When a marketing campaign goes viral, it can dramatically increase brand awareness, sales, and recognition. This is why going viral is so appealing to business owners. So what does it take to get your content noticed in a big way?
By creating engaging, shareable, and emotionally resonant content, businesses can harness the power of social media to spread their message and generate buzz about their brand.
Read on to see the top viral marketing campaigns of the past few decades and learn how to apply the same viral marketing strategies to your own business.
Sell your products online with confidence
Officially recommended by WooCommerce, our hosting is made for online businesses like yours.
5 Examples of Successful Viral Marketing Campaigns
These five examples show how different types of campaigns can lead to viral success, from fundraising to humor to inclusivity, and provide valuable lessons for marketers looking to create their own viral marketing campaigns. We provide.
Here are five real-life examples of viral marketing campaigns that captured the attention of millions of people around the world.
1. ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is a social media phenomenon that took the world by storm in 2014. The campaign involves people holding buckets of ice water over their heads and challenging others to do the same, all with the aim of raising awareness and funds for his ALS Association. did. .
The campaign raised more than $115 million in donations and included celebrity participants including Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey.
2. “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” by Old Spice
Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign is a classic example of viral marketing done right. The campaign featured actor Isaiah Mustafa delivering a tongue-in-cheek monologue about men’s attractiveness while promoting Old Spice’s line of grooming products.
The ad quickly went viral, racking up over 50 million views on YouTube alone.
3. Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign
In 2011, Coca-Cola launched its “Share a Coke” campaign, printing popular names on cola bottles and cans. The campaign encouraged people to buy Coke products to find their name or the name of a loved one and share the Coke with them.
The campaign was a huge success, with Coca-Cola reporting a 2.5% increase in sales and over 1.2 million photos shared on social media using the #ShareACoke hashtag.
4. Dollar Shave Club
Dollar Shave Club is a subscription-based service that delivers razors and other grooming products directly to consumers. The company’s viral marketing campaign features a humorous video starring founder Michael Dubin in which he pokes fun at the height of razor blades and the convenience of Dollar’s Shave Club. and advertised affordable prices.
The video quickly went viral, racking up over 26 million views and catapulting the company to success.
5. Airbnb’s “We Are Here” campaign
Airbnb’s “We Are Here” campaign aimed to promote diversity and inclusion by highlighting the stories of real people who use the platform to travel and connect with others. The campaign featured a series of videos and photos showcasing the diversity of the Airbnb community, along with the hashtag #WeAreHere.
The campaign was a huge success, garnering over 7 million views and being widely praised for its message of unity and inclusivity.
5 common elements of viral marketing campaigns
Viral marketing campaigns can be a very powerful tool for businesses looking to connect with their audience and promote their brand. By creating shareable, memorable, and emotionally resonant content, businesses can generate buzz that spreads like wildfire on social media and beyond.
Creating a great marketing campaign is a skill, but there’s no magic formula behind it. Think about your favorite viral marketing campaign. You will notice that they have some common characteristics. Marketers who want to reach a wider audience should keep these five things in mind:
1. Viral marketing speaks to a specific audience
The key to a successful viral marketing campaign is understanding your audience and their desires, fears, and pain points. Your campaign must resonate with your audience and be persuasive. It also has to be interesting enough for viewers to want to share it with their friends and family.
Use these questions as a starting point when thinking about how to speak to your audience.
- what do they think?
- What challenges do they face?
- How will your suggestions help them overcome these challenges?
- Where do they hang out online?
Once you know who you’re targeting, it’s much easier to figure out. Digital content strategy Learn what you can use to reach them and what marketing messages will resonate with them.
There are various tools available to help marketers research their target audience, but two of the best are websites and Google Analytics. Using the data provided by Google Analytics, you can extract detailed insights about your audience, including age, location, gender, interests, language, and more.
This information helps you plan your marketing campaigns and increases the likelihood that your audience will interact with and share your content.
2. Viral marketing campaigns evoke emotion
Viral marketing campaigns are highly effective when they deeply touch the emotions of your customers. Understanding your audience and how your product or service hits them can have this same effect on your business.
of Dove Real Beauty Sketch The campaign did just this. The campaign was incredibly moving, eliciting a wide range of emotions in just a few minutes on screen. After seeing this ad, you may have felt frustrated, anxious, or confident.
