What are Google customer reviews and why activate them on your Google My Business account?
What exactly is Google My Business?
Before we talk about Google customer reviews, we first need to know where to find them. That's on Google's free local listing tool, Google My Business.
Every business can create a Google My Business listing, which allows your company to appear in the search results. localized research made by Internet users.
A localized search is automatically activated when someone searches for a service or product on the Google search engine. In the first results, results that match your search and are geographically close to you are systematically displayed.
Every Google My Business listing provides information related to a point of sale or a company. You can find :
- Company or store name
- Opening days and hours
- Physical address or area covered by your services
- Phone number
- Link to your website
- Direct messaging with the company
- Photos of the store, company or products
- The news
- Google customer reviews
As you can see, in addition to increasing your visibility on the Internet, your Google My Business listing includes basic information about your company and various means of contact.
It's the place where you can display all the information that helps Internet users come to you, rather than to your competitor! The creation of a Google My Business listing is completely automatic. free of charge. To create a card, follow these steps :
- Start by logging in to your Google account (or create one if you don't have one), then go to the Google My Business site.
- Create your establishment in just a few clicks. Then request a verification code directly in your new space.
- Optimize and update your Google My Business listing.
Be active on your Google My Business and bring your listing to life to improve your results over the long term. You can update various elements such as publishing news, announcing exceptional promotions, communicating about new products or services, responding to Google customer reviews, etc.
Google My Business also gives you access to statistics with which you can see the performance of your insert in terms of visibility, contacts, route requests, etc.
That's really interesting! With continuous analysis, you know what actions to take to perform even better tomorrow.
In this article, we focus on Google customer reviews, which are a key element in the company's success. particularly strategic for companies and brands. So it's up to you to create a strategy that easily generates Google reviews on your Google My Business listing, and then manage them properly.
Google customer reviews are essential for your reputation and visibility
Let's start with a few figures to give you an idea of the importance of Google customer reviews. These have a considerable impact on your reputation / visibility and they can also become a real purchase trigger for web users.
- 95% of customers look at reviews before buying
- 72% of customers won't buy until they've read the reviews
- 80% of customers say the number of reviews is decisive when two products have the same rating
- 53% of customers expect a response to a review within 7 days
It's now a reflex for 95% of Internet users: other customers' opinions are consulted before making a purchase on a site, before going into a store,...
Having Google customer reviews on your Google My Business listing is therefore an absolute priority. Other sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisorthat specialize in collecting reviews are not as reliable as reviews on a Google My Business listing. With Google My Business, there are no fake Google reviews, and they can't be deleted. They are therefore credible and serve your image (when it's generally positive, of course) with future customers. Excellent Google customer reviews serve to reassure consumers and encourage them to choose your company or brand. Positive reviews reflect a good customer experience and build reader confidence. In short, the more positive reviews you get, the more likely potential customers will be to visit your website, give you a call or push open the door of your establishment!
E-reputation must therefore be at the heart of your consumer strategy to generate new customers, so it's time to implement a strategy to get more Google customer reviews.
1. How can I get more Google customer reviews on Google My Business?
Are you convinced by the usefulness of Google customer reviews, but don't know how to go about acquiring the first review or more?
It's a well-known fact that it's easier for consumers to express their dissatisfaction and warn others about it than the other way around. The key is to raising awareness and encouraging happy customers to leave their opinion. Very few do so spontaneously, and yet it's these reviews that you need to collect. Here are a few tips that you should put into practice today, and continue to do so in the long term:
- Contact your happy customers and your most loyal customers. They're the ones most likely to take the time to give you a positive review, and they do it primarily to please you.
- Through a post on your social networks or a newsletter, get in touch with your customers or your community and show them that you'd like feedback on the experience they've had with your business. Make life easy for them by giving them the direct link they need to post a review on your Google My Business page.
- Get into the habit of asking each new customer for a review, either by sending them an e-mail after an assignment carried out by your company or a purchase made by your customer, or by calling them. For e-commerce companies, putting up a flyer when a parcel is dispatched is an easy way of automating the process of gathering feedback, and generally has a positive impact!
It is important to reach your customers at the right time to increase your efficiency and turn as many of your customer requests as possible into reviews on Google My Business.
Analyze your customer journey and define an effective strategy that takes into account the ideal timing, convincing copywriting and any automation required to collect the maximum number of positive Google customer reviews.
