It’s considered a social media marketing coup d’etat to create content that goes “viral”.

Viral content explodes exponentially via the sharing tools of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.  When a piece of content takes off, it can get exposed to millions of people.  Not hard to figure out why marketers salivate over it.

So what kind of content goes viral?  Op-ed pieces by old school pundants like George Will?

No.

Talking political policy like Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush?

No.

Calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” like Donald Trump?

Now we’re spreading…

A girl eating corn on the cob on a high-powered drill, then getting her hair caught and ripped out?

Viral like flu bug in a 1st grade classroom (warning:  it’s pretty harsh to watch).

Douglas Rushkoff points out how viral content is inherently biased:

Social media is not configured to generate a balanced perspective on politics or anything. It has one and only one purpose: to generate attention, eyeballs, likes, reposts, and tweets. Facebook’s algorithms are programmed to spot posts that are inflaming or titillating people, and then help those stories gain even more traction by highlighting them in people’s newsfeeds and the site’s list of trending topics.

Make no mistake: Facebook is not a news bureau. It is a business plan. The object of the game is to win traffic from Google, Amazon, Spotify, and CNN. Its algorithms don’t just exploit the natural human failing for sensationalist novelty; they amplify and aggravate it.

In this lies the problem.  A serious, useful, professional business solution is rarely inflaming or titillating.  Nor is it absurdly cute or heartwarming (pictures of kittens and baby sloths also do well on social media).  Unless you’re willing to delve into the narcissistic, sensationalized style of Donald Trump – or risk personal injury doing crazy things with drills, doughnuts, or dildos – it’s unlikely you’ll catch the wave of attention the algorithms look for to create viral content.

Your only real option is to use paid advertising to slip your posts into the flow of “sensationalist novelty” and personal material that people actually seek on Facebook.

Many social media platforms thrive on our innate fascination with what’s bizarre, peculiar, or threatening.  Few business stories are really built to focus on that type of content.

It’s the digital marketing conundrum:  there is a vast social event taking place in the digital world, putting our audience tantalizingly close to our marketing message…except for the most part, they’re not paying attention.

It’s not the place for the intellectual voice of George Will.  Or policy discussions that solve real problems.  You won’t go viral by making sense.

And if going viral does in fact involve exploiting natural human failings, perhaps you don’t want to.  You might get a lot of attention, but that doesn’t mean you’ll make the connections you need.

Viral content can be pretty sick.  Is that a good thing?