There’s no clear recipe for ensuring virality every single time, but you can take specific steps to increase the size of your audience, reach potential customers, and effectively engage readers.
Solid, engaging content is no longer just a trend, it is a powerful tool that when created and executed effectively, can transform an online business. A single blog post can generate thousands of views and comments. Why is it important? Because these commentators have the potential to become customers. Viral content is invaluable, and pursuing it is more important than ever.
There aren’t exact steps to guarantee virality, but there are techniques to maximize your chances.
Engage and involve your audience
Viral content is engaging. Readers should feel compelled to share the ideas. Whether they’re sharing, critiquing, or promoting the post to friends and colleagues, audiences get involved when content is engaging.
Your content must focus on adding value to your audience’s experience. This is why marketing must first and foremost be audience-focused. And that means writing for the reader, not your business.
Keep on the pulse of trending topics
One of the key success factors in viral content marketing is the ability to identify trending topics. If you’ve identified a trending topic, you can leverage it by creating a tailor-made post to continue its momentum and catch the wave of virality.
The big secret about viral content is it doesn’t always present unique information or new ideas. The most successful producers of viral content study trends to learn what kinds of articles and videos have received the most views and shares in the past, then capitalize on these trends so their own content has the best chance of also going viral.
Virality is about the best ideas, not necessarily the newest ideas. Content that goes viral tomorrow will have much in common with content that went viral yesterday, although it will ideally be updated with fresh perspectives. The secret to creating the next viral video or article is to build on older content, maximizing the chance it will go viral again.
You need emotional content
People are quite emotional creatures and can feel different feelings from fear up to excitement. When you know the reasons and issues that your target audience cares about, you can integrate a strong emotional tie to your content.
If you can activate a human’s emotional side, you can win the jackpot. They will share and talk about your content. No matter what emotions (positive or negative) you trigger with the content you provide, you will skyrocket chances of building new connections and of being shared by your target audience.
We share because we want to project a certain image of ourselves out to the world. That’s why we’re more likely to share positive content, it projects an image of ourselves that we want people to see and latch onto.
But that doesn’t mean people only share cute, funny, or nostalgic content. They also share informative and topical content, as long as it reflects positively on the sharer within their social networks.
Don’t be afraid to create a little controversy
Controversy makes daily life more interesting. Some people agree with a certain sentiment, while others strongly disagree. This generates a huge amount of feedback and sharing. If your post is controversial, your readers will comment and share it with their colleagues. Some will even write their own responses. A controversial post can create enough buzz and catapult it into virality.
Viral posts are the pinnacle of success for top marketers. This is why it’s important to continuously produce content. Just keep in mind that content has to be invaluable.