2. Ask for quality Google reviews
Receiving a customer review is great, but a quality review is even better. Here are just a few of the rules that make Google customer reviews a success more credible and impactful for those who consult them :
- Don't just put stars. Ask for reviews that include stars (as many as possible, of course) and a commentary that includes the various elements below.
- The comment must include specific details, service information, etc. (e.g. name of dish, speed of service, etc.).
- Pay attention to the importance of comment content, which also has an impact on referencing and therefore the visibility of your Google My Business insert. A comment is always more valuable when it includes keywords that are relevant to your business.
- Adding photos confirms that the comment is genuine and gives a glimpse of your product, service or establishment.
3. How do I respond to Google My Business customer reviews?
Responding to Google reviews (and on other platforms) allows you tomaintain a relationship with your customers and create a more personalized contact. At the same time, you show that they are important to you, that their opinion counts and that you do take them into account.
Google customer reviews, both positive and negative, help you evolve and feed your after-sales service, which can easily gather essential information about your customers. This information guides you in the strategic actions you need to take to further improve your services or your product.
The basic rule for Google customer reviews is to respond, without exception, to all reviews left by your customers. If it's positive, and especially if it's negative, this allows you to take care of your communication and your image.
Here are a few rules for responding to negative Google reviews:
- Adopt the right tone: Remain polite, pleasant and attentive to the customer's needs.
- Thank the customer: the information received by the consumer, however complicated it may be to hear, helps you evolve and put the right measures in place.
- Take care with the content: explain the situation so that Internet users understand the context that led to the negative review. If the context justifies it: apologize, explain that it won't happen again and that you're going to improve your product or service.
Responding to a negative review in the right way won't negatively influence the person reading it. On the contrary, responding to a negative review allows you to show how you operate, how you follow up your customers.
To give yourself a second chance with an unhappy customer, you can propose certain actions such as a discount on their next purchase. Anything that shows you're taking the best possible care of your customers, even the unhappy ones, reassures and attracts new customers!
4. Our other tips for managing Google reviews
How do you spot and remove fake reviews?
Watch out for fake Google reviews can damage your online reputation.
Don't forget that your Google My Business listing is often the first point of entry and contact with consumers searching on Google, and that you only have one opportunity to make a good first impression. If you have fake reviews, report it directly on your Google My Business administrator account. However, don't do themistake of reporting real negative reviews !
Here are a few criteria to help you identify fake reviews:
- The same person posts the same reviews on different Google My Business accounts. To check this, click on the person's name and look at their history.
- Negative reviews published at regular intervals
- Duplicate comments with the same spelling from different people
- The level of language used and/or spelling mistakes
- Little detail, too general
Buying Google reviews: a bad idea!
Buying fake Google reviews is not a practice to be adopted and if you do, we suggest you stop right now. It's too much risk for too little return.
In fact, using platforms and buying fake Google reviews is punishable by law. You may also incur heavy penalties from Google such as the total suspension of your business listing. It's no coincidence that the publication of deliberately false reviews tops the list of content formally proscribed by Google's policy.
Review management software to help you manage your reviews
Review Management software is available for save time in your customer review management. These allow you to centralize all actions linked to review management, such as survey creation, distribution, analysis and response management.
There are a multitude of platforms to suit all your needs, including Capterra brings together on its website.
Don't be afraid of a negative Google review!
A negative review drowned in 20 positive comments does not have the same effect as an isolated criticism. A dissatisfied customer whose negative review has been dealt with effectively can become an ambassador.
After responding, contact the customer again to confirm that the situation has been resolved. You'll once again demonstrate your commitment to providing optimum service. Who knows, maybe this behavior will lead to a positive review!
Why is marketing positioning important?
Positioning: what's it all about?
Marketing positioning allows you to give your product or service a distinctive credible and coherent position within a market. The strategy you define and implement enables you to recognize your brand in the eyes of your customers.
Its aim is to highlight your brand, products or services so that they stand out from the crowd. stand out from the competition with your customers. A well thought-out positioning strategy ensures that you add value to the existing market.
With so much competition, you need to determine your company's positioning in order to stand out from the crowd. make an impression consumers. This makes it easier for you to win market share.
To sum up, marketing positioning is a simple and useful tool, an essential reflection that you need to have before taking action.
