Does Going Viral Help Your Business? My $3.41 Answer

Picture this. A reel I posted on my personal Instagram for fun, expecting maybe a few of my friends to chuckle, has now been seen almost 20 million times*. Over 11 million accounts reached. More than 2,000 brand-new followers. Likes in the seven figures.

And here is the punchline that nobody who dreams about going viral ever expects to hear: it changed absolutely nothing about my business.

Not one thing.

So let me tell you what really happens when a regular person accidentally goes viral, because the truth is a far more useful marketing lesson than the fairy tale we have all been sold.

How a stadium cleaner (and my laugh) went viral

Here is the part that makes this whole thing so delightfully silly. I did not create anything. I did not have a strategy. I was just being a fan.

I have adored the show Welcome to Wrexham since the very first season. It is a feel-good documentary that, in some episodes, barely seems to be about football at all. It is about the people, the town, the community, and the wonderful humans who make a club tick. When season five dropped, I was thrilled to start watching again.

Then Trina the cleaner showed up on my screen.

She works at the club, she was on screen for only a few minutes, and she cracked me right up. So I took a quick video of her segment, giggling in the background, and I shared it with a little caption about how she was already my favorite and how I hoped we would see more of her this season. That was it. That was the whole production.

(A quick heads-up before you go watch it: as they often warn on Welcome to Wrexham, beware of some "colorful language." Trina is a delight, and she does not hold back!)

I figured a handful of friends would smile. I never in a million years imagined I had just lit a match under something that would reach 20 million views.

At first, it was fun. Then I sailed past 8 million views in less than 24 hours and thought, okay, something wild is happening here. And then came the part nobody warns you about: complete and total overwhelm. The comments poured in faster than I could ever hope to read them, let alone reply. It was thrilling and dizzying and a little bit bonkers, all at the same time.

Does going viral help your business? Here is what the dream actually delivered

We have all heard it. Go viral, get famous, make money. It is the thing people quietly hope for every time they hit publish.

So let me show you exactly what that "dream" delivered for me.

Out of more than 11 million accounts reached, 47 people tapped the link in my bio. Forty-seven. My new audience is 65% men, most of them between 25 and 34 years old, and the lion's share of them are in the United Kingdom (82% of my viewers on Facebook were in the UK).

Now, I am a woman in my late 40s who helps women in service-based businesses with their marketing. So I will let you do the math on how well that audience lines up with my ideal client!  But I DID receive five lovely message requests from young gentlemen who seemed quite interested in chatting with me. 😉

And to all my wonderful new followers: I do hope you enjoy the steady stream of posts about my trips to the movies, the delicious food I eat, and the adventures I get up to with my friends. That is the show you signed up for!

This is the single most important lesson in the whole story, so I am going to say it plainly. Reach is not the same as relevance. Eleven million of the wrong people are worth less to your business than 500 of the right ones. A giant number feels incredible, but a number alone does not buy anything, book anything, or grow anything.

Now let's talk about the money (you are going to love this)

Surely a post with nearly 20 million views made a pile of cash, right?

I made about $3.41.

I am not exaggerating for effect. In a typical month, my entire payout from Meta for my personal account is around $5. It's actually a huge joke between my best friend and me to show her the horribly small revenue numbers I get each month (sometimes less than a dollar). The biggest viral moment of my life did not even move that needle.

But here is the truly ridiculous part. That reel does not even qualify me for Instagram's monetization program. To be eligible, your photo and carousel posts need at least 5 million views per month over the past three months. My actual monthly numbers were 2,989, then 11,207, then 2,396. The almost-20-million-view reel does not count toward any of it, because it is a reel, not a photo or carousel.

So the literal viral jackpot, the thing everyone chases, paid me pocket change from Facebook and did not even earn me a seat at the monetization table on Instagram. Exposure is wonderful. Exposure also does not pay my Silicon Valley mortgage.

Why I didn't scramble to "make it work"

Once the shock wore off, the marketer in me absolutely thought, "Okay, how do I use this?" Of course I did. Getting that kind of attention is the dream, and I would be lying if I said the wheels did not start turning.

But here is where I want to be really clear, because this matters.

I am not discounting content creators for one second. The folks who show up every single day, create original content, study what their audience responds to, and actually get paid for it? That is real, skilled, exhausting work, and it absolutely can pay off. It is also genuinely hard. It takes consistency, dedication, and a deep attention to your fans that never switches off. So a giant round of applause to every creator out there building something real. I see you, and I respect the craft.

I just do not have it in me to do that kind of work, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. I am not about to sit around filming clips of my television, hoping lightning strikes twice. And posting something like this on my business page would have made zero sense anyway, because it would have pulled in the exact same wrong crowd, just on the wrong account.

That is the real takeaway, and it is the thing I teach my clients all the time: chasing virality is not a marketing strategy. It is a lottery ticket. Fun to scratch off, lovely if it hits, but no way to run a business.

So what did I do? The boring stuff that actually counts

Here is the part that is not glamorous and not exciting, and it is also the only part that was ever within my control.

I made sure my bio was buttoned up. I made sure my Linktree pointed to the things that actually matter: ZingPop Social Media, Women's Networking Alliance, and a few resources I love. When the spotlight hit, my house was at least tidy.

That is the whole secret, and it is the thing I have been coaching business owners on since 2014. You cannot control when attention shows up. You absolutely can control whether your foundation is ready to catch it when it does. An optimized profile, a working link, a clear sense of who you are and what you offer. That is the unsexy groundwork that turns a fluke into even a tiny bit of forward motion, and it is the part most people skip while they are busy chasing the big number.

Foundation first, always. The viral moment is the lightning. Your foundation is the rod.

A quick word about Trina, because credit matters

I would be remiss not to tell you the loveliest part of this whole adventure.

Several people tagged Trina the cleaner in my posts, and I went looking for her. When I first found her, her profile was empty. A few days later, she shared an official clip from the show's page, with a caption that just slayed me: "Can't believe it's gone viral. I'm just Trina the cleaner."

So I reached out. I commented to tell her I never imagined one of my posts would get this kind of attention, that my clip had been seen millions of times, and that it was all because she is fabulous. She liked my comment. Yippee! Then I sent her a private message to ask whether she would like me to tag her or whether she would prefer her privacy, because I always love giving credit where credit is due.

I never heard back (whomp whomp), and that is perfectly okay. But I will admit that, for a moment, I did daydream about Trina and me becoming pen pals.

And if anyone from Wrexham happens to be reading this: my little fan video seems to have a bit more traction than the official clip on your own page, which means I sent you an awful lot of free publicity. I would make a wonderful guest at a match. All expenses paid, of course. I am very easy to find! :)

The real win isn't a big number. It's the right number.

So, does going viral help your business? The goal should never be to be seen by the most people. The goal is to be seen by the right people, the ones you can genuinely help, the ones who light up when they find you.

A small, engaged audience of your people will always beat a stadium full of strangers. Eleven million views felt amazing for about a week. A handful of the right clients will change your business for years.

If you are ready to stop chasing big numbers and start reaching the people who actually need what you do, that is exactly the kind of marketing I help women business owners build. No viral lottery tickets required, just a steady, doable strategy that brings the right folks to your door.

I would love to talk it through with you. Book a no-pressure discovery call with me at zingpopsocial.com/book-an-appointment, and let's get your marketing working for the people who matter most: yours.

*By the time of publishing, the post reached over 20.5 million views.

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Tracey Lee Davis is the founder of ZingPop Social Media and an email marketing manager and social media coach for women in service-based businesses. A Constant Contact Certified Partner since 2015, she helps small business owners feel confident, capable, and seen online. zingpopsocial.com