This week, I’ve watched some interesting stories in the news.
We’ve all seen news stories over the past few years where trolls, maniacs and other assorted folk have some crazy idea which is then blown out of normal proportions in order to sell newspapers.
If you frequent the Daily Mail or Reddit, then you probably use those headlines to get that rush of anger for the day.
If you read mostly internet marketing blogs, you’re probably thinking in terms of “going viral.”
Not All Publicity Is Good Publicity
Outrage sells.
Outrage goes viral.
Those are pretty much ‘facts.’ Whether it is a woman promoting all men be culled, somebody stomping a puppy to death or the next celebrity car-crash on a downward spiral into oblivion, people click and people get distracted and write angry comments about the moment they heard the disastrous news.
Going viral is a case of tapping into that current. Hopefully you don’t provoke outrage, but there are more similarities than that:
- You get the same audience.
- That audience won’t be helpful to you.
- The costs will be higher.
- You’ll have less control over your brand.
Think about politics, (I know… it’s just for a moment.) Career politicians have massive visibility, but when was the last time you actually saw anyone write anything good about any of them?
Let’s delve in further:
The Audience Is The Same
When you read the news, you’re looking for an emotional ‘hit.’ You aren’t going to read a news article about a cat that saved its owner and say, “Hey… I want to buy a cat.” You aren’t going to read a news article about curing diabetes and suddenly get a gym membership, and you aren’t going to sharpen your pitchfork when it comes to reading another article about your least favourite politican.
Why?
Because the emotional hit has nothing to do with action.
When your website is overly concerned with going viral, you are getting the same audience. You are getting an audience who cares more about ‘the hit’ than they do about information. That’s why there are so many motivational blogs out there; they provide the hit.
It’s also why there are so many political bloggers.
The Audience Will Not Be Useful To You
The hit is all the audience cares about.
When you get an audience like this, you swap brains for eyeballs. I like to think when I’m writing my articles about getting better at copywriting, that all of about ten people read, that at least those ten people actually want to get better at copywriting.
I could have a million visitors instead, but none of them would want to learn about copywriting.
Whilst you might think that’s a trade-off you’d like to make for the sake of money, think for a moment: Nobody in that viral audience wants to pay you.
I could buy a million visitors with adwords to this site. I could drop an affiliate link at the bottom of the page. It wouldn’t make a difference. Viral Traffic is not targeted.
The Costs Will Be Higher
There is a bigger problem with untargeted traffic than the fact it doesn’t convert. It goes back to one of the first things I said: nobody likes politicians.
The costs of doing business are high for companies with poor reputations, because everything they do is impacted by that poor reputation. If your site is going viral for the wrong reasons, then understand that not only are your costs going to go down, but the damage to your reputation is going to go up.
If you aren’t giving the audience what they want, then this negatively affects their opinion of you. A negative opinion travels faster than a positive one, because the amount of people outside your target market is always larger than those who are in your target market (or ideological camp).
That’s why outrage marketing only ever leads to more trouble than it is worth.
You Have Less Control Of Your Brand
A few months ago we had the Charlie Sheen debacle.
Often, you’ll see sports stars and musicians and other celebrities talk about “building their brand.” Outrage marketing and going viral only ever weakens the strength of your input into your brand. Charlie Sheen has next to no control over his brand – he played the outrage card, which allowed the media to trample all over him. Now, the interlocked media can basically use each other as source material, and create a network of “truths” which create a whole new brand for Mr. Sheen or their other celebrity targets.
Closing Thoughts
This has been a bit of a detour from regular programming.
As a general rule of thumb, planning to invoke outrage or controversy in your marketing plans or writing is ultimately a poor targeting method. Added to that, you have to keep upping the outrage once the initial shock wears off. This puts you on a treadmill that just gets more and more outrageous until you’re a parody.
(See Reality TV for this: What was reality TV is now “famous people eating insects and jumping off cliffs for a little bit more attention.)
It’s an odd topic, but it’s a trap writers fall into quite often and one that can derail them professionally and psychologically.
Don’t fall into that trap.