It's only after you've defined your marketing positioning that you can define a communication strategy. The latter will tell you which actions to prioritize and which means of communication to use to communicate with your target.
The benefits of good marketing positioning
There are many advantages to defining the right marketing positioning, both for your company and for your future customers.
The benefits of marketing positioning for your company :
- Clearly establish your place in the market and identify the target audience most likely to buy your services or products.
- Maintain a consistent and transparent approach to marketing and related business issues
- Define an appropriate price that takes into account your audience and your brand image
- Increase conversions and loyalty by resonating with existing and potential customers
- Focus your efforts on the right audiences and the most effective marketing tactics
- Create a better environment for analyzing the success of existing strategies
For the customer, this means they can quickly identify whether the product or service is right for them. Over the long term, they're more likely to establish a solid relationship with a brand whose positioning and communication appeal directly to the buyer.
How do you develop a marketing positioning strategy?
The basics of marketing positioning
Start by researching and segmenting your market before defining your company's positioning. Targeting your market enables you to define a sound strategy and establish a credible position within it.
Good positioning is defined by your ability to make it simple, legible and relevant in the minds of consumers.
Your value proposition must add an extra dimension to the existing market, while at the same time being distinctive, attractive and relevant. We speak of :
- Product identification
- Differentiating your offer
The better you respect these two elements, the more quickly consumers will identify and understand your offer. If your positioning is clearly identifiable, they'll be able to start thinking about whether or not you're relevant to them.
Then there's your ability to offer a different approach to the major competition, which manages to win over consumers.
Represent your position using a perceptual map
Who are your competitors? That's the question you absolutely must ask yourself. In order to implement a differentiation strategy, you must first identify and analyze your competitors.
The next step is to place your company, its products and services, and your competitors on a map. positioning mapping. This will enable you to find a unique positioning and thus define your competitive advantage.
Here are the right questions to ask yourself effective marketing positioning :
- What position do you want to occupy in your market?
- How do you reach your goal? What's the deadline?
- Do you have the means to achieve your goal?
- What marketing and sales strategy should you implement?
- Is your objective consistent with your company's overall strategy?
You can also position yourself on the values you wish to defend. This positioning choice is less focused on a product or service promise, but can still be a real means of differentiation.
In summary, the perceptual map allows you to :
- Visualize competitors' positioning
- Determine your company's current positioning
- Identify market opportunities
- Define or redefine the company's desired positioning
Understanding your brand positioning
Understanding your market
You need to analyze the strengths of direct competitors, i.e. companies offering a product or service identical to yours. Do the same with indirect competitors, i.e. companies offering a different product or service but meeting the same need: reputation, accessibility, sales area, range of products, prices, etc....
To know your market, you also need to understand how it works. These elements can influence not only your sales, but also important strategic choices. Here's a series of questions to help you understand your market
- What are the best times to buy the product or service?
- Is the activity of the target clientele defined by a specific calendar, schedule or timetable?
- Is the demand one-off, accidental, periodic, seasonal or continuous?
- Are purchases scheduled, random or urgent?
- Where to locate the company?
- Is it better to locate close to sources of supply or close to customers?
- Is the physical location (if necessary) well placed? How do other shops on the street function?
Understanding your target
Knowing your target customers is extremely important. After all, it's their market perception which is at the heart of our positioning strategy.
Don't try to please everyone, or you'll become a popular supplier. This vision is only interesting if you offer a product or service that is a necessity. If this is not the case, we strongly recommend that you don't use this strategy.
That's why, since the beginning of this article, we've been stressing the importance of identifying a specific market segment in order to become the best vendor or service provider in that market.
Do you want to target teenagers, adults or seniors? Should this audience be connected, hip, active, travelers, families, party-goers, etc.? Once you've identified the profile of your prospectsyou must understand their behavior and the best way to attract them.
Types of marketing positioning
Marketing positioning on product quality
Your brand focuses on style and luxury, and therefore a more exclusive positioning. With this marketing positioning strategy, consumers will pay a higher price for the exclusivity and emotional response that association with your brand can bring. Your offer includes very high-end products with high-quality materials (e.g. Louis Vuitton, Porsche, etc.).
Marketing positioning on product pricing
In this positioning example, your brand asserts itself by proposing products that offer the same advantages as competing products, but with a different positioning. reduced price. As a result, positioning and communication are strongly focused on this. The terms "cheap", "best price" and "unbeatable" are frequently used.
