What’s every social marketer’s worst nightmare? To create a detailed and comprehensive social marketing strategy only for it to be a complete and total disaster? This may be true for most but failing to plan for success can also lead to a nightmarish situation for marketers.
Let’s assume your newest marketing campaign becomes a viral hit and your brand acquires universal popularity and appeal. What next? Do you have a plan to build upon this surge in your brand equity?
Do you have the physical and virtual infrastructure to cater to ramped up demand? Would you be in a position to capitalise upon your success before your audience’s attention shifts elsewhere? If you cannot answer any of these questions, then it is clear that your social marketing plan does not cover the consequences of success.
Plan, Plan, Plan!
As absurd as it may seem, you must plan for the possibility of your campaign becoming a roaring success. You should have set parameters and benchmarks to assess and quantify the success of your marketing strategy and should be in a position to ramp up other aspects and functions of your business accordingly.
It may seem odd to plan for something as remote as a viral success. However, you don’t want to be that marketer who failed to exploit a viral strategy to its fullest potential. So, just as you would plan and prepare for failure, you must do the same for success as well.
Know your Expiry Date
It doesn’t take a lot for an idea or a joke to become a viral sensation. 2019 saw the hashtag #JCBvideos going massively viral all over India as people marvelled over JCB digging videos getting millions and millions of views.
Yet, this phenomenon lost steam in just a few weeks, which meant anybody hoping to ride this trend had an incredibly short timeframe before the ‘viral-ness’ expired. You cannot presume to remain a viral sensation forever because that’s just not how social marketing works.
Stay Humble… No Matter What!
It’s easy to think you cannot do anything wrong when your well-crafted idea becomes a social hit. Just keep in mind that the audience has very low tolerance for arrogance or lack of humility. So, as your plans work out and as your brand grows, stay humble and stay grounded so that you find it easier to recover from the inevitable mistakes and errors that will occur.
