A campaign gets millions of views. Engagement spikes. Screenshots circulate. Internally, the energy is high. Then what?
It’s easy to confuse attention for impact. But reach without relevance doesn’t last. And performance that can’t be repeated doesn’t scale (Berger, 2013; Tuten & Solomon, 2017). Plenty of viral moments fizzle once the novelty wears off. They leave no memory, no message, and no real link to the brand behind them. The content hits, but nothing sticks (Kozinets et al., 2010).
This is where value starts to separate from volume. Valuable work might travel more slowly, but it lands more deeply. It’s specific enough to matter, true enough to be remembered, clear enough to carry forward.
Viral content is about speed. Valuable content is about substance. The best communicators know how to balance both. They create work that’s built to resonate, not just explode—work that earns attention and knows what to do with it once it arrives. That doesn’t mean being safe or predictable. It means being intentional, especially in the moments when visibility peaks. Because when the numbers cool off, what’s left is what mattered (Barrett, 2021).
And what matters tends to resurface. It gets referenced in the next campaign. It shows up in a client deck. It sticks around in the language the team starts using, even unconsciously. The real value of creative work is what stays useful, not just what got noticed.
It’s not a rejection of virality. It’s a reminder that visibility should serve the brand, not distract from it. Viral can be a bonus. But clarity? That’s the strategy.
REFERENCES
Barrett, S. (2021). When buzz fades: Sustaining brand relevance beyond virality. Content Strategy Journal, 12(3), 34–45.
Berger, J. (2013). Contagious: Why things catch on. Simon & Schuster.
Kozinets, R. V., de Valck, K., Wojnicki, A. C., & Wilner, S. J. S. (2010). Networked narratives: Understanding word-of-mouth marketing in online communities. Journal of Marketing, 74(2), 71–89. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.74.2.71
Tuten, T. L., & Solomon, M. R. (2017). Social media marketing (3rd ed.). Sage Publications.