Marketing positioning on product applications
With this positioning, you focus on marketing a specific function or use of the product. This may involve using it in a certain situation or scenario.
Marketing positioning on product benefits
Your brand emphasizes the specific characteristics of your products. These may offer a higher level of value than your competitors. You associate your brand or service with certain characteristics. specific benefits that provide real advantage to your customers and meets a (potential) market need.
Marketing positioning on product superiority
This strategy is more aggressive than the others. The principle is compare directly your brand to your competitors, highlighting the reasons why you're better than the others. This is not a positioning we recommend using, although in some cases it could prove useful and beneficial to you. First of all, try to position yourself on the types mentioned above.
Examples of marketing positioning
Stella McCartney, a unique and strong positioning
When we talk about responsible luxuryStella McCartney is usually the first brand on the table. To be perfectly fair, the brand practically invented the concept and pushes its commitment further and further as it evolves.
The Stella McCartney brand has renounced the use of leather, fur and PVC in its collections and is constantly looking for new ways to make luxury fashion more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
It's this commitment and values that give Stella McCartney a unique position in its market. Consumers who share its values are attracted to the brand far beyond its aesthetic appeal. This generates sales but they also manage to strongly build loyalty their customers.
The success of the Stella McCartney brand reveals one of the ways to boost your brand positioning: establish and maintain core values to which your target customers adhere and are attached.
Develop your presence on social networks to attract more visitors to your website
Social networks are indispensable for most companies. They allow you to build brand awareness to the greatest possible number of people, and thus raise its profile. What's more, they allow you toattract more visitors on its website and thus generate qualified leads quite easily (depending on the effectiveness of the digital strategy established).
What are the benefits of having a presence on social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok?
Your community becomes a prospecting market who can either call on your services for the short, medium or long term, or recommend you to their friends and family. Find potential customers looking for your services or product Attract more visitors to your website by directing them to a specific page that provides additional information on the subject in question, or develops a service/product in greater detail. .- Collect e-mail addresses via social networks is also a great advantage. As long as this database is subsequently used for emailing campaigns, for example. The latter can also attract more visitors to your website.
- Use newsgroups to raise your profile and showcase your expertise in your field.
Using social networks is an excellent way to increase brand awarenessattract more visitors to its website, and generate more sales.
Share consistent publications on the right social networks
To achieve such a result, we still need to respect certain basic rules such as distributing content that meets the information needs of its target audience. BtoB companies in particular share high value-added content to prove their skills and therefore their legitimacy in their market. This creates a climate of trust which can then be used to share more promotional content to turn prospects into customers.
However, don't waste your time sharing content on all channels. good social network (or several if justified) and concentrate your efforts on this one.
Set up the basics of natural referencing to attract more visitors to your website
There are a number of points to take into account when setting up a good natural referencing system and attracting more visitors to your website thanks to a high ranking on search engines such as Google, Bing, Ecosia, etc.
We won't go into this in detail in this article, but you can find out more in the "5 keys to increasing your visibility on the Internet".
Google My Business, the foundation of your search engine optimization
Let's not forget, however, that the basis of natural referencing begins with the creation of a Google My Business listing, which increases your visibility and therefore your local referencing. It's a totally free Google service that lets you briefly present your company and add contact details so that prospects or customers can easily reach you.
The visibility of your Google My Business insert takes into account various criteria including the relevance of the information provided about your company, the distance between the search location and your company, and the popularity of your company; the more your company is known to the public, the better your ranking. With its "website" button, it also makes it easy to attract more visitors to your website.
Choosing the right keywords and page content
The basis of your website content begins with the choice of keywords, which are divided into main and keywords secondary. Keyword selection is a crucial task that requires time and precision.
To make the right choice, first ask yourself some important questions to be taken into account for each page of your website:
What product/service do you want to promote? - What keywords do Internet users search for in search engines?
- How much traffic can these keywords generate on my website?
- Are the keywords I choose relevant to my target audience?
To maintain consistency in the keywords defined on each page, we recommend proposing only one product/service per page.
Respect good website structure and HTML technical rules
Think about creating a clear, easy-to-understand structure for the Google or other robots that will crawl your website once the indexing request has been made. To do this, you need to create a global hierarchy for your website and also for each page of it, clearly identifying the titles.
