What makes a viral video or advertising campaign work? What makes a video like Rebecca Black’s “Friday” or the Old Spice campaign in early 2010 so successful, reaching millions of viewers in a single day? And why do similar copycat campaigns — or an attempt at a comeback by these same companies and brands — fall flat on their face? The key in these viral campaigns is a unique approach at doing what they do, whether it’s selling deodorant or attempting to become the next pop sensation. It’s being outlandish without being offensive. And it’s about using techniques that have worked before — without actually doing what has been done before.

To use social media to advertise your brand or business, you’ll want to learn from these viral campaigns from YouTube as well as from other campaigns that use other types of social media platforms, too. When developing an advertising strategy, consider not what worked, but why those campaigns were so effective. For example, a Groupon campaign is not always the best way to advertise a sale via social media. For a large company, these viral deals — which are often temporary loss leaders — impact a big company much less than a small bakery that really can’t afford to give away its entire stock for half off over the course of several days or weeks. As a small business, consider that what worked for the bigger company wasn’t necessarily the Groupon itself, but getting people in the door. How could you get people in the door without losing money in the process?

Additionally, just because a strategy has worked before — even for you — it does not mean it will work again. One of the most recent and relevant examples of this is the attempt by Rebecca Black to resurrect her viral fame with a follow-up to her “Friday” video, called “My Moment.” While over 167 million people viewed “Friday” before Rebecca was forced to remove the video from YouTube due to a dispute with her new record label, My Moment barely amassed 16 million views after its first two weeks. Her attempt at utilizing YouTube to gain attention to a second video, which was another borderline satire of cliche pop (like her first), did not work a second time around. If your advertising concept involves something unique and potentially outlandish, you likely will only be able to use this strategy once.

If you like what other companies and brands are doing with their advertising campaigns, especially with social media, make sure you first know that these campaigns are working for the other business. Then, look at not what they did that works, but how they developed the campaign and the psychology behind the advertising to build on what works for your own brand or business.