Many businesses have their moment. There is just something about their online content that POPs. All of a sudden one of your products are selling out faster than you can restock, make, or you’ve been booked for more calls than you can physically fit in.

You’ve been waiting for this moment, and yet you find yourself chasing your tail to keep on top of the boom in your business. You start having to move the calls to a later date, just to complete work on the calls that came before them. Your stock system isn’t working and is allowing orders to go through. When the time comes to pack and ship, you find yourself flustered. Or worse, you have stocked up perfectly well, but you don’t have Ipswitch's WhatsUp Gold monitoring the downtime on your website - and you are missing orders.

Slowly the spark, the word of mouth that saw you become viral starts to wane. People begin to complain that they haven’t received their products, that you’ve taken their money and they are empty-handed. Your Facebook becomes a slew of negative comments, and the orders stop. The refund requests pour in.

What happened? What could you, or should you have done differently?

The truth is, supply and demand can be tricky at the best of times. But these steps will help you optimize when your product goes viral.

This is no time to relax. Jump on the activity, push other products. Join the conversation that will be taking place on social media. You are likely never again going to have so much interaction until you are a highly successful brand.
Bubbles burst. That big fat number on your sales and the ones in your business bank account are not your typical day. Not yet anyway. So don’t make any irrationally large spending decisions while you’re in that bubble.
Call your suppliers as early as you can. If you can see your numbers trending upwards and quickly, get in touch with suppliers and talk about how you can handle your new found fame (and the fact you’re going to need to move to a scalable supply model).
Keep testing all of your digital systems. One faulty cog, one product not displaying and you will soon find people will find a similar product elsewhere.
Keep your promises. Now is not the time to tell people you can’t fulfill orders. If there is going to be a delay in shipping, take to your social media and tell people. Use your website to display any urgent messages. Be clear.
Stay organized, and call in extra friends to help if you need it. Going viral is a two-fold thing, the sales and notoriety can do wonders for your company, but you can also find yourself stressed and stretched. Ask for help.
Utilize all of those new signups and customers. Ask them what they want, interact, lay the foundations for your next new releases.

Going viral is fantastic, but only if you manage it like a pro.