Have you ever heard at a Marketing meeting, "what we really need is for this to go viral"? It makes me think of the millions of people watching that poor kid on YouTube getting his finger bit by his infant brother, or the fascination with lol cats messing up English, "I can has cheezburger?".
Going viral means many things, none of which might be right for your marketing activities and it's worthwhile to think about how you want your message to spread and to what group of people.
When you get down to it, content that is spread by word of mouth or by social media has to be worthy of passing on.
To me, 'going viral' means an explosive, exponential, sharing of content without any forethought about hitting a target audience.
It's an organic event based on the viewer's emotional response to the writing, picture or video.
Content that makes people laugh, cry, or rant is pushing emotional buttons and the response is to hit the share button.
Of course the power of viral communication can bring a wave of good-tidings towards your company or a tsunami of problems! A few years ago a Greenpeace video posted on YouTube criticizing Nestle for unsustainable sourcing of palm oil caused the largest protest to-date against the brand.
A company must keep a vigilant 360 degree view of social media so they can respond to issues as soon as possible.
Even if you are not currently using social media for sales, you need to use it for brand awareness.
A positive emotional response to your product or service is a good thing, unless you are marketing on Vulcan.
It could be that the emotional trigger you need to hit is inspiration.
Can you inspire your audience to grow their business or improve their work with your product or service? Focus in on the benefits of being your customer and spark ideas in your audience.
If they can clearly see the advantages for their business they'll pass the information on.
The next time viral messaging is mentioned at a meeting, try to reframe it as social media sharing.
You certainly want to use the amplification of Twitter or Facebook to increase the reach of your content, but you want to hit the right target audience so that you can generate a response that builds your community and turns prospects into customers.
Having large numbers of 'followers' or 'likes', only means something if those people have a genuine interest in your company.

• Do - plan your marketing campaigns to take advantage of the amplification effect of social media
• Do - identify key influencers in your community of interest so your message gets to the right people
• Don't - ignore the potential of 'bad press' going viral in your marketplace, keep a vigilant look-out