How a small North Carolina hospital turned a popular song into viral marketing success.

On Sunday, June 28 — just eight days ago — we launched a music video for one of our healthcare clients. Usually, eight days is not enough time to calculate a significant enough outcome to warrant a blog post, but the results are in, and we cannot wait to tell you about it!

Clients sometimes struggle with taking a leap of faith and moving outside of their comfort zone when it comes to marketing their organization. However, when clients are up for anything, that big, creative idea (like a viral music video) is usually just around the corner. Columbus Regional Healthcare System (CRHS) is one of those clients for us. One of my favorite things about working with them is how they listen to their employees and cultivate marketing inspiration from within — with their latest, health-inspired music video being a perfect example.

Two nurses at CRHS came to the marketing department with a song that they wrote to the tune of Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass” called “All About Your Health.” Before Inspire, CRHS would have recorded a simple video internally, but we convinced them to take a leap and invest a little extra time into making a music video that had the potential to go viral on Facebook® and YouTube™. Take a look below.

The geographic footprint of CRHS is pretty much a three-county footprint of Columbus, Bladen and Brunswick counties. So when we strive for viral marketing success, we are really looking for a video that goes viral at the local level. And viral it went!

Facebook video ad stats after just eight days:

• 41,453 video views
• 82,080 people reached
• 1,635 Likes (628 On Post 1,007 On Shares)
• 394 Comments (75 On Post 319 On Shares)
• 590 Shares (561 On Post 29 On Shares)

This video has done more than just garner a lot of likes and views. We know that CRHS is “All About Your Health,” but now people are seeing that CRHS has a fun, likable and caring personality. Many of the shares are going beyond the hospital’s footprint and are being shared by nurses and doctors all over the country (including one share in Croatia).

Several comments have shown that this video is also a great employee morale booster.

My coworkers are so talented!

This was a great job. Way to send a great message to the community and build employee morale at the same time. Bravo!!!!

I wish we’d done this when I worked there. I love it!!!!

Yes I lol’d. Saw a few people I recognized. Wtg Columbus regional staff. (All about that bass parody.)

Viral marketing success is something so many companies would like to achieve, but so few often do. So what made this campaign successful for Columbus Regional Healthcare System?

Our prescription for viral video marketing success.

Listen to your people.

The best ideas for viral marketing could be resting within your organization. Create a work environment where your employees feel open and free to share their zany marketing ideas.

Include lots of familiar faces.

Organizations like hospitals have a lot of employees. Use that to your advantage. This video has about 45 people that were featured in it and none of them will escape being tagged by their friend’s Facebook posts when they share the video. The average Facebook user has 338 friends — 338 X the 45 people in our video = 15,210 people who should be reached organically very quickly. The “All About Your Health” video rounded out 276 shares and 15,000 views within 24 hours. Go figure.

Invest in decent video production value.

CRHS could have easily chosen to do this in-house with one shot and called it a day, but because we put a little more effort into it, they are getting a big return on their investment. Truth be told, we had a pretty lean crew on this one with Curtis behind the camera, Roy as grip (lighting), Jonathan as production assistant and the hospital’s marketing director to help facilitate the scenes. We were able to shoot everything in one day (9 a.m. to 7 p.m.), and that little dose of expertise went a long way.

Professional voice talent is surprisingly overrated.

There is a reason there are very few Meghan Trainor’s in the world. World-class voice talents are a rare thing. We had a few concerns that people would compare the voice talent to that of the original song, but apparently those concerns were completely unwarranted. With over 394 comments about the video over 95% of them are completely positive. We even had one commenter say, “This video is cute!!! Meghan Trainor ain’t got nothing on this song.”

Feed the organic views with a boost of advertising.

We actually launched the video with an advertising campaign. By spending $20 on day one, we were able to get the video out there in the Facebook news feeds of everyone that lives within 25 miles of Whiteville. That’s when the sharing frenzy started. Don’t be afraid to let loose and have fun with your marketing. If you are ready for viral marketing success, contact Inspire today.