Going viral in 2019 is very difficult, there is so much content on the web that it’s almost impossible to create content that has the possibility of going viral without already having a large following. When starting the assignment, I only had 20 followers on Twitter and had never used Imgur before so it was a daunting task to make a meme go viral.
The meme I created was about the feud between Popeyes and Chick-Fil-A. I tweeted the original meme on National Chicken Sandwich Day, a topic that was already trending. I thought the timeliness of my tweet would help it’s success.
My overall goal was to get the meme seen by as many people as possible.
The objectives I had for the meme were:
- To get at least 500 impressions on twitter and 5 likes.
- To get 150 story views (based off 618 followers) on Instagram.
- To get 1000 views and 200 upvotes on Imgur.
- Get at least 500 impressions and 5 likes.
When you and your Chick-Fil-A coworker see each other at Popeyes pic.twitter.com/R5ZpoEvAFN
— Haley Ike (@i_haleyk) November 4, 2019
I achieved my goal and received 12 likes and 846 impressions on twitter. I can attribute this success mainly to my instagram story because most of the likes I received were from friends who follow my Instagram and had not followed my twitter yet. From my Instagram story I also gained 3 three followers.
I’m just tryna get an A on my assignment @NBAonTNT @SHAQ please help me make this go viral🙌🏻 https://t.co/bMh6hksxPn
— Haley Ike (@i_haleyk) November 11, 2019
I retweeted the meme and tagged Shaq and NBA on TNT in the retweet and it got 5 likes, 4 of which were from people I didn’t know. The retweet was successful in boosting the likes for my original tweet as well. When tweeting the first time I didn’t tag anyone or use hashtags because I thought it might distract from the meme, but after the retweet did well I think using a hashtag might have helped me because it was National Sandwich Day.
2. Get 150 Story Views on Instagram
My goal here was a bit ambitious, my average story viewership is around 100. This story ended up getting 165 views. I think the story was successful because it was the only one on my profile, so even if some viewers clicked through they still saw it because it was the only thing I had and they couldn’t swipe through. My story helped my tweet gain a lot of likes, which I was surprised by, I didn’t think people were going to jump from Instagram to Twitter to like it.
3. Get 1000 views and 200 upvotes on Imgur
My Imgur post ended up exceeding my goal and got 1,730 views, but I had to adjust my original post. When I first posted the meme, it only received 300 views over a two day period. I knew the view count was not going up so I decided to repost the meme with different tags. When I reposted it and then refreshed the page, I had already received over 500 views. The tags were extremely important when posting because they determine where the meme will be viewed. My goal of getting 200 upvotes was unrealistic, if I had been more familiar with Imgur when I wrote my goals, it would have been much more realistic.
Overall, the meme met most of the goals that I set. When I posted on my Instagram and retweeted, I stated that I was trying to go viral for a class and I think that helped me. My friends liked the tweet because they knew it was for a class and my grade was depending on it. Some things that didn’t work were posting the Imgur meme under tags that didn’t have a lot of other posts already. Reposting the meme and changing the plan when things didn’t go as planned was one of the most helpful things to the success of the meme. I followed my marketing plan for the most part but when things weren’t working, it was better to change them to reach my goals.