In April, I posted a (very cute) video of my baby doing what appears to be a little baby workout, and… it turned into a viral reel! 3.2 million views at the time that I recorded this episode, and probably more as you are hearing the episode. It’s had 171k+ likes, 1,532 comments, 125k+ shares, and over 10k saves.
So in this episode, we’re taking a casual look at this reel. I’m sharing what I think helped it “go viral”, lessons learned from this process, what I’d do differently next time, and some random things that have come of this video (like more followers and rude trolls). If you’re interested in growing with Reels, I think you’ll enjoy this conversation a lot. I’m learning along side you! I love social media marketing strategy, but I’m honestly NOT a “Reels expert”. I’m sharing my experience, but with plenty of tips throughout!
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What was the viral reel about?
The viral reel is a video of my son, Colin, planking, He is holding a push-up position and it has some funny music playing over it, some text on the video, and a funny caption too.
I posted this to my Instagram stories first and you guys loved it! A follower suggested making it into a reel and that turned out to be a great idea!
It picked up quickly! It had 1 million views before too long and then it went to 2 million and 3 million in a matter of days!
I got a message saying, ”It’s always our kids, not our business content that gets so popular!” and that feels hilariously true with this. The reality is that reels are for entertainment first. It makes sense that something just simply entertaining will do better and get bigger than your business tips reels.
I’m not saying we should be making all of our content hoping it will go viral. For most of us, that isn’t actually going to help us grow our businesses.
For most of the reels I post, I’m actually not trying to get tons of people to see and share them. I am posting them to give easy wins to a new person and encourage them to follow me for more content. From there, I can hopefully get them to learn about offers I have in my business.
What made this reel go viral?
This viral reel is a short 13-second video. It is well lit but still natural and real. It is not “personal” so people who don’t know Colin could still enjoy it.
The text on the video says: “When your 7-month-old can hold a plank longer than you” which was just meant to be funny and isn’t actually true.
I also think the caption helps which said, “getting ready for summer like…”
There are actually 2 different jokes being made here. One on the video and one in the caption. There could be so many different jokes made about this video.
I think that is a big key to viral content. Viral reels need to be shareable and relatable to someone.
Things to consider next time:
I would put my handle as text on the video. It has been reshared a TON by big accounts who have credited me and linked back to me. It has also been shared a lot by accounts who are acting like it’s their original content.
I always want to consider how Colin will feel about the video as he gets older and if I want videos of him online. I am cautious about what I share of him and I always put things through the lens of “would he like this being shared when he’s older?” .
I do look at this video and think Colin would like it and think it’s funny and not embarrassing. The majority of the comments on it are something like,“that’s impressive”! He definitely knows he’s cute when he does that now!
Random things that have happened since sharing the viral reel:
Getting lots of followers from this but they aren’t followers who want website templates, masterminds, and courses from me - they want more baby videos.
Some people would say “That’s bad! I don’t want followers who aren’t here for what I sell”. I actually don’t think it’s a bad thing. I think it’s great. They aren’t bot accounts, they are real people, who like parenthood content, which is great! Not everyone needs to be following you to buy!
Mean comments! I was not prepared for this.
Most people were very kind in the comments. But there were mean too. I deleted most of them and even blocked some of those people. I know that is part of sharing things online but it was truly shocking what some people felt like they could say about a baby.
I hope you liked this short episode about a fun, viral reel of a baby doing a plank! Hopefully, you learned something interesting about how reels go viral or at least some things that happen when they do. Follow along with me on Instagram to see more!
May 3, 2022
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