In our post “This is great content! Part I: What is it?” we explained the recipe for content to go viral: humor, brilliance, ability to evoke emotions and create a trend, truth/reality or best all of these things combined. In one word: it has to be AWESOME. Yes, I know, it’s easier said than done.

It’s true that much of the content goes viral by chance and against all predictions. Wait! Did anyone say Ecce Homo? Whatever, intentionally or not, everything that’s viral has at least one of the features mentioned above, so what we need is to think about is how to apply them to our contents.

Notice that I said “think” – and here comes the best part: because the only thing we need is a good idea and the good news is that ideas are free of charge! They are within everyone’s reach. So you don’t need to be a big company with a high budget to create a good online marketing campaign.

It’s not about what, but about how

You can inform about the qualities of your product but in an original way, changing the context or going away from the conventional way to transmit this information.

Take a look, for example, at this video of a guy called Enzo Vizcaíno, who recorded himself singing his CV with an ukelele on the subway of Barcelona:

His unique proposal was shared A LOT on social media, it even appeared on mass media and not only this, he ended up getting a job as a TV scriptwriter.

Imagine you run a butcher shop under the premise that your product 100g of ham is looking for a significant other. It could be illustrated with a ham that has created a profile on a dating network. On the profile, it explains what it is like (his nutritive qualities as if they were personality treats) and who would it like to meet (qualities of the target we want to reach). This way you get to talk about the qualities of your product in a funny, interesting manner.

Get to know your target

If you are certain that your campaign is addressed to a very specific group of people, adapt it as much as you can to this target, making them identify with your message.

An example of this micro segmentation is the video by IKEA “Salvem la fresca”. La fresca is an expression used mainly in Valencia, Spain which means that in the evening people take a chair out to the street and just sit down to talk with their neighbours. “Salvem la fresca” basically means that IKEA calls upon its target audience not to lose this custom over time.

So let’s say that you have a comic book store. A possible activation to get your very specific target’s attention could be to create a contest on social networks, like a role-playing game, a scavenger hunt on where and how they should show up to find their hidden prize. It is very likely that not a lot of people are fond of the idea to appear in the middle of Piccadilly Circus dressed like a hobbit wearing a cardboard stating “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo…and it’s worth fighting for.” But man, for some Lord of the Rings fans this could be the happiest day of their lives and the best excuse ever to show off the costume s/he bought years ago and never found an geek-y enough opportunity to wear it. Don’t try to understand it, but they get asked “What did you get out of it?” They are probably going to say: “Are you joking?! A free comic!” So, in short if you are able to mobilize all geeks in London you’ll probably appear on the news with the need to invest 10 comics.

Hop on the band wagon

Your campaign doesn’t have to start from 0, you can benefit from the trends of each moment, or the massive social events taking place.

Like Volvo during the last Super Bowl, becoming the biggest troll campaign in history. Conscious that the amount of brands advertising that night and how expensive it is the TV time on that very moment ($4,5 million for 30 seconds) the brand decided not to advertise.

What Volvo did was proposing a game to the audience of the match: every time they saw a car ad on TV that night, they should write a tweet with the hashtag #VolvoContest saying who they would like to win the latest Volvo model for the chance to win it. The campaign was an absolute success, not only did they get everyone talking about them, but also they achieved that the audience did not pay attention the competitors’ ads. Without a doubt, this campaign’s creator must be descendent of Machiavelli.

Let’s assume that your business is a travel agency. Imagine an event that gathers a lot of people and has great repercussion on social networks and the media, for example, Eurovision song contest. Before every musical act, we can always watch a short video about the country where the artist comes from. Wouldn’t this be a great time to announce your offers to visit that country? You can even propose exclusive offers to people using a hashtag you created to make the campaign bigger.

As you can see, if we manage our content well it is possible to reach our target. There are many ways to do it and no necessarily expensive. It only takes a good idea to make you BIG.