Structuring your website in the right way obviously helps to improve your SEO rankings, but it's not just that: it's also essential for improve the user experience of the visitor to your site.
The H1 tag corresponds to the main title, the H2 and H3 tags are used to build the basic structure of your website and the other H tags (4,5,6) are there to section longer texts. Each title should be neither too short nor too long, to ensure maximum optimization.
Use Google Analytics to analyze your ranking and improve your position on Google, Bing, Ecosia, etc.
Attracting more visitors to your website is all very well, but understanding what they do is even better! So there's little point in doing SEO without analyzing the results on a regular basis.
In fact, it is essential to work frequently on your analysis-based referencing to attract more visitors to your website. This analysis should enable you to identify which pages generate visits and how visitors interact with them. With a view to looking at the end result, which is conversion, such as a contact request or a purchase on your e-commerce site.
In order to improve your SEO and increase your conversions, we have developed a high-performance analytical tool. It takes just a few minutes to analyze your situation and determine the actions you need to take to quickly achieve the results you're looking for.
Blog: choose an effective editorial line to attract more visitors to your website
There are many ways to get your blog known and followed by a large number of users. To attract more visitors to your website via your blog, you simply need to start by offering a quality content that corresponds to what your target audience is looking for. A blog can have different functions, like the two presented below:
How to promote your blog and attract leads
Generating more visitors to your website is the first function. To achieve this, your articles must provide added value for users, such as : solve problems, educate, inform or entertain. It's obviously important that your articles are topical and meet a specific need.
Many articles already exist on the various search engines such as Google, Bing, Ecosia, etc., which means you need to work on your SEO when you write your blog article in order to position yourself on the first page.
Attract active customers to your website and build loyalty
Get your customers to return to your website by regularly sharing your expertise through blog posts, emailing and social networks.
This allows you toincrease your credibility and therefore attachment to your company, and also, if it lends itself to this, ofincrease your sales by presenting services or products that your current customers have not yet purchased.
Emailing to attract more visitors to your website
As mentioned above, emailing can be used to share your expertise by redirecting your customers or prospects to your blog posts. But it doesn't stop there.
It's also common to direct customers or prospects directly to other pages on your website, such as a service or product page, or even your team if you want to highlight a new employee, for example.
Paid search to attract more visitors to your website
Paying to appear in the first search results is obviously a common practice and can generate a large number of visits. Other articles give you a better understanding of how it works Google Ads and how to perform with Internet advertising.
As with all your visits to your website (and especially for Google Ads, since you pay for each visit), it's important to remember that only a small proportion of your sales will be profitable. qualified visit has real value and can generate conversion.
Are you already busy doing paid search with Google Ads? Having trouble analyzing your return on investment with Google Analytics? We've put together an analysis tool that makes it easy for you to see what actions you need to take. Discover our SEA analysis tool here.
Today, trying to get your brand or content noticed among all the publications and competitors is a real challenge. Fortunately, there are many ways to go viral that will help your company or brand to attract attention a wider audience.
But going viral isn't as easy as it sounds. It takes a great deal of time, effort and strategy to ensure that the campaign you decide to publish goes off without a hitch. And even then, there's no guarantee that your strategy will go viral and that you'll achieve your goals. That's why we've compiled this guide on how to go viral, with tips on how to make your campaign a success, and how to keep it that way. reach as many people as possible ! So, are you ready to increase your visibility?
1. Plan your digital strategy before you publish
Planning your strategy before publishing is the key to success.one of the first steps to get your campaign noticed. By defining the best strategic plan for your campaign, you'll be able to achieve optimal results. This includes :
- determine the type of messages you need to publish
- how often you need to publish them
Next, it's important that you find a catchy name for your campaign ! This will be the title of your social media campaign, and this name will help people understand what it's about and give them an idea of what they can expect from the content it contains.
Pay-per-click advertising can help you gain visibility, so check below to see what you need to consider before embarking on a pay-per-click campaign.
Don't forget that you'll be even stronger if you manage to go viral organically. Bear in mind that paid advertising can in this case support your campaign but keep in mind that it shouldn't be your only means of visibility. This means that you may not be able to activate a paid campaign, but even so, your visibility is still important.
There are many elements to consider in the strategy for going viral. For this article, I've decided to highlight two of the most important!
