Brands nowadays know that they need a comprehensive content strategy to build awareness, drive engagement, and build relationships with the people they want to buy their products and services. Most brands want content to be as low-cost and low-effort as possible as they constantly look towards their bottom lines. They want to do things the easy way. Sometimes, however, creating the best results for your bottom line means doing things the hard way- putting in the time, effort, and money to create truly incredible content.
If you want to see the way forward, look no further than the music videos of the alternative rock band OK Go.
Creating Viral Content the Hard Way
OK Go creates rock music but they are perhaps more famous for their elaborate music videos. Nearly every music video OK Go has made has gone viral, and for good reason: they are incredibly cool. OK Go isn’t content to do music videos in any sort of traditional manner. Each of their videos features something incredibly difficult to pull off- whether it’s a Rube Goldberg device featuring each member of the band or driving through a race course and making music with the car. Also, OK Go’s videos break the mold. Their new video “I Won’t Let You Down” features the band riding around on robots while being filmed by drones. What does OK Go get for their efforts? Millions and millions of views. The sort of engagement that most brands only dream of.
What Does this Mean For Brands?
While you certainly don’t need to totally abandon your low-cost, low-effort content efforts, every once in awhile take a big blue-sky type idea and just go with it. Take your time. Do the work. Create something big, and over-the-top. Also, don’t be afraid to break the mold and do something unique.
Basically, follow your fear. Take a chance and if you put in the work, it might just pay off.
For more, find out why content marketers need to learn to grind.
