The hidden cost of viral content: is it hurting your brand?

(And your team doesn’t need to dance for the algorithm either)

The Internet didn’t begin as a brand playground. It was built by people — users, communities, outsiders, curious minds — who wanted to share, create, and connect. The spaces we now call “platforms” were once experiments in digital self-expression. And somehow, over time, that beautiful mess turned into a feed.

What started as real people making things they loved has slowly been replaced by metrics, formulas, and virality. Visibility became a goal. And attention became a product. But in the middle of this race to be seen, something got lost: meaning, consistency, and integrity.

At The Inmediato, we work with brands that want to do more than appear. They want to matter.

And that’s why we don’t believe in viral content as a strategy.

Viral is chaotic by nature. It demands speed over depth. Volume over vision. It rewards whoever shouts the loudest — not necessarily who has something important to say. For a brand with a long-term strategy, it’s not just irrelevant. It can be actively harmful.

Because here’s the truth: your brand is a system of trust. A contract between who you are, who you want to reach, and what you promise. Every message, every post, every campaign either reinforces that contract — or breaks it.

And no, being “fun” or “trendy” isn’t wrong. But it has to be rooted in something real. Otherwise, you’re just mimicking what already exists, adding to the noise, not the conversation.

Some Content Destroys the Brand You Spent Years Building

There’s a certain kind of video that does well on social: punchy, casual, mimetic, maybe even absurd. It can be funny. It can be entertaining. But it doesn’t always belong to you. Not everything that performs well aligns with your values or vision. And you shouldn’t have to betray your voice just to get numbers.

In fact, some formats — when adopted blindly — can make a premium brand feel disposable. They flatten the narrative, reduce complexity, and strip away what makes a business unique. What’s worse: they can create expectations in your audience that you’ll now be pressured to fulfill, even if they were never part of your long-term strategy.

And that leads to another issue: not all visibility is useful. Getting attention isn’t the same as building positioning. It can even take attention away from the core — your product, your service, your point of view — and shift it toward pure entertainment. That’s not brand growth. That’s distraction.

Audiences Are Smart — They Feel the Disconnection

People might double-tap, but they also notice when a brand loses its own voice. And while it might be tempting to say, “it’s just one post,” the truth is: everything communicates. When content is inconsistent with your values or your tone, it creates friction. It breeds confusion. It weakens the relationship between your brand and the people you care about.

You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing. You’re allowed to opt out.

Because this space — the Internet — is ours, too. We are not just players in someone else’s algorithm. We are builders. And with that comes a level of responsibility: not to replicate chaos, but to create culture. To create experiences that bring clarity, not just clicks.

So What’s the Alternative?

• Build a consistent voice and stick to it.

• Create content that feels aligned with what you stand for.

• Entertain if it makes sense — but always through your lens, not someone else’s.

• Use your time and budget to develop systems, not spikes.

• And remember: not everything needs to go viral to be valuable.

At The Inmediato, we believe marketing should mean something. It’s not a stunt. It’s not theater. It’s a process of showing up — clearly, consistently, and with intention — so that the people who need what you offer can recognize it, trust it, and choose it.

This isn’t about being nostalgic for a quieter Internet. It’s about reclaiming what was always possible here: connection, beauty, language, identity, presence.

Let others go viral. You can build something that lasts.