Know your audience
Before you start publishing, it's essential to think about who you're targeting and how you're going to get in touch with them. This means define your target which must meet an objective that you have determined (see point below).
This target may also vary according to the social networks you use. You won't reach the same target if you post on Facebook, LinkedIn or TikTok, for example.
To go viral, you need to take this point into account. Your message must speak to your target audience, and they must feel that it's being addressed specifically to them.
It all depends on timing
Timing is also a very important factor in going viral with your campaign. Choosing the right timing is a crucial choice, and quite a broad one: there's thehour at which you publish your campaign, which can have an impact, but also the seasonality.
Some content will work better in winter than in summer, for example, and content shared at 5pm may have a better organic impact from launch than a campaign published at 12pm.
To know what to do in terms of timing, you need to know your market and analyze statistics your different channels can give you.
2. Decide on your goal
Another important step in planning your strategy is to set a post-campaign objective or goal. Before you can go viral, you must first decide what your goal is. There are different types of lenses like grabbing people's attention, building brand awareness and increasing engagement, or even generating leads.
- If your goal is to increasecommitmentthen you need to focus on content that is interesting and engaging for users.
- If your goal is to generate leadsYou need to determine what your target audience looks like. Are they mainly men or women? Do they have a specific demographic profile? What age bracket do they fall into?
These are all important questions that will help you create a strategy that will work best for your campaign! Your objectives also enable you to determine CTAs (Call To Action) to place in your campaigns. Where do you want to take the people who see your campaign, and what actions do you want them to take?
Finally, having precise objectives also helps you measuring success (or not) and measure your success. profitability.
3. Stay consistent in your digital strategy
It's important to follow a consistent content strategy and publish new articles regularly. The more often you publish your content, the more likely you are to attract a wider audience. If you over-promise and under-deliver, your campaign will go the way of every other failed campaign. So, before you publish, ask yourself, "Will this post be different from the others?" If the answer is no, don't publish.
Think about your brand image, and stick to it so that your target audience can quickly see that it's you. The more your brand image is strong, the more people will recognize you at a glance, and every one of your publications will resonate with the people you reach!
Consistency is a crucial aspect of going viral from a digital point of view.
4. Be creative
If you're not creative, don't expect to go viral. This is a very competitive industry, and it's easier to stand out if you think outside the box. If your posts are linked to every other post on social media, you're less likely to get noticed. Try to make your content stands out from the crowd by being creative, new and unexpected! In addition to the various points mentioned below, you should also take into account two other important factors: "stay authentic" and create content to "instant gratification".
How do I curate viral content?
Knowing what to share and how to share it is never an easy task. So the easiest way is to see what's already working on the web. Then it's up to you to bring your creativity to bear, so that you don't do exactly the same thing as your competitors, but stand out from the crowd.
There are many platforms for keep watch to see what works and help you go viral. Here are just a few of the platforms, some of which have free access so you can try them out and see if they work for you: Scoop.it - Feedly - Buzzsumo
Google has also developed a simple tool that allows you to receive alerts on certain topics that interest you. It's obviously not as sophisticated as the tools mentioned above, but it's a good start: Google Alert.
Offer something unique
Drawing inspiration from what already works is all well and good. add your own personal touch and differentiate yourself from the competition.
Put forward your point of view or approach to raise awareness or reach your target in a different way, be consistent with your company or brand and the message you want to bring. Adapting a buzz from another sector to your market is a great way to be unique and ride a trend that's already working elsewhere.
Form an emotional bond
Incorporating emotion into your campaign increases engagement and adherence. Studies clearly show that emotions drive action. To make a decision, human beings use their reason, but also their emotions.
That's why it's important to take the emotional factor into account when creating your campaigns. There are two main types of emotion, divided into positive and emotion negative.
Now it's up to you to choose the type of emotion you want to use to go viral.
Pay attention to video length
If you're making video content, get to the point. Social network users are often in a hurry and don't have much time.
So think about making videos in short format in which you convey important information in the first few seconds. It's all about engaging your target audience and making them feel concerned right from the start. Asking specific questions right at the start of your video, for example, is a good way of hooking your target audience.
5. Create a contest to go viral
A contest is a great way to go viral. If you do the product promotionoffer some of your items as a reward.
