I Went Viral on Instagram Reels, What Was the Outcome?
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A few months ago, I created an Instagram Reels video with very little thought to its creative process and impact. I genuinely giggled at the video a little bit as I thought a few of my family and friends would find it funny. In less than a week, it had over 2 million views and the video currently has over 4.6 million views.
The expectation is that my Instagram page grew tremendously and I gained an incredible amount of followers as a result. Well, that’s not quite what happened and I did not expect that outcome. This article will tell you why, so you can prepare to have a better outcome than I did the day your video goes viral.
Why didn’t my followers grow?
My account is 98% focused on fashion and beauty-related content. However, do I occasionally create and post random comedic content or trendy challenges? The video that went viral was one of them.
Although my profile visits skyrocketed, they did not convert to follows. The moment I realized that particular video was gaining traction, I knew it would not result in an increased following.
Essentially, what happened was people who saw my comedic video visited my profile and noticed that I did not have more of the comedic content they were wanting to see. They lost interest and left. If one of my fashion videos went viral, the number of new followers that I would have gained would have been in the thousands. Why? Because I had enough of those content types to capture their interest.
Did I gain followers at all?
People follow accounts because they know they will get a certain type of content. People follow accounts like The Shade Room because this account will regularly put out entertaining celebrity news content. They follow Sports Center because they know they will regularly get sport-related content. So when users visited my page and saw the lack of comedic content, they left. Why? Because my page demonstrated that they will not be receiving those types of content regularly.
Does this mean that I did not gain any followers at all? No. Some people came to my page looking for comedic content, did not find it, but still liked my fashion and beauty-related content and decided to stick around.
Take Away
What did I learn from going viral and not getting the expected growth spike?
Create content for the future. If you only get 10 views or likes now, keep in mind that all it takes is one content for thousands of people to discover you or your organization. Create your content for that moment.
The content that goes viral is not what will determine your growth or how many people will follow, all the content you created prior will.
Diversify your content. If I had a variety of content, my growth would have been higher.
Indulge in trends or challenges. Trending content or challenges is like a boost. Although I will be sticking to my fashion and beauty content, I definitely plan on participating in challenges and trends that will boost my exposure so I can reach more of my audience.
