The Significance of a Viral Post on Social Media

Social media platforms have quickly become one of the main ways for communication, especially among young adults. These platforms have provided a new field of data of interest to researchers. Popular content on social media is often referred to as “viral,” and can be posted in the format of a “meme” relating to the culture of the platform. Such content is often posted by social media influencers. This exploratory study investigates a particular instance of viral content, using Twitter data. Quantitative analyses were used to determine the frequency of tweets related to the topics of the viral video using hashtags. A content analysis was done to investigate the themes present within the data set. Findings suggest that attitudes and behaviors of Twitter users are influenced by viral video posts. Viral marketing businesses may use these results to improve advertising on social media platforms