The Power of Viral Marketing: Grow Your Brand Organically

Viral media marketing is one of the hottest trends in communications strategy, and for good reason. Viral posts make your brand stand out in the saturated digital marketing space. Moreover, they are a low-cost and organic way to grow your audience and customer base. At Purplegator, we know how to turn your engagement from 0 to 100 with viral marketing.

Viral marketing is especially important because it has the potential to grow small businesses’ engagement exponentially. Whether you are a multinational corporation or a mom and pop shop, you can create content that resonates and reaches virality.

F & O’s: a Viral Marketing Success

Purplegator created a viral post for Felix and Oscar’s, or F&O’s, in 2021. We used specific strategies to maximize the post’s engagement, which we’ll outline throughout this article.

F&O’s is a well known deep dish pizza restaurant in Des Moines, Iowa. Founded in 1975, it’s one of the oldest restaurants in town. Our team recognized that there were many locals who had enjoyed their pizza in the past and needed a push to recall their fond memories at the parlor.

We used viral marketing to bring back those core memories. Initially, F&O’s had 9,000 Facebook followers. We recognized that they regularly engaged with the brand’s Facebook content. All we needed was the perfect post for their engagement to spread.

Local Knowledge Brings Viral Growth

If you’re not from Iowa, you may not know that its state fair is a big deal. It draws over 1 million visitors annually–almost a third of the state’s population. In 2021, the year after the COVID-19 pandemic, the state fair was even more newsworthy. We capitalized off this buzz.

As you can see, almost 80,000 people viewed this post. Even more impressive, over 26,000 people engaged with it.

Strategies to Go Viral

Here are some reasons the post went viral:

• Our headline opened the door for engagement. Using a question encouraged people to share their opinion. 
• Viewers were allowed to comment. When users commented on the post, it was shared with their followers. 
• The visual invoked emotional responses. The packed Iowa State Fair generated comments and buzz 18 months after the COVID-19 pandemic. 
• The copy was short and sweet. Our copy was neutral but positive, which prevented users from criticizing F&O’s stance on the fair. 
• We knew our audience. We used the Iowa State Fair, a statewide tradition, to boost engagement with F&O’s local target audience. 

F&O’s experienced a 153% increase in website traffic after the post. There was also a 25.4% lift in their total customers the following month. Viral marketing pays dividends. 

Amazingly, the engagement with this post was 100% organic. We didn’t pay to boost the post even once. That’s the magic of viral marketing. 

As experts in all things mobile and social, we can make your page viral next. 

Libby Foster is a Marketing Specialist at Purplegator. She’s currently a master’s candidate in Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Alabama.