Last week, Pokémon Go went live at the app store. Within a few days, it had gone viral. And within a week, pretty much everyone with a smartphone is playing it!

I first heard about the game through some Vine videos I watch. Then Monday, I read some articles about it. When I left for the the day, I saw two groups of teens – one group inside the library, and one walking around outside the library – playing.

Then I started sending emails, some other staff did the same thing, and we figured out a couple of ways to respond to the phenomenon of Pokémon Go (my library has five Poké Stops!).

Pokémon Go is a fun, fast-spreading viral trend right now. Will it last? I’d guess Nintendo hopes so! It definitely won’t be the last viral trend to appear.

So – how should you respond to these viral trends? Here are six steps to responding to Viral Trends:

1. Trend watch. Listen to the news, read trend-watching blogs, etc. They will help you keep up-to-date on what’s trending.
2. Play with it. If it’s an app, download it and figure it out. I walked around the library, catching Pokémon, and discovering where all our Poké Stops were and what they did. If it’s a book, read it (think Harry Potter). You need to be familiar with it – familiar enough to tell the boss what’s going on.
3. Alert staff. Figure out if you need to let other staff know what’s going on. For example, I sent an email to our managers (we share evening shift duty) explaining what the game was, and why they might see roving groups of teens with their smartphones out.
4. Brainstorm responses. Get a group of staff together and quickly figure out some small next steps. You don’t want to spend a week (or two, or three) figuring out a nicely-crafted response. It’s viral, so you will miss the boat! At my library, we did some quick brainstorming.
5. Actually do something. Out of our brainstorming came some social media posts sharing that the library has some Poké Stops, and we followed that with a blog post on our website. We also discovered Lures, which draw more people to Poké Stops.
6. Figure out if there’s more to come. It’s possible that Pokémon Go will allow businesses to buy ads/sponsored locations. We’ll look into that when/if it happens.

I love what a church down the street did – check out the sign in the image below. Free water for Pokémon Go players! Those are my ideas on responding to viral trends. What are yours? Please share!