Two of my posts recently went viral — one hitting over 600K views — and it taught me a couple surprising lessons about visibility, positioning, and what actually matters when people flood your page.

In this episode, I break down the real lessons behind viral content and what entrepreneurs should understand about attention online.

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Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to Show Up Real podcast. I am so happy you are here.

All right, today I want to talk about some lessons that I learned about going viral. So we are going to get into that in a second. But before we get started, I want to thank you so much for all of the love, the DMs about the last episode that I put out, was called, Why Did I Close My 400K Mastermind and Everything I Learned? I hope that you took away what I wanted you to take away from that episode. It was really such a learning lesson in my business and in life. And I’m just so happy that it was received well and so many people resonated with it. I, yeah, I’m still very much like moving and shaking in my business, trying to figure out who do I want to be next? And I am giving myself a lot of space to do that. And I’m just don’t have a fucking problem with it. Like I, I spent so much time for too long, like, guilting myself for it, and I’m just in a place now where I’m like, you know what? I am that bitch, I’ve been that bitch, I don’t need to fucking prove that I’m the fucking baddest, okay? I don’t, and I think so much of my brain, like, wants to, but the more I really, really align with, like, what feels right to me, and taking action that feels very, very aligned with who I’m becoming and not who I was is really, important to me. I’m just, yeah, I’m pumped. I’m excited. It feels like a simmer, like a simmer is happening. So I’m excited about that. But anyways, that is that.

Before I get into this episode, I want to remind you that one-on-one coaching is open. And if you want to grow your business, grow your visibility and really become, not, I don’t want to say become, but really like create content and market and be the CEO that is unapologetically yourself. Doesn’t fricking think about content 24 seven. If you want to create a very simple system where you have content, you create it, but it isn’t your whole freaking business. You’re not like obsessing over it all the time, but you still want to grow your business. Work with me one-on-one. I will help you work through this, create a plan for the year, create a content system that works for you. Depending on where you are in your business, you know, we’ll work on different things, but I wanted to start with saying that. So if you are someone who’s interested in one-on-one coaching, reach out to me. The link is going to be in the bio of this episode, but also on Instagram in the link in bio. All right, let’s get started with this episode. So here is what I learned going viral. Now there are two specific posts that went viral a couple of weeks ago now. I guess it’s like almost a month ago, maybe a month ago. And one went way more viral than the other, but one was a

What’s so funny is both of these posts were about the Bay Area and I’m from the Bay. So there’s one post that it is me dancing. Literally I recorded this weeks earlier, dancing to a song that I just really love in my kitchen while I was getting breakfast, while I was making breakfast. And I was just had a morning where I, I don’t know, I was making breakfast and I was just like in a good mood and I was like, let me record this. And I left it, I just left it in my phone for a while.

And then another one was a post an Instagram real using the little I don’t know if you guys have seen them but like the AI Barbie faces there isn’t there’s a creator that Created these Barbie faces and I basically like screenshot it from his I gave it credit of course on my post but They’re going viral so I feel like the majority of you might have seen them before. If not, go to my Instagram, @catdelcarmen, and scroll down a little bit and you’ll see a Barbie face making a face. So those are the two posts. And I actually posted them back to back. And one post was me just singing this song and dancing. And I did some fun editing with it, I will say that. And I definitely want to make more of those because I dance and sing all the time. So that comes natural. So I’ll probably make more of those. But that was one. And then the other was these images of Barbie sign. And it this won’t make sense to you if you’re not from the Bay Area. But it basically is a Barbie face making a really big frowning face. And it said Bay Area Millennials the second they hear this. That’s that’s the copy on the reel. And then the song that the audio that I added was this old dance by Mac Dre, which is a very influential rapper in the Bay Area who basically was like the root of the hyphy movement in 2006, right? And if you’re a millennial, you like a hundred percent, if you’re millennial from the Bay, you a hundred percent know this song, but the, the, The Haifi culture in the Bay Area is so strong. It’s so rooted in Bay Area culture that like, it’s not just millennials. Like you can even look at the comments. Like I got so many comments on this one. and I, yeah, anyways, we’ll talk about that. I just want to explain the reals first. So those are the two that I posted. One got, ooh, I should, hold on. I did have my results of those. So let’s see.

