Creating “viral content” is no easy task. Event the best of memes can fall through the cracks if the content isn’t launched strategically. To make my meme go viral, I utilized Twitter Ads and Imgur to gain impressions and views of my content. Simple “impressions” may not sound like they are very effective in driving “virality”, but those impressions lead to engagements and shares, which lead to more views, and the viral cycle begins. Because of this, my objectives for the Viral Content Challenge focused primarily on impressions and views.
Objectives:
- 3,000+ impressions on Twitter
- 500+ views on Imgur
With specific goals in place, I was able to track and measure the success of my campaign. My campaign began by posting the original meme I created on Imgur.
Content:
To receive the maximum amount of views of my content, I shared the image to the community when I first launched my campaign on April 2nd. Then, I shared it two more times over the course of my one-week campaign. The end result was 724 views, which exceeded my goal of 500+ views on Imgur.
I received around 300+ views from my initial share on Imgur by the end of day, but then it plateaued. Unless your post is receiving 200+ upvotes, your content will eventually hit a wall under the Imgur algorithm– regardless of tags used. My post only received 5 upvotes, so re-sharing to the community every 2-3 days was critical to reach my views goal. I attribute my low upvote count to social norms surrounding Imgur as a platform primarily used for sourcing content, and not normally for widespread sharing like Twitter, for example.
In addition to Imgur sharing, I utilized Twitter Ads to generate impressions and engagement with my meme. To share my meme with my selected Twitter audience, I created a Twitter Webcard that included my graphic with a link to drive traffic back to the original meme on Imgur.
Every day, I become more like Michael Scott
— Ellen Greene (@ellenadeleg) April 5, 2018
The campaign used a target audience that I created based on who I think this content would resonate most with. For this, I selected Twitter users between 18-35 years old with interests in television comedy. This specific target, in addition to my $5 ad spend, ensured that my meme would reach the most amount of influential eyes. My Twitter ads campaign ran from April 2nd-April 9th, and gained over 10,000 impressions.
My $5 was spent over the course of the week with a daily budget of $1. This ensured that each day, the tweet had enough leverage behind it to have an influential reach, without the full $5 being splurged upon. My average cost per 1k impression was $0.47.
In addition to impressions, my Webcard received eight retweets and eighteen likes. This engagement furthered the impressions and views that my meme received. As I mentioned before, “virality” is a cycle that cannot continue without engagement and shares. I think that if I were to run another campaign with the goal of going viral, I would make multiple specific target audiences and adjust the copy that came with the meme to speak directly to each audience. With content more personalized to different styles of humor and demographics, it would potentially drive more people to share it, and continue the viral cycle.