You can easily create contests on Facebook, Instagram or any other social network by posting them on your company profile. The great thing about contests is that they're easy for brands to manage and execute, so they often don't need expert help. What's more, contests are less time-consuming than other digital marketing methods, requiring less effort with minimal risk of failure.
For example: a travel brand could organize a contest in which it would choose a winner who would receive free plane tickets all over the world next summer! The contest consists of giving something away in exchange for an action from a user you've defined. It's up to you to offer something interesting that makes as many people as possible want to take the time to follow your conditions of participation.
Before entering a competition, you need to estimate return potential and the return on investment it can generate for you.
6. Use influencer marketing to boost your campaign.
Influencer marketing is a strategy that can help you achieve your goals and raise awareness of your brand. Influencers are people who have a large following on social networks and can help spread awareness of your brand and content. By collaborating with influencers, you can generate buzz for your campaign. It's also a much more cost-effective way of getting your campaign noticed.
Don't embark on influencer marketing without first analyzing the influencers you want to collaborate with. Think first about the community that follows the influencer, so that it matches your potential customers. Without this, you run the risk of hitting the water, or at the very least, you'll have trouble making your campaign profitable.
An influencer, generally depending on the size of his or her community and commitment, will ask you for a budget that can quickly turn out to be high. So it's up to you to invest in the right person!
7. Don't forget paid advertising
Finally, consider using paid advertising tools like Facebook, Instagram or YouTube ads if you have a corporate budget earmarked for these types of services.
Paid advertising is an excellent way toincrease reach of your content. But it's not for everyone. With paid advertising, cost and ROI are factors to consider. If you're not sure whether paid advertising is right for you, contact one of our digital strategy experts which will guide you best decision to take.
Organic content can go viral without even having invested a budget in paid advertising on social networks, but it's obvious that sponsoring or setting up a well thought-out advertising campaign can only help you achieve your goals.
8. Stay organized and communicate frequently!
For your campaign to be a success, you need to stay organized and be constant.
Consistency is often overlooked on social networks, yet it's one of the key elements that will help you go viral.
It's quite possible to go viral on social networks with a single publication, but let's be honest, it's still very rare! And even if it does happen, don't stop at your first buzz - keep riding that positive wave.
Virality is built up. Take your favorite artist, for example. He didn't make a name for himself with his first song or sketch. He worked at it over time.
9. Create a strong call to action
Going viral also requires a strong call to action. The call to action must be strong, clear and concise. It must speak directly to the audience, and thespur to action accordingly.
For example, if you're selling a product, your call to action might be "Buy now".
As well as getting people to take action, it's important that your call to action doesn't offend or frustrate your audience. If you put too much emphasis on the message you want people to remember, they may find it difficult or unappealing. So make sure the message isn't too direct, and that the tone of your campaign is positive and inspiring.
Many campaigns have opted for a lighter approach that doesn't overemphasize the objective the company wants to achieve. This makes the campaign less aggressive and therefore more commercial, thereby increasing engagement.
10. Always be ready to pivot and improve
You should always be ready to pivot and improve your strategy if your campaign isn't going as planned. This includes adding other elements to your campaign, such as advertisements or interesting facts about your company or product.
It's also important to keep a small budget aside so you can reallocate it to another campaign that wasn't originally planned. Another important tip is that you should always think outside the box. The world is full of creativity and brilliant ideas, so don't be afraid to ask others for help. If you can't come up with an idea on your own, look for inspiration on social networks or Google common mistakes made by companies that have gone viral before.
Keep in mind that there's no point in sticking to a campaign that isn't working. You're busy spending your time (and maybe money) on a strategy that may not achieve your objectives. It's therefore important to question themselves by analyzing the potential reasons for this situation, and adapt what you think you need to adapt to get there.
Don't take this as a failure, but rather as a lesson that will enable you togo to and understand what works and what doesn't. And if you've reached this point, remember to take up each of the points mentioned above.
Conclusion
Going viral takes hard work and discipline: you can't just go viral! If you take all the above points into account, you'll have everything you need to succeed.
- The key is to be well prepared, defining clear and precise objectives for a specific target that you need to reach by choosing the most appropriate communication channel (e.g.: the various social networks have a very specific audience).
- Create content that is consistent with your brand image and your target audience, but with a touch of originality that will make you stand out from the rest of your competitors' content.
- Continuously analyze your results to continually improve your campaigns and get the most out of your campaigns and go viral as quickly as possible