The one with the Barbie face got 635,000 views, so almost a million. It’s growing, honestly. In the last month, it grew like 200k views. So I immediately got like 250k views within a couple days. But since then, it’s all now at 600. So it’ll continue, I guess. And then the other one got 50,000 views. And I grew, I should have pulled up my.

Stats I know a little bit of them. Hold on one second. I Want to change this? Okay, it’s not letting me I want to say I grew somewhere around. I don’t know 200 200 Follow followers around that much So a good amount not crazy good and we’ll talk a little bit about that here, but

I just want to start with the stats. So around 700K views, 150K interactions, or 100, I’m sorry, no, 106K interactions, 200 followers, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. Let’s get into the lessons. And I will say too, I’ve also gone viral on TikTok. This was like last year. I never talked about it.

So I wanted to share the immediate lessons that I have learned about this, especially from friends who have gone viral too. I’m just kind of looking at what is happening in the landscape around virality, and I want to give you some context around it. Okay, so I have four points, and I do want to make this kind of quick. I don’t want to run on too much because they’re pretty straightforward lessons. But if you have any questions, thoughts, feel free to DM me on Instagram and just let me know. Also, if you take something away from this podcast episode. I would love your love and feedback on either the reviews on Apple or if you could DM me and let me know that you’re listening. would so appreciate it.

Okay, let’s get into it. These are the four things. So number one lesson that I learned is that personality led like fun content that gets eyeballs. Even if it’s not your ideal client, eyeballs are eyeballs and some of them will convert. And I think the lesson for me is like, you know that, that saying they say about like bad PR is still PR. It’s the same exact thing. It’s not that this is bad PR. Even like both of my, both of the pieces of content that went viral, viral weren’t directly, weren’t directly related to my business, related to my niche, not even directly. They were not related to my niche. They weren’t related to my business and they still performed and did a job for my business. They still did good for my business. And the lesson here is eyeballs are eyeballs. You want people knowing that your business exists. You want people understanding, like finding you, just straight up finding you. And it’s a hundred percent okay if the content that goes viral isn’t perfectly aligned to your niche. I just want to give you full permission to that. It just doesn’t have to be period and in point like end in point and Yeah, like that is the lesson. It’s like it’s not that important that like the content that you put out has to be your ideal client. No, it really doesn’t have to be like I think it’s the value of those pieces of content is one, it got more eyeballs on my business. Two, it definitely helped anyone who followed me or anyone who started following me, it helped them understand my personality right off the bat, right? My sense of humor right off the bat. And there was a little bit of a connection. Now, was it the most worthy connection from a business standpoint? No, but I have 200 new followers, right? So like with those 200 new followers, I’m gonna say, mean, even if just 25 % of them are my ideal client, then fucking perfect, right? Like that’s amazing. So lesson here is eyeballs are eyeballs, okay? You don’t need to post only perfect content that’s related to your niche and to your ideal client and blah, blah, blah. No, eyeballs are eyeballs, okay? We want people finding out about our business. Ideally, we would like it to be ideal clients, but you could still get a lot of value out of making content that is just purely fun and personality-led. Okay? That is lesson number one.

Lesson number two is the importance of your bio, pinned posts, overall page positioning matters massively. Because when people do flood your profile after a viral piece of content, you’ve got seconds to show them who you are and what you offer. Seconds, y’all.

Seconds like you have to be thankful for every single person that views your page Like if someone saw your content and viewed your page number one that piece of content did that and you better audit it and ask yourself why and you could find it in the insights and I want you to answer that question. Why did they go to my page? Check them out learn about them, right? If it’s your ideal client, then it’ll make total sense why they looked right but

You have got seconds. So it is important that your bio, your pinned posts, your highlights, right, that they are speaking the same language, showing off what you want to show off and communicating what you are about. Okay? That is really, really, really important. Now, do they have to be pretty and on brand and perfect? Absolutely not. But it should be straightforward and you don’t want people to like think too much. You want them to get an instant understanding about who you are, what you do, what you’re about. And that’s really up to you, right? Like you get to choose how you wanna be perceived, but all I’m saying is that your bio is important. Your pinned posts are important. All of that information is exactly what is going to help your people, not your people, help new people quickly understand should I follow them or should I not and it’s also important that where where you have your name? That that also says who you are right like the type of coach you are the type of business you have or like whatever the case is You want to be straightforward not just have your name Okay, that’s lesson number two.

