It feels like every marketing “guru” on social media at the moment is trying to teach you “how to create content that will go viral”.

I can hand-on-my-heart say that is one piece of advice you will NEVER find me giving.

That’s because going viral shouldn’t be your goal. 

Here’s 3 reasons why. 

1. Your focus will be in the wrong place. 

When you create content with the goal of going viral, you’re putting the focus on yourself instead of your target audience. You shouldn’t be asking “How can I get more people to see (and like) me?”. You should be thinking “How can I use my expertise to serve?”. 

Try this instead: Pay attention to trends you can adopt and put into context with your knowledge for your audience. This will help you leverage social media to reach more of your ideal audience. Your audience comes first. Trends (and going viral) come second.  

2. Attracting the “wrong” followers will hurt your engagement. 

Playing to trends in the hope of going viral might give you a rush of new followers, BUT if they don’t actually have any interest in, or need for, your product or service, all they’ll end up doing is causing your engagement to tank. That’s because you’ll have a greater number of followers yet a smaller percentage of them interacting with you. (The algorithms won’t reward you for that!) 

Try this instead: Focus on creating content that you know will lead to strong engagement with your existing audience. The algorithm will reward great engagement, and the best part is you’ll be attracting new followers with content that truly reflects who you are and what you stand for.

3. You risk abandoning your brand values and hurting your reputation.

Content that actually does go viral was rarely—if ever—created with that intention in mind. Making “going viral” your focus often leads to you abandoning your brand values and content pillars which you’ve worked hard to build a reputation for. 

Try this instead:  The best content is created with genuine purpose and intention. Your followers can tell when you’re sharing something you’re passionate about, rather than jumping on the trend bandwagon.. Focus on the value you can bring with your own expertise and unique perspective, and you might just go viral for all the right reasons to the RIGHT audience. And wouldn’t that be more beneficial to your business?