© Mashable Illustrations / Bob Al-Greene How Viral Content Drives Small Business SuccessChioma Ngwudo created Cee Cee's Closet, an African-inspired accessory, clothing and lifestyle brand, to fill the void they miss when shopping for headwear: colorful, vibrant and feminine accessories. But with one unfortunate viral Instagram post, the company literally exploded. Ngwudo posted a tutorial with an Instagram influencer from his business and was viewed tens of thousands of times within hours.
"The first time was, 'Oh, Instagram marketing, this influencer thing, that can be really cool,'" Ngwudo told Mashable. Since then, her tutorials and other videos have gone viral on Instagram and TikTok. More and more people are discovering the brand, shopping in the Cee Cee wardrobe and becoming repeat customers. Now social media advertising is just a part of his life as an entrepreneur.
Kyle Hinds, owner of Noble Leather Co., a handcrafted leather goods company, had a similar experience. He told Mashable that he remembers uploading the first video to go viral on TikTok and watching the footage go viral.
“I said, ‘Oh my God,’ and then I went to bed and woke up and there was over a million,” Hinds said. "I thought, 'OK, this is crazy.' I was so excited. Then I got busy with my day and in an hour it hit 5 million and it keeps growing and growing.
Dasha Derkach, the teenage owner of the hair tie business Enchanted Scrunch, posted a video in December 2021 showing her laying hair ties on a video wall. It went viral on the web.
For some small businesses, getting your audience to a TikTok "For You" page or an Instagram Explore page can be the key to success. Creating viral content makes some small businesses successful, but it can be a lofty and unreliable goal, so even if entrepreneurs prioritize social media, they should be careful not to rely on it entirely.
Viral Content = Viral Sales?
For Derkach, Hinds, Ngwudo and dozens of other entrepreneurs, viral content is one of the success factors in their business. Hinds' first viral video boosted his sales significantly. Derkach and Ngwudo also saw growth, slow at first after the video went viral, but as other videos continued to grow, their sales began to pick up.
"You make videos go viral, you can see your 'pedestrian traffic' going through your site through the roof," Hinds told Mashable. “And the videos don't have to go viral. I can even post videos or social media posts and they always bring visitors to the store, which helps increase sales.”
According to marketers, the spread of the virus is not the best tactic to increase sales in the long term. For example, if you post a video that goes viral and stop posting, your sales will also stop. The key to using viral content for continued success is consistency.
Derkach said he made between $400 and $600 after the success of his first video, which was "not much in terms of views". But after posting more frequently, she "earned between $5,000 and $7,000 from subsequent videos alone."
No wonder digital marketing works. Retail touchpoint data shows that US businesses will spend $4.6 billion on influencer marketing by 2023, double what they spent five years ago. The Nielsen Consumer Confidence Index reports that 92% of consumers trust influencer marketing over traditional advertising.
But going viral once is not enough, Derkach says. Consistency will also eliminate the fear that comes from viral content. Derkach, Hinds and Ngwudo say they have to keep posting and sometimes taking down some videos to get second or third virality, which can be tricky.
“The biggest downside is knowing that your video won’t go viral forever and the effect will only last a week or two,” says Derkach. “Once a video goes viral, it becomes harder to create more and better content.”
No virality check
"It's very hard to know what's going to go viral," Ngwudo says of the challenges of viral content as a marketing tool. “It’s all Russian roulette, right? Because you can go to great lengths to create content and then get 3,000 views, no matter what platform you're on. And then maybe something comes together for five minutes and it just pops out of nowhere.”
Ngwudo expresses the frustration many people feel that there is no winning formula for making content go viral. A Nieman Lab study found that only 1% of Facebook videos go viral. This is another reason why consistency is so important. According to Hinds, the more he goes on social media, the more he posts, whether it's viral content or content that resonates with the very few people who see it.
“Consistency is the key,” Hinds says. “I tried to join the social media movement. And I've found that the key to success is consistency, consistency, consistency."
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