There are many factors that can make viral content spread. Unique, catchy posts published at the right time to the right audience in the right way seem to do well on the net. You cannot predict if a post will go viral just by looking at it even if you are an expert. But, there are some factors to learn about.
(1) Keywords
Please understand that each audience on social media is a different animal. There are different ages, genders, socioeconomical types, interests, and other differences that could categorize audiences. Your audience also reflects you in certain ways as you are the one who built your audience. There are several types of keywords taht might do well on social media.
Positive: Keywords like success, love, win, adapt, grow or millionaire do well on my network.
Interesting: Then, there are interesting keywords such as personalities, comedian, comparative keywords such as good vs. evil, women’s issues, and more.
Relatable: Next, there are relatable themes such as dealing with insane coworkers, demanding bosses, diaries, training, school, stress, etc.
Shockers: But, what always fascinated me on Twitter was the use of what I call “shockers.” Being negative or giving nagging advice for how not to get in small trouble in the world seems to not be popular with my audience. But, if you give advice for how to not end up in jail, the entire feeling is different. You just crossed the line from being annoying to catching their attention! I’m reading someone else’s blog on the science of viral posts and he wrote a title: “30 things to start doing for yourself.” They wrote a sequel entitled: “30 things to stop doing yourself.” The author of this blog thought the post did well because of the negativity in the title. I politely disagree. I feel that it is more of a shocker. People feel that they need to do more and more and more. While the management experts are telling people they need to do less so they can focus on what is critical. Telling people what to stop doing that they think they should do more of is throwing a curve ball and grabs their emotional interest which is what makes the concept so attractive and potentially viral.
(2) Is your content easy to read?
Having pretty photos or graphics that draw your attention makes so much difference. People who are online for too many hours in a row get mentally frazzled. They cannot concentrate well unless they take a long walk. Pictures are easy to mentally absorb, but the photos that make your jaw drop are the ones that will get you real traffic. The text of your article should be easy to skim too with easy to navigate sections, headers, subheaders, etc. Many authors make the grammatical structures and verbiage from the subheaders consistent to make it easier to read.
(3) Articles that are too short typically get a lot less attention
As an amateur blogger, I realize that experimenting is key. I write all types of pieces with very different subject matter and topics. What I realized is that the short pieces I write tend to not get clicked on much while the detailed articles that are about a page and a half seem to do best. There is no magic formula for content creation, but people are not likely to share your content if it doesn’t seem “share-worthy.” There should be lots of information people perceive as being valuable for them to share. But, once you get shared bya few people, it could go out of control.
(4) Is it useful, interesting or a shocker?
When I analyze stats, I always notice that the “how to” topics seem to do the best. Personally, I find the articles with surprises and shocks more interesting. Then there are articles that could be perceived as interesting. But, interesting to whom? When I write about topics that I find interesting, my readers don’t spend long on the page. Finding concepts that are more broad in who they might interest while matching your audience’s general theme and preferences seems to make the most sense.
(5) Famous people & companies
Many people who create content try to get a little more traffic by including names of famous people in the title. Since many people know about Donald Trump, President Obama, Mark Zuckerberg and other famous people, they might be more likely to click on your article if you include these names in the title. Names of large companies, people or other big keywords relevant to your industry will on average get you more traffic. However, merely inserting what I call an “anchor” keyword in your Title doesn’t guarantee traffic. You still need a catchy topic and theme.
(6) Simple grammar wins the game
The type of grammatical structure you use in the title makes a huge difference. Something with very simple grammar and then a punch and a twist seems to work the best. A call to action is recommended by the pros as well. My most popular blog article was not that well written, and wasn’t even that interesting. But, the title conformed to “the rules” for what makes a post popular. “Steve Jobs watched his programmers carefully, so should you” was the title. The first word was my anchor keyword — the name of someone famous who is relevant to programming, outsourcing and business which are the general audiences I am writing to. Notice how the structure of the text is: Subject – Verb – Object – Adverb, Call to Action. It is very easy to mentally digest when you are frazzled after using the internet for six hours in a row like many of my readers. Additionally, it touches on a sensitive point. Programmers hate to be watched. They want to be left alone while they “bang out” code. In reality, the minute you leave 99% of programmers alone, they will either work on someone else’s project, slack off, go off on a time wasting tangent, or stop following directions. You cannot leave programmers unsupervised, and Steve Jobs understood this concept well.
(7) Delayed reactions
Sometimes a popular piece might be posted on a blog. A few people might tweet links to the content right away. But, the shares that get the real traffic might not be posted until after the fact. It might be a few days after the content was posted, or in some cases, a social media manager might decide to repost a particular piece a few months after it was created. Sometimes, if the crowd has had enough chance to refresh itself after seeing the content the first time around, the content might be popular a second time around. It is commonplace for large Twitter accounts to post the same content over and over again. However, they won’t just promote any piece again and again. They only post content that did well in the long run. Some posts are popular the first time you post them as many will retweet your content. However, if you post the same piece a second or third time, many of the sharers lose interest. However, there are still a percentage of content pieces that will get regular shares even after you have posted them ten times (not during the same day please.)
(8) 1st generation vs. multiple generation shares
If you have a large social media account with some close followers who visit your page regularly, a good post might get you a lot of shares. These could be defined as first generation shares. If you get 100 shares, your post could be defined as viral, however, if the shares are not multi-generational, it is not “really” viral. On the other hand, you might get something shared seven times that could be defined as viral simply because Joe retweeted your post, and then Sharon retweeted your post from Joe’s account and then Jen retweeted your post from Sharon’s account, etc. The flow of traffic is very hard to define. One of the issues is that people who follow you have the same interests. However, people who folllow your followers are less likely to share your interests. So, unless your post appeals to a more general audience, going viral in a full-blown way seems unlikely.
(9) See what the big guys are doing
If your dream is to one day go viral, the chances of you achieving this goal are slim. However, a more reasonable goal is to have systematically good content that gets noticed by a large audience. See what the professionals are doing with their blogs. See what types of grammar they use in headers. See what types of photos and diagrams they use. See what networks they use to promote their content. What works for them might not work for you, but at least you’ll get some clues.
(10) Grabbing people’s emotions
If your content is funny, heart-warming, political, easy to share, or shocking. The main point of creating popular content is to appeal to the reader’s emotions. Even if you write about dry business topics, the emotionally charged articles will do better than those that read like a textbook. Integrating pupplies, Halloween, dating, desserts, vacation, or kitties into your content is likely to have a positive result.
You might also like:
Top viral images and how they spread
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/04/05/top-viral-images-and-how-they-spread/
I didn’t get retweeted, but that’s okay
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/08/09/i-didnt-get-retweeted-but-thats-okay/
A tale of 4 social media managers
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/05/03/a-tale-of-4-social-media-managers/