The vanity of Viral and Trending- The curious case of who will bell the cat
If you have been working in the Social Media agency, one thing which you will hear during the pitch or even during your client’s review is Let’s do something Viral. Now here comes the catch, how do you define a viral content, a content which appeals to emotions of your target audience and reaches out to the wider audience with or without the usual distribution cost. Now let us take the example of the classic viral song and you can read it about here.
Nothing on the internet goes viral without careful planning, execution and paid distribution, there is a myth that good content can reach out to the audience exponentially without planning or paid resources. Now there was an open letter which was published by one of the digital agency, you can read the letter here
What usually happens is when it comes to social media, some of us mistake virality for engagement or creating the connection with the audience and let us take the example of Kolaveri Di, it might have garnered eyeballs and YouTube video views, but was that purpose of the song? The answer to that is a big NO. The film tanked at Box Office and distributors went in red, so how will you justify at the end of day 3 was a film and not a song which was supposed to be sold.
We human beings are lazy, and we tend to measure things that are measurable but ignore important factors which are nonmeasurable but play a much more significant role in our success. What is an easy out here is to follow so-called trending format, no one knows who decides this but the so-called gatekeepers are not an agency or even brands but content curators who are like a parasite and the moment you tag them your post will be featured. Now is the brand getting visibility, maybe to an extent it is, but larger visibility and reach is for the content curator.
First, all the agencies and brand managers have to decide if jumping into bandwagon makes sense for the brand. Will my target audience appreciate it? Will it evoke the desired action among my consumers? Will this help in the brand’s long term narrative? Or will it be just a one-off a post which only matters to brand managers and your friends in social media agency circle wherein you can go gaga about how nice the creative is, but the truth would be it is not connecting to the rest of your story or brand guideline? It can be an easy way out to show to the clients we have increased reach or engagement in the short term but ignoring long term goals.
I am in no way saying there should not be content curators, they have a place and they should play an outsider role constructively instead of trying to sell and upsell their awards show. The response by the content curator can be read here.
To conclude, I feel only people who have skin in the game should have to say in this, which is social media agencies and brands, not the content curator. It is high time we as agencies and brands looked beyond trending and look how we can create connections with the audience in this age of hyper technology and ensure consumers take the desired action instead of focusing on the short term.
And now one of us has addressed it, hopefully, this will have more nuanced discussion inside agencies and brands, instead of let’s do one trending post the focus will be on building a great brand story with meaningful insights and creating conversations.
