WinRAR is dead. Long live WinRAR.

Back in 1995, Eugene Roshal developed something called WinRAR for Windows -? revolutionary software that has been used ever since to create and view archives in RAR or ZIP file formats and also unpack a whole bunch of other archive file formats.

Pretty handy, and soon - widely used, reaching over 500 million users worldwide. Based on that, one might think that through the years, their profits went over the roof. Except they haven’t.

Their business model has been quite odd, to say the least. The software has been distributed as “try before you buy” with a 40-day free trial. The “odd” detail: you could use the software for free even after the trial period ended.

This business model has worked (somehow) for almost 30 years. Still, the infinite 40-day trial has given birth to a whole range of entertaining memes.

With the rise of free online tools for compression and a scandal or two WinRAR had had a rather tough time staying in the market. And just when everyone thought it couldn’t get any worse - the news coming from Windows on May 23rd came as the final nail in the coffin. Or so it seemed.?

The Day WinRAR (Almost) Died

Showcasing upcoming developments in Windows, Microsoft has slipped in the information that Windows 11 is receiving an update that allows it to manage RAR files. No specialized software needed.?

It seemed for a moment that three stacked colorful books would be shelved and archived for eternity.?

But four months later, a single post on Twitter, a prompt reaction, and a social media manager in a good mood made all the difference.?

From Zero to 5,449 in a Day

It all began innocently enough. A Twitter user, in what seemed like a light-hearted jest, proposed a challenge to WinRAR on September 13th:

And being the sport that they are, they took the bait.?

The result? The Internet did what it does best - it exploded.?

The conversation screenshot made its way to 9GAG, amassing a whopping 15k upvotes and 1.2k comments. The hashtag #IBoughtWinRAR started trending very soon.

Ultimately, it all led to over 5,000 sold licenses and the greatest day in WinRAR’s history.?

What if…?

So here’s the gist - one social media comment mentioning a company started an avalanche of sales, turned it into the talk of the world, and pulled it from the verge of collapse.?

A regular Joe might say - pure luck. If it hadn’t been for the creativity of a random Twitter user, WinRAR’s good-humored social media manager, and their prompt reaction, none of this would have happened.

Someone familiar with social listening would say - such opportunities present themselves every day. The thing is that social listening tools enable you to track your specific keywords all over the internet in real time through a single dashboard. Specific keywords meaning your company name, key people, products, competitors, or whatever you think makes the difference for your business.

What is more - no one needs to tag your official channels for you to get the memo. So if something like this happened on a random forum where you can’t tag a profile, you could get a notification to your phone and react immediately. And we’ve all seen what reacting immediately can lead to.

The moral of the story? Don’t underestimate the power of a single social media post.

It may do wonders.

And listen.

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*All metric screenshots are taken directly from Determ, a media monitoring tool.