Every one of us has seen this at least once: a relatively small creator posts a video that goes extremely viral, amassing millions of views, and they enjoy their 15 minutes of fame but ultimately fail to capitalize on their virality, before slowly fading back into obscurity. Although nearly every content creator on social media wants to go viral, many don't know how to turn their viral videos into sustained, long-term growth. In some cases, virality can completely mess up an account's engagement metrics and effectively kill any long-term growth it could have enjoyed.
The reality is that going viral isn't always good for an account. Depending on how a creator handles themselves during and after a viral moment, virality can either be the catalyst for long-term growth, a temporary blip in the creator's view count, or a barrier to sustained growth. This guide will discuss why viral videos don't always translate into long-term growth, common mistakes content creators make during and after a viral spike, and how creators can maintain momentum from viral videos well into the future.
Why Viral Success Doesn't Automatically Mean Long-Term Growth
Social media algorithms rely on content and audience relevance to ensure solid engagement for the posts they distribute. Simply put, this means an algorithm will try its hardest to recommend content to people most likely to resonate with and engage with it. To do this, the algorithm will steadily, and over time, build a relevance profile based on the type of content a creator produces. Every engagement metric provides an important data point that algorithms use to gradually narrow down an account's target audience until they have a precise relevance profile that maximizes user engagement.
Viral posts essentially take a sledgehammer to this relevance profile by attracting broader and less relevant audiences that confuse the algorithm's targeting mechanisms. Registering a sudden spike in engagement, especially if the creator seeks even more virality with similar videos, the algorithm tries to find more viewers similar to the ones who watched your viral video. This can align your content distribution with viewers outside your core niche and cap the number of relevant viewers who can find your videos. Furthermore, these broader audiences are a lot less likely to engage with your main content, especially if the viral video that brought them to your account wasn't niche-relevant.
Mistakes That Happen During a Viral Spike
With millions of creators posting millions of videos on social media every day, going viral can be just what you need to bring fresh viewers to your account. However, viral posts don't immediately translate to sustained, long-term growth: you have to intentionally convert them from curious viewers to followers to ensure you gain real value from viral posts.
Here are some of the mistakes you should avoid making during a viral spike:
Ignoring the Surge in Comments and Messages
A viral video on your profile will probably lead to a surge of new comments and messages, and this represents an opportunity you should not waste. These are among the main user engagement metrics algorithms use to determine how to scale content distribution. Comments represent an active form of user engagement that signals clear value to the algorithm, and creators who reply to comments and messages can trigger more in-depth discussions that signal even greater value to the algorithm and incentivize it to scale up an account's content distribution.
Relying on comments and direct messages from viewers also allows creators to build trust and foster connections. It encourages return engagement by incentivizing viewers to comment on future posts, humanizes your brand, builds community trust, and can help creators unlock new opportunities.
Posting Unrelated Content to Chase the Momentum
Your most recent video has gone viral, and millions of new eyes are on your account. Wanting to capitalize on the newfound virality, you rapidly post several more videos unrelated to your niche to maintain momentum. The plan looks good on paper: posting more when your account is enjoying extreme visibility should keep the momentum going, right? Well, not always, especially when the content you post to chase that viral momentum isn't aligned with your niche focus.
As we established, algorithms rely on narrow, precise relevance profiles to recommend new content. An influx of viewers from outside your chosen niche will dilute your established relevance profile and confuse the algorithm's targeting mechanisms. Additionally, it risks alienating established followers drawn to your original content, making them uninterested in new videos.
Overloading New Visitors With Self-Promotion
Incorporating self-promotion into content is always tricky. You need to promote yourself to boost your account's growth and achieve your social media objectives, but too much self-promotion will actively work against you. Establishing trust and showcasing expertise should always come before self-promotion. However, if you post content with heavy self-promotion right when a massive wave of fresh viewers hits your account, the odds of driving them away rather than converting them into loyal followers become astronomically high.
Mistakes That Happen After the Spike Fades
The period after a viral surge in viewers fades is just as important as the viral surge itself. This is when the content creators who can convert virality into sustained growth differentiate themselves from those who cannot.
Trying to Force a Repeat Viral Moment
It's a very common temptation among new content creators who post a viral video. Seeing millions of people view, like, and comment on your post feels great, especially when you've never drawn such strong engagement. As such, many creators try to recreate or force a repeat viral moment in a desperate bid to boost their engagement rates again. Unfortunately, this often means repeating the same format in an attempt to strike gold for the second time, or abandoning their established niche or content to chase more viral moments. This mistake will leave your regular content strategy unfocused and inconsistent, which is the last thing you want if your goal is to grow on social media.
Neglecting the Account's Established Content Pillars
Content pillars are the foundation of every effective content strategy. These are the main topics you cover in your content, and they are critical to helping the algorithm fine-tune its relevance profile. However, when some creators go viral, they decide to rebuild their entire content strategy around their brief moment of viral fame in an attempt to chase that high. This will erode the relevance profile algorithms built for your account before you went viral, making it difficult for the systems to recommend your content to relevant audiences, cratering early engagement signals, and capping your reach.
Failing to Follow Up With New Followers
You posted a video that went viral, and now you have thousands of new followers who are actively checking your account for more content. Following up during the brief window where they are actively interested in your content allows you to showcase your expertise, build more trust, and cement their status as followers. Following up after a viral, niche-related post will ensure that the new, relevant viewers you gain after the viral moment see that you have more to offer than the initial viral video and will incentivize them to stay and keep coming back for more content. Failing to follow up wastes this window and keeps your account from growing as quickly as it could.
How to Protect Long-Term Growth During a Viral Moment
Virality is only effective if you can parlay it into long-term growth. Otherwise, it's just a temporary blip in your view count, or, worse, a net negative on your account's future growth prospects.
Let's talk about how creators can ensure long-term growth during a viral moment:
Stay Consistent With Your Niche
The last thing you want to do during a viral moment is become inconsistent or outright abandon your niche in favor of trend-based content to engineer more viral moments. If you had a following before going viral, being inconsistent with your niche does two things: it confuses the algorithm's relevance profile, messes up your content distribution, and alienates existing followers. What you need to do is stay within your chosen niche and post content that aligns with your content pillars. As tempting as it may be to try to recreate your viral moment, remaining niche-relevant will be more effective for long-term growth by keeping old followers and new, niche-relevant viewers satisfied, and reinforcing the relevance signals that algorithms use to recommend content.
Prioritize Engagement Over Additional Posting
Engaging with your audience through comments and messages during your viral surge is more important than posting more videos to capitalize on the ongoing virality. Responding to comment chains and private messages can significantly boost engagement on your viral video and make it easier to convert the momentum into a loyal following. Conversely, rushing out new, unrelated content spreads users' attention across several posts instead of concentrating it on one, which can kill your momentum and prevent you from gaining loyal followers from your viral moment.
Follow Up Quickly With Related Content
This tactic will be most effective if the viral video that boosted your momentum was relevant to your niche. In this situation, following up quickly with related content when new viewers are still primed for your content incentivizes them to sign on as followers and consume more of your content. Furthermore, it caters to your established audience, allowing you to serve both old followers and new viewers in one go without losing the momentum gained from going viral.
Virality Should Serve Your Strategy, Not Replace It
Viral moments can serve as effective levers for long-term growth, but only when handled precisely and deliberately. Translating viral momentum into sustained growth requires engaging new viewers rather than rushing posts, maintaining consistency within your established niche, and following up with related content to convert curious viewers into loyal followers. Don't abandon the content strategy and niche that built your account in the first place in favor of seeking another 15 minutes of fame.