Each commercial features a person describing what they look like to an artist who cannot see them. Artists draw portraits based on those details. After the first portrait is completed, the artist paints a second portrait of her based on what he sees.
We found that the second portrait, depicting what the artist saw, was much more beautiful and realistic than the first portrait, which was based on the individual’s own description.
Dove’s message shows that our perception of ourselves can be worse than how others see us. This message inspired a conversation about self-worth and the beauty that lies within all of us.
To date, Real Beauty Sketches has received approximately 180 million views and continues to grow, likely due to its relatability and emotional appeal.
3. They don’t take their viral marketing campaigns too seriously.
In 2017, Carter WilkersonA 16-year-old from Reno, Nevada, jokingly tweeted how many retweets he would have to retweet Wendy’s to get free chicken nuggets for a year. The chain could have easily ignored the tweet, but instead quickly responded with “18 million.”
Carter’s tweets were retweeted and shared, ultimately helping him reach his goal. Although it only received 3 million retweets, it became the most retweeted tweet at the time. Wendy’s also decided to reward his efforts, even though he fell short of his original goal of 18 million retweets.
Wendy’s probably didn’t expect the tweet to go viral, but once it did, they encouraged other users to help Carter reach her goal.
This unlikely viral marketing campaign wasn’t the result of months of planning. Instead, Wendy’s was able to gain positive attention and brand recognition by closely monitoring social channels and seizing the moment.
Every day, consumers interact and post share-worthy content about the brands they love on social media. Business owners can use social listening tools to stay on top of what their customers are saying about their brand. You never know when you’ll find a social media post that helps generate marketing buzz for your business.
4. Use eye-catching visuals in your viral marketing campaigns
Twitter has noticed the trend of users using social media platforms to make their dreams come true. These posts surpassed his 59 million tweets.
Capitalizing on this trend, Twitter launched a campaign called “Tweet It Into Existence” in major cities across North America. On Twitter, Demi Lovato, Megan Thee Stallion, Issa Rae, and other celebrities tweeted about their big goals in life and shared success stories. The hope was for users to tweet about their dreams and see them come true. done.
A viral marketing campaign requires a visual strategy and an eye-catching design. Campaigns need to tell a story. The best stories use creative elements that resonate with viewers.
Although Twitter used an in-house team to execute its “Tweet It Into Existence” campaign, it may be worth working with a designer or contractor to execute the campaign’s visuals.
Remember, your marketing campaign won’t go viral unless it’s unique, engaging, and innovative. Your campaign should be visually and creatively appealing to grab your audience’s attention.
5. Viral marketing is timely
Remember Zoom’s virtual background contest? In March 2020, at the beginning of the global pandemic, Zoom launched a viral marketing campaign that allowed users to share videos and photos using Zoom’s virtual background feature.
If you participated in our virtual background competition, we hope you felt a sense of community togetherness and resilience during these unprecedented times. The campaign was timely given current events and sensitive to the privacy of remote workers at home.
This turned what seemed like a bleak future into an exciting experience, with people looking forward to monthly prizes and giveaways. Over 50,000 people participated in the contest. The campaign helped spread awareness of Zoom and even evangelize organic products by having users share the contest on social media.
Zoom’s virtual background contest showed that Zoom is relevant and aware of the times. You might think Zoom’s success was a blessing in disguise, but it wasn’t the only online conferencing software out there. Skype existed long before Zoom.
The takeaway from Zoom’s viral marketing campaigns is that any company can achieve them as long as they stay on top of current events and anticipate new trends. You can take a page out of his book on Zoom by planning a holiday challenge related to your industry or creating a marketing campaign that gets your audience to share on social media.
If you want to maximize your sales, try Nexcess
If you want to maximize your sales, follow these tips. You may find that your brand is the one everyone is talking about.
There is no exact formula for creating viral content. You can review what has worked in the past and try to recreate it. Ultimately, it’s all about creating great content and ensuring your e-commerce site performs at its best to handle the traffic from your next viral marketing campaign.
Be prepared to handle spikes in traffic, whether your site is due to a sale or going viral. With Nexcess managed hosting, you can experience lightning-fast speeds and streamlined checkout, even during peak traffic times.
Check out managed items WooCommerce hosting You can start planning for Necess today.
