It’s always nice to see your digital marketing efforts get viral on social media and reach a wide audience in a very short period of time. However, chasing viral marketing may lead to your downfall in this digital age.
Virality is often dictated by the STEPPS factor – Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories. Due to the widespread content, the things that trend these days can range from heartfelt stories to a simple photo of an egg.
Yes, a stock image of an egg went viral on Instagram and beat Kylie Jenner’s record for the number of likes. If this piece of news does not dissuade you from pursuing virality mindlessly, here are 3 more reasons to do so:
Right Audience Over Wide Audience
It is pointless to reach a million users if they lack the ability or motivation to take action. Instead, brands should focus on targeting the right audience group.
For effective digital marketing, the right targeting strategy should be applied during the media buy stage, so that your campaigns can reach a wide group of audience. This means knowing your target audience’s demographics, interests etc.
If you are struggling in this area, feel free to approach a professional digital marketing agency to handle it for you.
High-Quality Interactions Over High Quantity Interactions
Getting viral is about aiming for high quantity of interactions with your marketing efforts. However, for brands that are starting out, you should aim for quality interactions instead.
Quality interactions create brand loyalty amongst your audiences, as you are able to cater to their needs properly and sincerely. With a huge volume of interactions, you would not be able to do so. As a result, this will lead to a decrease in brand loyalty amongst your consumers.
Brand loyalty is important in the era of social media, whereby communications and interactions are often transparent. Hence, ensure that you are able to respond to the volume of interactions, before aiming for a viral marketing campaign.
Branding Over Virality
It’s more important to accentuate and strengthen your brand than to get your name out there. With the things that are trending now, it’s not always a good idea to blindly follow the ongoing trends.
IKEA Singapore has done a fantastic job tapping on current trends yet linking it to their products, without being insensitive. It can be difficult to tread the lines sometimes when it comes to following the trends. Instead, find creative ways to promote your brand, i.e. visuals, out-of-house (OOH) marketing or creative copywriting.
Can’t seem to wreck your brains for a creative idea that will work? Let a 360° marketing agency get it done for you.
A Final Note
Viral marketing is highly sought after these days. However, it is important to note the significance and downfalls of virality for your respective brand.
If you are looking to reach out to your target audience with an effective marketing strategy, consult a branding agency that is able to craft a full-fledged marketing campaign for you.
Table of Contents
Right Audience Over Wide Audience
High-Quality Interactions Over High Quantity Interactions
Branding Over Virality
A Final Note
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When Snapchat launched Augmented Reality (AR) games last month, it positioned themselves to take on the giants and move one step ahead of the competition.
However, it didn’t take long for the competition to fight back, as Facebook launched AR games in Messenger earlier this August.
The bout between these platforms will continue to benefit creative digital marketers as they continue to one-up each other and provide more and better tools.
So the age-old question follows, now what?
When we talk about talking selfies and stories on our socials, which side are you on? Instagram, Facebook or… Snapchat? When Facebook attempted to buy Snapchat recently, they were rejected despite a whopping bid of $3 billion. In response, Facebook leveraged on their acquisition of Instagram to compete against Snapchat, by launching Instagram stories or what’s widely known at Instastories.
Talk about life’s regrets.
With the purchase, Instagram’s platform soared in terms of the number of users and ads, while Snapchat struggled to keep up. Facebook also launched Facebook Stories to add options for the avid social media users. From there, Snapchat started to look more and more like an Instagram copy instead of the other way around, as they struggled to innovate to pull ahead of its ‘successor’.
Until now.
Snapchat recently launched a gaming platform, similar to WeChat, in an attempt to improve user engagement and move ahead of their rival. They released a series of Snapchat filter games and Augmented Reality (AR) games that users can play on the platform.
Most notably, the AR Tennis game against Serena Williams is a clear sign that Snapchat’s advanced AR technology is going to become their selling point.
Y’all seeing this? Get your chance to battle @serenawilliams – you wont win 😂 but try your best and share your high score. pic.twitter.com/sXuxtImgJI
— Alexis Ohanian 🧠 (@alexisohanian) July 2, 2018
Credit: Alexis Ohanian Sr.
Snapchat games provide an additional tool for businesses to adapt. (YAY!) That is always welcomed for creative people (*wink wink*) to adapt for marketing.
Does Snapchat still matter?
Well, it really depends.
Snapchat numbers have risen steadily over the past year, with more and more youths adopting the platform. We’ve to admit, they’ve got really nice filters. Heh. This means any strategy or business targeting youths have to take Snapchat into serious consideration.
Incorporating gaming has given other platforms (aka Facebook) a boost before and it should do the same for Snapchat.
What can businesses do with this information?
Consider playing around with Snapchat’s functions and ads viewing if you are unfamiliar with the platform. Businesses can also start looking into adapting filters and AR games to help their own cause.
Do keep the demographics of Snapchat in mind while developing and utilising them and tie in to your branding. It will be a waste of marketing dollars otherwise.
If you want to utilise them, and you are having trouble with incorporating into your brand, consult an agency to help you.