What they got was an astounding 50 times the expected traffic —within 24 hours of the game’s launch. But frustrated players and downed servers eventually gave way to 2016’s hottest trend.

Viral best practice: Focus on quality and innovation

After launch, the creators of Pokemon Go ironed out those kinks and continued to innovate on their product. They still release special, limited-time offerings like their ghost-themed Halloween event which saw a 1.3 billion increase in Pokemon caught by players, and a user spike of 13.2 percent globally.

Niantic also resisted the urge to monetize things too soon on a large scale. Instead, they focused on “core game mechanics, learning things on the technical side, the ops and customer support side, the community and marketing side.”