Lesson number three is you have to be ready? before the opportunity hits when I started seeing the posts go viral. I kept asking myself like, shit, let me double check everything. And I started looking like, all my links work? you know, like making sure that like everything that a brand new person who went into my world, making sure everything sort of worked and that their experience was going to be, you know, good and that they could get ahold of me and they could whatever, just making sure like I’m good from that standpoint but the other thing I started thinking about is like, next time I go viral, am I ready for the virality? Like, am I ready for the virality? And I kept thinking, like, if I have a post go viral that’s like, literally, specifically about me and my leadership and my niche and my point of view, right? And if it goes so viral that it like hits a news channel or hits Good Morning America or it hits a famous person, I don’t know, whatever. If it hits someone who wants to invite me to something because they saw this post, am I ready to own who I am at scale? Because the reality is when you go viral, there’s a little opportunity. There’s a small opportunity window where you might be tapped on the shoulder quickly. my God, do you wanna talk about this on our news segment? my God, do you wanna go live and talk about this with millions of followers, right? Like you have to be emotionally ready when you go viral. like, I think going viral the way I did is like, I mean, it wasn’t like a big emotional deal to me, but if I quadrupled, like if I got multiple, multiple millions of views, especially if it’s on content, that is specifically related to my business, Am I ready for the opportunities to come my way? And asking yourself that question is one thing. And then also just preparing yourself and really owning who you are, owning your values, embodying what you say, owning all of yourself, owning the strengths, the weaknesses, like owning your story.

Like this is why I tell so many of my clients like you have to show up on camera and talk more period Because if you really want the exposure the visibility that you want if you really want that then I would motherfucking practice I would motherfucking practice your story so that the first time you say it on a Famous podcast it doesn’t come out all weird, all slow. Practice now. Understand your story. Understand your values. Talk about your values. Talk, share your, your, your advice, right? Share what you have to say to your ideal clients on your social media. Get the practice now, because if you want to go viral and get all these followers, you better believe that things are going to come with that visibility and you better be ready for it because that opportunity will not last forever. Now you could create it again, sure, but you want to be ready. You want to stay ready. That was definitely a lesson. It’s like, next time this happens, I want to do this. And I started really thinking, OK, what if this happens next time? What do I want new followers to see immediately? You want to be scrambling to figure out your positioning when you’re going viral.

And then lesson number four is really understanding the timing of cultural moments or moments in society and how to leverage them. Because around this time when these posts went viral, it was around the time that Bad Bunny was at the Super Bowl and everyone was making a Bad Bunny post, right? And you have to understand, and I kept thinking like in those specific moments, especially right when Bad Bunny presented or when he when when he put on the best, most beautiful halftime show at the Super Bowl. It was this moment for Latino culture. And the people who took advantage of that, like I have really good friends who went like super viral and I loved seeing it because I’m like, this is what we have to understand. And I’ve always kind of known this. just, there aren’t huge, huge Latino focused cultural moments that were that big, right? All the time. So some people took full advantage, right? Like my good friend Janice and Erica, both of them did such a good job. They just like posted back to back to back to back to back to back. Bad Bunny, no fucking shame. I love it. And because the timing was so perfect and they were willing to do it right then and there, they got a ton of views and views follows. I’m sure they got a whole bunch of everything. But what I’m trying to share here is like you have to understand that there are slithers of time and cultural moments that happen in the world. And in those moments, give yourself all the permission to like take full advantage of it. Your ideal client is watching certain things. Your ideal client cares about certain things in the world and pop culture, et cetera. So the lesson for me is like, you want to map out those moments ahead of time as much as possible, right? Like, for example, and I haven’t taken action on it, but I believe the Oscars are this weekend. I think they’re on March 7th, 8th, maybe I’m wrong. It could be the next week. But I know the Oscars are soon. And one thing that I’ve been really wanting to do is record a reel just about Ryan Coogler, which is the director and creator of the movie Sinners. And Sinners has, I don’t have the numbers in front of me right now, but I want to say they have something like 16 or maybe 13 nominees in the Oscars for the Oscars. And

