If you thought you and your friends are the only ones cooking up a “Harlem Shake” episode on YouTube, you are dead wrong. The viral craze has spilled off onto the corporate scene work stations or, more accurately, the ad agencies and marketing departments that represent such brands.
Since the home-made viral videos of the Harlem dance started making their way onto YouTube, lots more have featured employees performing this infectious dance at their work places. Some brands like Pepsi have however moved on beyond this, and have since then used this as a marketing opportunity to further push their brands out there. The company featured Pepsi cans interpreting the dance to the very catchy tune, prompting other major brands like coca-cola to start following suit.
Previous YouTube dance crazes have on record gone on for months on end, on the video network site and it is widely projected that the Harlem dance will be no different, mainly because it keeps evolving with more variety and creativity, rather than just being one video.
It is no secret that the world of social media is riddled with examples of corporate brands “gate-crashing” parties where they are not welcome. The initial idea of the Harlem Shake was to be used as an expression of modern hip-hop and urban culture. The moment brands come in and started to commercialize using paid actors and professional camera work, it negates the ideology for these viral dances.
This however has not been the case of the latest YouTube phenomenon. Pepsi that got into the Harlem dance craze, had carefully taken this into consideration, where they identified the groups sharing it and thus executed it by placing it among cluster markets that are most likely to associate with it.
The important lesson we learn from this social media strategy of riding on a viral trends is that you need to pick out your concept to make the most out of it. If the viral content is done using a cheap and shaky camera, a polished and professional ad agency production house is unlikely to land your intended results. You are better off hiring a couple of kids to execute the concept with their camcorders.
The second lesson that you ought to learn is if you are going to do it, commit wholeheartedly to the idea and be fast while at it, because when it comes to YouTube trends you need to be among the pioneers to gain the leadership position in the race for views and shares, rather than be labeled the “late contributor”. And, no one keeps tabs on a Trend that is already dying out.
The third golden commandment of social media trends is that you should never focus on over-branding. This is an especially difficult task since most marketing departments would rather you splash your message all over to maximize on brand visibility. You should however not be afraid to sneak in a message or two that will push your message out there to make the audience able to identify with your brand.
Most of all, you need to learn to accept that failure is an option and sometimes it may work, while at other times it just might fall short of being a total disaster. So in the case that your effort did not succeed the first time, don’t take it as an indication that a future effort will suffer the same fate.
