Viral marketing is something that many businesses are trying out nowadays in order to get their brand noticed and talked about. But most of these companies are B2C, because viral marketing is easier to do when your customer base is the average consumer. It’s harder to pull off if you’re targeting other businesses as your customers.
But hard doesn’t mean impossible, and in today’s market with more and more startup businesses being launched by younger people it’s easier for B2B companies to take advantage of viral marketing strategies. So we’ll be sharing how you, as a B2B company, can do that in today’s article.
But First…
What even is viral marketing? Because unless you have a good grasp on social media trends, you might not even know what it is. So let’s quickly discuss the basic idea behind it.
Viral marketing is when a company tries to create content that other people will share on social media, causing that content to go viral. By getting people to share your content, you’re going to get more engagement than if you were just pushing it by yourself or paying for it to show up on people’s timelines.
The tricky part is getting that content to go viral, so we’ll be discussing some tips on how to make that happen.
Top 5 Viral Marketing Tips For B2B Companies
1. Research
Start by reviewing marketing campaigns that have actually gone viral, because sometimes the best way to learn is through example. Look at the things that these campaigns did right, and then look at the things they may have done wrong.
Try to take the good parts of their campaign and incorporate that into your strategy but also try to improve on any parts of their campaign that you feel could be done better.
Note that you shouldn’t copy other campaigns, just take inspiration from them.
2. Choose your platform
Choose which platform you want to develop your viral marketing strategy for. Depending on your business and the type of customers you’re looking to attract, the ideal platform for your campaign may vary.
So take a look at the demographics of the different platforms and choose one that matches your ideal customer. If there are multiple then you could consider working on more than one and potentially even doing a cross-platform campaign.
3. Build a following on social media
Another thing that you should do before your campaign even starts is to begin posting regularly on your social media platforms of choice. You can’t run a successful campaign if you don’t have some kind of a follower base to begin with.
And your social media profiles need to have plenty of content for people to see if they do visit it because of the campaign, or else they might click off of it faster than they clicked in.
4. Find out what’s trending
One vital part of forming this campaign strategy is to base it around something that is trending. If your content has something to do with a topic that is already being discussed then it automatically raises its chances of being reposted.
Content that pertains to a viral topic is more likely to go viral.
In order to pull this tip off, you’re going to need to have a good grasp of trending topics, especially ones that relate even loosely to your niche. And more specifically, try to choose topics that are trending on your platform and/or platforms of choice. You can use tools like Google Trends to help with that.
5. Run ads to build momentum
Consider running ads for pieces of your content that you think have the ability to go viral. For instance, if you’ve created some content that checks all the boxes of being able to go viral and it’s already seen quite a bit of organic interaction then it might be a piece that you should run an ad for.
Many social media platforms will actually set a cap for how large your organic reach can be; in this case, even a piece of content with the potential to go viral can lose interaction before it reaches its peak. So ads can be very important in getting more eyeballs on your brand.
One Final Note
The goal of viral marketing campaigns is ultimately to get people to click onto your site and increase traffic, but that goal is useless if your site isn’t ready for the influx of traffic that will come if you’re successful.
You need to make sure before you run any campaigns that your site is at its best in order to retain the interest of new people visiting it. There are lots of ways you can optimize it, and a lot of it will depend on what you’ve done with it up until this point but here are a couple of things to keep in mind…
Make sure the page loads quickly and efficiently for all viewers.
This consists of several things. Firstly, you need to make sure that your site is mobile-friendly. It needs to have a responsive design that will cater not only to PC but also tablet and phone users alike. Most people use their mobile devices nowadays and if your site doesn’t cater to them then you could lose a lot of potential clients.
Secondly, you need to make sure the page loads well for everyone. One thing you can do to improve loading time on your site is to reduce your image sizes, this will help people load your site a lot faster.
Make sure your site is secure.
You can achieve this through basic steps like tightening your access control and updating your security software. You could also install SSL and take any other measures you deem necessary to make your site safe and secure for everyone.
Because with an influx of viewers to your site, it will gain the attention of the average and harmless person but also would-be hackers as well. Better to be safe than sorry!
So there you go, some B2B viral marketing strategies to help you rapidly grow your brand awareness and sales. All the best as you try them out for your company!
