Bzz…Bzz…Bzz… What’s going on with your phone?
You’re going about your day only to feel a slew of notifications coming across your phone. As you pull it out of your pocket, you notice dozens of alerts from your Twitter account. One of your posts is taking off! Congratulations, your tweet has broken through – you’re going viral!
For campaigns, few things feel quite as good as knowing that one of your posts has cut through the noise. Seeing thousands of people interact with your content all at once can be overwhelming in the best of ways, but it presents a new question: What do you do now?
You don’t want to let a rare opportunity go to waste. There are a few things you can do to make sure you get the most out of your online breakthrough before momentum dies down…
3 | Thread a Link!
Social media can be a notoriously difficult space to raise money in. For platforms like Twitter, standalone fundraising asks (unless you decide to put real money behind them) generally have low engagement. Going viral changes that for a brief time if you thread the needle just right.
Once you see a tweet doing well, your first move should be threading a donation ask with a relevant call to action immediately underneath. If you want to direct your audience to something other than a donation page, thread that instead. The key here is taking advantage of the momentum.
When tweets break out on the platform, you could have hundreds of thousands if not millions of eyes on your content and account. The chances of getting a donation off of a hit tweet have the potential to raise much more as a result.
That being said, that’s not the only thing you’re going to want to add to your tweet…
2 | Reply to the Comments!
You’re not likely going to be able to reply to every comment and quote tweet that comes from a viral post, but that shouldn’t stop you from engaging where you can!
You’re going to have hundreds, maybe thousands of people now engaging with your campaign. You should identify a dozen or so replies to respond to, and actively engage with whatever positive feedback you receive.
Replying to people and engaging with their responses to your content not only keeps people coming back for more but also allows you to spread information about you and your campaign. It also makes you seem more human, which is critical on platforms that thrive on authenticity.
While you’re replying though, don’t forget to…
1 | Post More While You Have New Eyes On You!
A viral post means you have a brief window where the probability of a second viral post on the same platform is raised. You need to post.
Thousands of new faces are coming to your account, reading your content, and maybe even following you. You need to increase your posting frequency temporarily to give them new content to latch onto. Odds are you’ll end up with higher engagement, so take advantage of the newfound momentum.
If you play your cards right, a viral moment can very easily become a run of viral moments. Even if it doesn’t though, at least you’ve done everything you can to capitalize on the moment you have. Internet fame is fleeting, but when you know what to do in those moments, you can make the most out of them.
So – Have you ever gone viral? How did you or your team handle the surprise?
Sound off below!
