For those who work on influencer marketing campaigns when a social post goes viral, it can feel like you have hit a home run.

But, how do you know if your influencer’s social media post will go viral?  That can be challenging but not impossible!

After running thousands of influencer campaigns over the years, we have found a few commonalities in viral posts.

In this week’s blog post, we share insights on common factors that contribute to viral posts.  We use the example of a recent influencer post that went viral on one of our client campaigns to illustrate. 

WHAT IS A VIRAL POST?

Let’s start first by defining what we mean when we say that a social post has gone viral. Typically, we can determine if a post has gone viral based on the social platform, audience size, and engagement metrics.

Things like a surge in views, likes, shares, retweets, or comments within a relatively short period can indicate virality. At SheSpeaks, we look at the number of followers that an influencer/account has an if the number of views or engagements is greater than the number of followers, we tend to view this as viral in that the post has gone beyond the influencer’s audience.

The sponsored influencer post below for Glad Cling’N Seal is an example of post that has gone viral. The post has almost 975,000 views however, this influencer @sailor_bailey has just 400,000 followers i.e., the post has gone beyond the influencer’s followers. And, the more traction a post gets, the more the social platforms shows it to other users.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bailey (@sailor_bailey)

WHY DOES THIS POST WORK?

1. Our influencer Bailey created a recipe post that matched what her audience was accustomed to seeing from her (and it looks delicious!)
2. The sponsoring product is naturally placed in the video and its use is shown authentically as part of the recipe
3. The voice over from the influencer compellingly describes the key benefits of the product

Another example of a viral sponsored post is from creator Kyla Charles for Starburst Pink. This video has 2.1+ million views. With just 62,000 followers on TikTok, this post has clearly gone well beyond Kyla’s audience.

@kylamariecharles #ad Sometimes self-love is running errands with your favorite audiobook and a bag of STARBURST® ALL PINK! Shop @starburst ALL PINK at @walmart via the link in my bio #GrabAPinkMeUp #PinkMeUp ♬ original sound – Kyla Marie Charles

WHY DOES THIS POST WORK?

1. Kyla, a mom of four, shares insights about family life on her account. This post is titled, “Run Errands With Me”, something many families can relate to and very much part of the “Get Ready with Me” trend on TikTok.
2. The influencer talks about a routine thing that moms do i.e., run errands but adds a fun twist with messaging about treating yourself with something sweet i.e., the product is “hero”.

So, when clients ask us, “Can sponsored social posts go viral?”, the answer is a resounding YES! as long as you keep certain some of the above tips in mind!