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Doing a stunt, making a funny video or using a famous celebrity to help you to \\u201cgo viral\\u201d may seem like it\\u2019s an effective way to grow a business fast. But going viral can actually prove to be detrimental to your long term success.

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This is Clickstarter, the Australian Digital Marketing podcast. I\\u2019m Dante St James.

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Do you remember Rebecca Black? Her wealthy parents paid to make her dream come true, to record, produce and release a hit song. Her song, \\u201cFriday\\u201d was so bad that it went viral. The song was, in any measure, a success, but not because people loved it. It got famous because of how bad it was. The terrible lyrics, Rebecca\\u2019s singing voice and the cringe-worthy music video was parodied, slammed and shamed from one end of the internet to the other. Rebecca got famous, but not quite in the way she wanted. And today, she isn\\u2019t famous, isn\\u2019t a successful singer or performer, and is largely forgotten, even though, for just a moment, she was the most well-known teenager on the planet.

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Going viral isn\\u2019t all that it\\u2019s cracked up to be.

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\\xb7\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 Producing an expensive video doesn\\u2019t guarantee success

\\xb7\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 Buying a famous person to share your stuff doesn\\u2019t guarantee success

\\xb7\\xa0 \\xa0 \\xa0 Building posts to appeal to millions may mean that you don\\u2019t appeal to anyone in your actual target demographic

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Over the last 20 years of memes, themes and viral dreams, one thing has been consistent. Most viral ideas started as low-budget, low-quality posts. In fact, the vast majority of them never set out to go viral. They just kind of fluked it. And that\\u2019s part of the charm of things that go viral. It\\u2019s the sweet ignorance or innocence of the original poster that made it so relatable or so likeable.

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This is what makes me shake my head when a radio station or local business tries to mimic a meme or attempt to recreate the conditions where something might \\u201cblow up\\u201d on TikTok or Instagram. For a start, radio stations are awful at trying to go viral. The joke of \\u201cwalking naked down the main street of town\\u201d has been repeated so many times by so many radio stations that it only makes us cringe. Spoiler alert, the goofy, cringey radio host walks a dog on a leash down the main street of town. The dog\\u2019s name is apparently, \\u201cNaked.\\u201d

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This is the problem with most businesses trying to go viral. They are trying to manufacture the viral effect. But going viral isn\\u2019t a foolproof process. You could follow the exact Rebecca Black formula but get no attention at all. You could try to be a Cherlyn Barnes, a Kim Kardashian or a \\u201cCharlie bit my finger\\u201d kid but you\\u2019ll almost definitely not go viral. There is no set level of artistic irony, dad-joke cringe worthiness, or template in Canva that is going to make you go viral. Sometimes things go viral. Usually they don\\u2019t.

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And this is why it is such a bad strategy to follow. If you\\xa0 do go viral, it won\\u2019t be due to people laughing along with you or admiring your ability to tell a story. It\\u2019ll most likely be that everyone is mocking you. And if you don\\u2019t go viral, all that energy is wasted.

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Strategies for growth online are best done with a long runway. Not with a short leap into the stratosphere. Growth happens when one person likes you and tells others about you. They then like what you do and pass on the admiration to others. That\\u2019s exponential growth that is impressive, even if it isn\\u2019t viral enough to reach for the stars. The beauty of a controlled ascent is that you can grow steadily along with the growth of interest in your business. When you go suddenly viral, even for good reasons, you probably can\\u2019t serve all those new customers effectively, so you go from overwhelmed to disliked by people really quickly.

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Steady growth is the key, not sudden, meteoric growth that isn\\u2019t sustainable.

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To learn more about digital marketing the Australian way, jump in to the Learn section at clickstarter.com.au and start on the road to helping your Australian small business to get known, get found and stay known.