Many social media creators are looking for ways to make their content go viral. However, the truth of the matter is that nobody knows the secret formula and focusing on going viral isn't a good social media strategy. You may have seen a video with millions or hundreds of thousands of views and wondered how it achieved such success.

In viral marketing, brands focus on encouraging website visitors to share a message with other users, thereby increasing the visibility of their pages and sites. In this article, we will review why it's so hard to go viral and what you can do to overcome these challenges.

Why Your Content Isn't Going Viral

There are several reasons why your content may be struggling to go viral. These include:

Hard to Replicate

In epidemiology, “viral” refers to sicknesses that spread fast. But in social media marketing, it's easy to wonder if ideas ever go viral. The fact of the matter is that many brands realize that going viral is so hard. This is probably because it cannot be replicated. In most cases, viral content becomes the darling of the internet for a few days or weeks before it's gone and forgotten, as consumers move on to the next product.

Tons of Content

Anyone can post content on social media. Statistics indicate that the competition on social media can be stiff. For instance:

• Five billion pieces of content are posted every day on Facebook.
• Over 500 million tweets are posted on X daily.
• Over 500 million pieces are posted daily on LinkedIn.

With such a vast number of posts getting created every day, it can be hard for your piece of content to stand out.

Viral Audience Dilution

Different age groups tend to receive content differently from others. According to a study by the Harvard Business Review, Gen Z, aged between 18 and 24 years, exhibit fewer positive emotions compared to older groups. Thus, how one demographic receives your campaign differs from another.

A good idea would be to ensure you are targeting the right audience. Make sure you include target audience analysis in your content strategy. This will provide you with a clear picture of who your target audience is and who they aren't. Avoid over trying to go viral. Even when your post doesn't go viral, don't panic and start sending your campaign en masse, as you will only end up reaching an uninterested audience.

Instead, adopt a content marketing mentality where you begin by determining your target audience before creating content. After you understand who you want to target, you can create engaging and innovative content pieces that resonate with your audience. Maximize the reach of the content through paid ads, email campaigns, and media syndication. If you are lucky, the content may go viral.

Focusing on Going viral and Not Solving Customer Problems

According to a study, only 26% of websites provide content that informs and leads to a sale. Many brands are no longer creating campaigns to help their customers solve problems, but rather focus on brand recognition. This can hurt brand recognition. 

Therefore, if you want to go viral, you want to stop focusing on going viral and instead focus on giving value to your customers. When you do that, your customers will begin to appreciate your content. 

Not Targeting the Right Audience

When brands were asked if their viral campaigns helped to improve their brand reputation, 69% of them responded “no”. Some suggest that it only decreased it. This is why you should invest a significant amount of time in building your brand values and reputation. However, when you focus a lot on going viral, you can easily harm this. 

When you focus a lot on going viral, you chase after clicks, comments, and shares. To increase this engagement metric, you end up trying to create some catchy headlines and turning your content into clickbait.

While viral content can help increase your click-through rate, you can struggle to turn your reached audience into brand fans. This is why brands must focus on creating high-quality content that meets the demands of their audience. According to one study, SMEs with blogs experience 126% more growth than those without. 

Additionally, 61% of online customers buy a product after reading a blog. That means if you are creating a lot of valuable content consisting of videos, blogs, and infographics, you can see far better results. 

Remember that there are no downsides to targeting the right audience. In fact, doing so might just make your content go viral.

The Algorithm

While many creators have the ultimate goal of going viral, the algorithms of some social media platforms have made it hard for them to do so. For instance, if you have only a few videos on YouTube, the platform can make it challenging for those videos to go viral. They want you to have many videos that people can binge-watch on before you can go viral.

On the other hand, LinkedIn will not recommend your content that isn't aligned with your expertise. Therefore, if you are posting a  TikTok viral video on LinkedIn, it will be hard for the content to go viral.

The algorithm also considers several factors to classify your videos and determine whether to display them to prospective viewers. These may include factors such as: 

• Level of saturation of the niche.
• Popularity of the subject matter
• Comparison with other similar videos. 
• Engagement rate of the first audience

If the algorithm is limiting the reach of your audience, it becomes harder for them to be noticed, decreasing their chances of going viral.

Poor Quality Content

If all your content is screaming “share me” with no substance, it will feel forced. Whether it's memes, chasing hashtags, or jumping into challenges, Anything unauthentic will be a turnoff for you and your brand. Therefore, avoid overproducing content with the sole aim of going viral. Instead, focus on content that aligns with your core values. Your content should also offer a solution, a story, or a unique angle that your audience will care about.

Final Thoughts

There are numerous roadblocks to going viral. The most effective strategy for going viral is, therefore, to probably stop trying to go viral. Instead of focusing on content you think may go viral, you need to create content that will solve your audience’s needs. When you do that, combined with the topics in this article, it becomes easier to go viral.