I believe it is the most Oscars that the most nomination, I should say the most nominations that one movie has gotten in one particular time, which is incredible. And it’s basically like an all black cast besides like a couple of people. And I’m a huge fan of Ryan Coogler because he’s from the Bay area. He’s from the East Bay. And I mean, his work is incredible. I just mean, one, I love his movies. Two, I love his come up. He’s a Bay Area dude, right? And what’s so funny is like the ones that the posts that went viral for me were like very Bay. And it makes sense that I’m like so attracted to to Ryan’s story because he’s someone that I not only look up to, but like is just such an example of like authentic excellence. Like authentic excellence and for example, because he’s gonna like this movie has so many nominations, of course they’re gonna win. I really hope they win best picture. And regardless, there’s gonna be a lot of exposure on that movie, on him, right? And I wanna do a real breaking down his career and the moves he’s made and why I think he’s so great and what I think we could learn from that greatness, right?

That is me thinking ahead of time. Now, will I take action? Please, please, please pray I do. I have a full weekend with a fricking kid, so I don’t have a lot of time, but I’m sure I could plan some time ahead of time to do that. But that’s what I mean by timing cultural moments, timing pop cultural moments and leveraging them and just preparing ahead of time for them. Because there are slithers of time where your leadership, your point of view is valuable and you want to take advantage of those moments like the Bad Bunny example. I can’t speak for my friends. But I want to say that each of them grew by thousands and thousands of followers. And I should look it up right now. know there are just examples. If you go to @theerikacruz – I was texting with Erika about it and I was like oh my god oh and she had like Queen Latifah follow her or something yeah one of Erika’s posts got 25 million views. Y’all a million 25 million views can you believe that crazy. Then also check out @yoquierodineropodcast. Jannese Torres, creator and host of the Yo Quiero Dinero® podcast, she’s about to hit 100k followers, which I’m so, so, so excited about. But she was posting a ton. She was a machine. mean, but I expect nothing less of her because she’s that’s she is such a badass. I don’t think I could see her views, but I will tell you, she gained thousands and thousands of followers. And she also was posting like, I don’t know, she must have posted at least like five times each day for like a week or something. Like I might be exaggerating, but the real example, I mean, like what I’m really trying to say here is like, you want to be ready and you want to prep as much as you can ahead of time.

And also those are not the moments where you wanna micromanage your content. Like you need to put that shit out into the fucking world and move the fuck on. Move the fuck on. Okay? Like even for my post that went viral, honestly, because La Russell was the song that I danced to and he was, well, a couple things. The Super Bowl was in the Bay Area, so the reason I made two Bay Area posts is because there was so much excitement in the Bay Area at that time. And I love the Bay. Like that’s my home. I’m a Bay Area girl. And I was like, I love the Bay Area. Let me make this stuff that I know is relevant to my people, especially because there’s a Super Bowl happening in that location and there’s a lot of eyes on the Bay Area. So this is a good time to do that. And.

It was a good time to do that. And it worked out, right? So I hope these lessons, I hope you took something away. I hope that you have a little bit more fun with your content. Clean up your page and make it as straightforward as possible. Don’t overthink your bio and all this stuff. And instead, just trust yourself. Trust the timing and the moment. And remember that at the end of the day,

Regardless of something goes viral, it doesn’t go viral, like your joy, your energy behind your content goes through. So the more content that you could create that that is, that comes from a place of like joy and intention and value to your ideal client or to just to the world, it is going to do good, whether it goes viral or not. And I wouldn’t stress so much about that versus the things that I just shared.

So I hope this was helpful. I hope someone needed to hear this. If you want more of this type of content, tell me what you liked about this content. DM me. I would love just to kind of get, like as I’m re-engaging my podcast audience, I really want to understand like, what are you wanting to hear? What are the things you’re thinking about and how can, like what knowledge can I help you with? Okay. So feel free to.

Be friendly and DM me either @CatDelCarmen on Instagram or @ShowUpRealPodcast on Instagram has its own as well. Or you can email me at catalina@catdelcarmen.com. All right, y’all, I will see you later. If you want one-on-one coaching to help you get focused on your plan for the year and really create more money in your business than you ever have, let’s work together. Besides that,

Show Up Real, my group program is going to be launching in the summer. So you can keep your eyes peeled for that. And just make sure you’re on my email list. All right. I will see you later. I send you big hug. Bye.