• by Maria Bailey , Columnist, April 10, 2023

While you can never plan for content to go viral, you can set yourself and your brand up for it to be more likely to happen. Millions of mom content creators upload videos and blogs to social media touting products to other moms each day -- so what’s the secret of those sponsored posts that go viral?

Don’t over-curate your content.  Too many brands overdirect and excessively edit a content creator’s content. It’s necessary to manage your brand’s message and product information, but good content creators are on top of trends, algorithms and what motivates their followers to engage with content. Every good partnership is built on trust.  Trust your creators.

Select the right content creator for your brand. This sounds easy and logical, but trust me, it takes time -- a lot of time. It’s important to have an authentic relationship with creators if you want to receive authentic content in return. Most brand managers, marketing directors or CMOs don’t have time to cultivate relationships with hundreds of influencers, but your agency should. Make sure your agency has real relationships with content creators and aren’t just using artificial intelligence to select content creators from a dashboard that only focuses on followers instead of the quality of their content. 

Educate content creators on products and your brand BEFORE content is created. It’s not enough to know how to shoot a video. You have to truly understand the brand behind the product. Once the content is created, work together to assure it’s on target before submitting for approval. Remember, don’t over-edit -- and allow yourself to view it from the prospective of a mom on social media.

Stay on top of trends, rules, and changes in social media platforms. You wouldn’t file your own taxes if you didn’t know about the new tax laws, would you?  So why throw up social content if you don’t know the time requirements, music policies or other ever-changing rules of Instagram, Tik Tok, and others? Engage with an agency that makes social media content part of their everyday activities or lean on content creators that keep themselves educated on the latest changes in algorithms.

You can’t guarantee content will go viral, but you can take steps to improve your odds. Investing on the front end will certainly increase your return on the back end.