7 Mar 2012 skribe   » (Journeyer)

[Video] Are you ready to go viral?

This is a very clever, well-made online video for the Dollar Shave Club that today went viral, mainly thanks to the Reddit community. Now if you’re a business owner, especially a startup, you may be wishing that your triumphant video – you know the one that you spent way too much money on and has only generated a handful of views – went viral as well. Afterall, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. But going viral does have one or two downsides that you need to be ready for.

Surviving the Flood

You can never control how or when you go viral. Once you release your campaign you immediately lose control over it, so you need to be ready. As, the folks at the Dollar Shave Club discovered going viral can very quickly bring your servers to their knees. So, while their video has generated a huge amount of interest in their target market they can’t capitalise on it because their site is either down or monumentally slow. If this were to happen to you would your server survive?

  • Is it optimised for high-levels of traffic?
  • Do you have backup servers ready to go at a moment’s notice?
  • Is it automated?
  • What are your contingencies if everything goes pear-shaped?

You need to take all these issues into consideration during the planning stages of your campaign.

Success Kills

If you’re used to servicing one-hundred clients per month and your video brings in another ten thousand you may be thinking it’s champagne and caviar time. But servicing a hundred-fold increase in business may drive you to the wall.

  • Do you have the necessary inventory?
  • How long will it take for your suppliers to fill that order?
  • Can you obtain the necessary funds?
  • What do you do if something goes wrong?

Going viral should never be a strategy, it is an outcome, but you need to be prepared for it. Detailed planning for every stage of the campaign needs to identified, costed and implemented. Going viral is not an automatic road to riches. It needs to be carefully managed and controlled. Are you ready to go viral?

Syndicated 2012-03-07 02:39:23 from All About Digital & Social Media

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