How I Went Viral Before Viral Was a Thing

The concept of virality arose out of something cool.

It’s a phenomenon that became possible only because of the Internet, and the early examples of virality were an affirmation of some of the web’s greatest qualities.

If a video, or a song, or an article was funny enough, inspiring enough, incredible enough, millions of people could connect over that shared experience – instantly. It was the first time in human history that that was truly possible.

Then a lot of big companies figured out just how much money going viral was worth.

Now, most viral content is planned, pushed, and extremely well-funded. Companies spend massive marketing budgets to orchestrate viral campaigns, and the market is steeper and more crowded than ever.

But does that mean you need a huge marketing budget to go viral? No. Absolutely not. And I have the direct experience to prove it.

Proving the Power of Online

When I was a kid, I worked at my father’s battery store. We were pretty successful – we had big accounts with the City of Los Angeles, the FBI, even the Church of Scientology, and we had a prime location at the Beverly Center which brought us tons of foot traffic.

We were doing well. But I knew there was more out there.

These were the very early days of the Internet, and at that point in time, we didn’t even have a website.

To my father, the Internet was a newfangled contraption that had no real business meaning: kind of like rock n roll in the 40s, it was an annoying fad that the kids were into but "it would pass eventually."

As much as I tried to convince him that digital was the next frontier, he was far more concerned about getting our phone number right in the Yellow Pages.

I wasn’t getting through to my dad, but I knew I was right. Then we hit a windfall.

A few months before, we had bought out Toshiba’s entire supply of rechargeable nickel metal hydride batteries. They didn’t think that rechargeable would really sell (poor darlings), so they sold us everything for cheap.

Out of nowhere, we started selling these things like hotcakes. Within months we had sold a quarter million units, all without a website. Where were these leads coming from?

I did some digging, and lo and behold, it was all happening online. Remember Yahoo group chats? We’d gone viral in the chatrooms for digital cameras.

Turning an Unsexy Appliance into a Viral Hit

This early success helped me convince my father that we needed to be thinking about the digital space – at the very least, we needed a website!

Begrudgingly, he put me on the project.

During the day, I was still on those sales calls, but nights and weekends, I was building out our website and nurturing our first online presence.

It took a lot of work: I had to create a catalog cross-referencing batteries with electronic appliance models, and there were no examples to go off of. Nothing like it really existed at the time.

My dad had also given me a $500 budget to market the website. But before I spent the money, I wanted to see what I could do for nothing.

I had already seen a zero-dollar marketing budget work with our rechargeable battery supply, and I wanted to try to make the same thing happen in a bigger way.

So, I reached out to family and friends and recruited them as my own digital “street team” to create buzz in online chatrooms.

Yahoo, AIM, GeoCities – anywhere there was discussion of digital cameras, electronic appliances, or anything else that needed a battery to run, we had people commenting about Battery City.

And suddenly, sales started booming. Out of nowhere, we were shipping dozens and dozens of packages a day, sending batteries not just all over the country but even internationally.

And that $500 marketing budget was still sitting in a bank account, not a penny out of place.

Hustle Can Get You Anywhere

Now, the Internet has changed a lot since then. Everything is crowded. There are power players ready to drop millions on a viral campaign. And that makes competition tough.

But here’s the lesson: if you’re willing to break the rules, bust your ass, and hustle, you can make anything happen without dropping big bucks.

Going viral does not have to happen from a big marketing spend – if you’re crafty enough, dedicated enough, and put in the hours, you can light a fire that grows into something huge. And you don’t have to burn money to get it started.

Obviously, Yahoo group chats are a thing of the past, but the principles I used to make Battery City go viral still apply.

Whether you’re trying to make a piece of content or a new business go viral, figure out what niche it serves. Find out where those people “live” online. And engage them there, reaching them where they want to be reached with content that provides real value.

Anybody can create a viral campaign that reaches millions of people. I promise you that.

You just have to be willing to put in the work.