It was an ordinary evening. I was out playing fetch with my dogs, Angus and Lucita as the sun sank low in the west and the heat of the day released its grip on the desert. Angus loves fetch, but he loves playing keep away more, so he was running away from me with the ball, a mischievous look on his face. Suddenly, he disappeared behind the water tank we have for the dogs to drink from, his ears occasionally peeking over into my line of sight.

“How funny,” I thought, “I should get a video.” I pulled out my phone to record. Of course, the second I started recording, he stopped poking his ears up, so I called his name.

“Angus!”

Suddenly, as if he had prepared his entire life for that moment, he popped up from behind the water tank, giant pibble smile across his face.
I had a good laugh, put my phone away, and went inside. I almost forgot about the video until the next day when I decided to upload it to Facebook. A friend suggested I upload it to TikTok, and almost as soon as I did, the views and comments exploded. Within 24 hours, Angus had nearly 1.2 million views, along with thousands of likes and comments. My phone buzzed constantly- it was never ending.

It was surprising, but also thrilling to see viral success- as a photographer, I had been trying to crack code to social media success for years. But, I learned quickly that I wasn’t at all prepared for what comes with viral fame. There are some definite do’s and don’ts that come with the territory.

In case your dog goes viral, here’s what you need to know:

When a video goes viral, content curators like Viral Hog will reach out to you wanting to purchase rights to your video. While it may seem enticing, it’s rarely worth it, and you’re better off keeping the rights to your video and using the time in the spotlight to grow your audience (especially if you are running a business or online brand).
You will be flooded with comments, follows, and messages. You can’t possibly answer every single one, so just try to pick the most engaging comments and respond to those. If you’re on TikTok, use the video response feature. In my case, people were asking me to put sounds from other viral memes over my video, which I did using the video response feature. Some of those videos also have millions of views, which only bolstered the success of the original video.
Your followers will grow by a lot. I gained over 5K followers pretty much overnight. I can’t lie, it feels strange and a little overwhelming, because I don’t know if I can ever top the success of this video, but my focus from here on out will be to continue doing what I’ve always done- posting videos of my photography work and videos of my dogs- hopefully the followers I’ve gained will decide to stick around.
On TikTok, viral videos make it to something called the “For You Page.” This is basically a collection of the best performing content that TikTok has decided needs to be prioritized in order to keep people on the app longer. Making it to the For You Page means that your video will be seen by a lot of people, for a long time, meaning your numbers will only continue to grow.
On most social platforms, you are awarded certain privileges once you reach a certain number of followers. On Instagram, the coveted “swipe up” feature is reserved for those with 10K or more followers. On TikTok, the “Go Live” feature is reserved for those with 1k or more followers. I haven’t thought of a way to use the go live feature yet, but everything I have read has suggested that using it can be a really great tool, so I guess I should get on that.

Now that my dog is a TikTok celebrity, life is not much different. I certainly haven’t made any money from my viral video, but I have learned a lot, and I’m grateful. Hopefully the lessons I have learned can help you when your dog goes viral!

@shephotographsdogs Never a dull moment with this goofball. 😂#TopGunMode #dogtok #dogmom #derpydog #pibblepower #funnyvideo ♬ original sound - Cheyenne Chavez