There seems to be a weird obsession right now with “going viral.”
People spending hours trying to work out what the latest TikTok trend is, jumping on trending audio clips, or forcing their brand into whatever type of post happens to be trending today in the hope they can have a piece of that action. .
Unless you are selling novelty socks globally, chasing viral trends is usually a massive waste of your time.
Trying to force your business into a trend that has nothing to do with what you do usually just looks a bit desperate.
Stop trying to catch that wave that is likely to never come, viral campaigns and posts happen by accident, usually when people are least expecting it, yes it is possible to engineer them if you have a big enough brand and a lot of money, but that’s likely not you.
What actually works?… Plain old usefulness.
What to do instead of trend-chasing:
- Answer your customers’ actual questions
Go look at your sent email folder. What five questions do new clients ask you all the time? Write five simple, straight-talking posts answering them directly. Write the post on your blog (you do have a blog right?) and then create a social post linking to it, don’t forget to create a post on your Google Business Profile linking to your blog also, Google loves to join all the dots together. - Make your site easy to navigate
People don’t visit your site to be entertained by flashy animations. They come to find your phone number, check your opening hours, or see if you can solve their problem. Don’t hide what your customers want. - Focus on local relevanc
If you offer a service in Yorkshire, you don’t need 100,000 views from
strangers across the globe. 50 hits from local people who genuinely want to hire you is much better to aim for.
Stop worrying about viral fame. Be clear, be helpful, and make sure your website makes doing business with you as frictionless as possible.
I’m Craig Pickles, a web designer, developer, technical SEO and social media specialist.