What creators need to know about going viral—and how to prepare for brand partnerships

Internet virality is unpredictable. With more content being produced by everyday social media users, they may find themselves going viral, which can be both exciting and scary. When this happens, speed is important, for both the content creator and the brands that want to work with them. Brands will want an easy way to get in touch, so making contact info easy to find is a must. Plus, legal advice might be in order to protect one's content. Taking such steps can help a casual creator turn their content into a second revenue stream. Ad Age spoke to several influencer and talent experts for advice on what you should do if your next post blows up on TikTok or Instagram. Please leave a message Overwhelmingly, the first piece of advice for someone who goes viral is to list an email or other form of contact on all social media channels. “You need to make it brutally easy for people to get in contact with you,” said Victoria Bachan, managing director of talent at Whalar. She advises making a separate, highly monitored business email for this reason. That way fan mail, permission rights emails and brand outreach are all in one place. To avoid multiple follow-ups, try to respond in a timely manner, or create an auto-responder that gives a timeline for when you’ll respond. Then keep posting content. “Brands will only work with creators who they feel are continuously engaged with their platform,” Mahzad Babayan, a digital talent agent at United Talent Agency, wrote in an email. “If someone has a strong desire to monetize following a major viral moment, we would highly encourage them to continue creating content and the opportunities will follow.” See all of Ad Age's 2023 Agency A-List winners here Plan for success There are a couple of steps even casual creators can take to prepare for possibly going viral. If you have enough followers, sign up for creator funds, which are pools of funds set aside to pay the creators that fuel the content on apps. For example, to join the TikTok creator fund, a user must have a U.S.-based account, be at least 18 years old, have at least 10,000 followers and have at least 100,000 video views in the last 30 days. Once approved, creators can link a payment method to receive funds. To earn money from YouTube, creators need to be part of the YouTube Partner Program. Creators need an account in good standing, more than 1,000 subscribers, and their public videos need to have more than 4,000 hours of watch time in the last 12 months. They can then set up an AdSense account, which is how YouTube pays creators. Creators can even sign up to have YouTube notify them when they meet eligibility requirements. Parents can set up and link a separate savings account for platform payouts to help a child or teenager earn passive income on ads. There is also a separate YouTube Shorts fund but YouTube will reach out to creators to tell them if they qualify. For folks that want to use their virality to take the next step as a creator, there are influencer platforms that can help connect them to brands, such as Whalar, Aspire, Obviously or #paid, to name a few. Creators can sign up for an account, or might be invited to sign up, as a way to help get discovered by brands. New creators can also charge a low fee for content, or take gifted content, to learn the ropes of working with brands. Protect your content Because viral videos can spread quickly, a consultation with an intellectual property lawyer could be helpful. “That is your IP, and you want to make sure you aren’t giving it away for free,” said Derek Goode, influence marketing speciality lead at 160/90. “We’ve heard of a viral creator being reached out to by an aggregating outlet, like a ‘best of’ Twitter handle, or ‘kids doing things’ Instagram, and they sign a waiver that also signed away their rights.” That can also mean doing due diligence in terms of contracts or paperwork for brand partnerships. It's not uncommon for a brand to send a gift package to express their interest in working with a viral creator, and then follow up with an official partnership proposal a few days later, Goode said. Mental health Several talent experts agreed that being able to know when to take a social media break, or even connect with a therapist, is vital to doing well as a creator. Navigating “hate comments” can be especially draining on new creators who are dealing with shifting algorithms, new features and finding their voice in their content. “If one million people saw your content, and you hold even 10% of them, that can be a great foundation as a creator,” Bachan said. “But you have to decide if it's for you. Mental health is more important.” Sign up for Ad Age newsletters From influencer marketing to agencies, get the latest news and analysis delivered to your inbox Click here

What creators need to know about going viral—and how to prepare for brand partnerships

Featured Stories