that truly measure success. Brands need to recognize that sustainable success on social media extends beyond fleeting moments of virality. Brands that are the most successful on social media and in business are the ones that build a relationship with their audience through consistent posting of strategic content that aligns with their identity. This audience, over time, becomes a loyal community, that trusts them, consistently engages with their content and purchases from them. That is the key to longevity, and virality can not do that for you!
Compromising Your Brand?
If most of your efforts are going into creating virality, then you are most likely sacrificing quality for virality. Quality being, your brand identity and values. Every brand needs a solid brand identity, which sets them apart from the crowd. The best brands infuse their brand identity into their content strategy, which constantly reminds their audience of what makes them different to their competitors. This can be done in discrete ways, through infusing brand colours, tone of voice, and even down to the music used over the videos. Participating in every trend in the hopes of going viral takes away from what makes you unique as a brand. Don’t get us wrong, participate in trends if they align with your brand identity - by all means, but compromising this for the sake of virality- is not it.
Sustainable Growth > Fast Growth
Instead of chasing virality, a focus on sustainable growth is the key. Something important for brands to remember is that most social media platforms will show your content to the number of people relative to your account size. As the account size increases, the platform will push your content out to more people. So don’t get discouraged if your reach and engagement is low to start. As you continue showing up consistently, posting quality content, trial and error-ing content aligned to your brand identity and building a relationship with your community — your audience will grow and expand over time! There is no special secret to it - that’s all it takes! And if you feel like you are doing that and seeing no growth - it is most likely an issue with your content. Our IG & TikTok Audits allow us to take a look at your account and content and pinpoint the problem via a 20-minute recorded video. You can book that here!
Focus On The Metrics That Matter
Tracking and measuring your growth will be essential in helping you see both how far you’ve come, as well as monitor content performance, which will allow you to make strategic decisions accordingly. The key will be to pay close attention to the metrics that align with your individual goals as a brand. For example, if your brand goals are…
increasing brand visibility - prioritizing metrics like reach and impressions can help gauge your content's reach potential,
building a community - metrics such as engagement rate and comments are more indicative of meaningful interactions and relationship-building with your audience,
driving sales - focusing on conversions and click-through rates provides valuable insights into the effectiveness of your content in driving action.
Striking a balance between all of these goals for a more holistic approach is far more valuable than focusing all your efforts on one; however, which one you focus more on and how will be dependent on your individual goals, brand identity, target audience and overall business model.
Conclusion
While the allure of instant fame and recognition may seem enticing, the reality is that sustainable growth on social media always transcends those 15 seconds of fame. Instead, you should always prioritize a strategic, long-term approach that focuses on cultivating a meaningful community rooted in your brand identity, rather than sacrificing it for the sake of a trend in hopes of going viral.
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