3 Secrets to Writing a Blog Post That Will Go Viral
Going viral is the Holy Grail of online marketing. It allows you to create content at a low price and advertise your business or service to a far wider market than would ever be reached through traditional marketing. The return on investment for a “viral” post is a thousand-fold to a million-fold, depending on how far and wide it goes. Fortunately, science has been applied to find the formula for a viral piece of content. Here are the three secrets to writing a blog post that will go viral.
Pick the Right Qualities
Viral content needs at least one of these qualities: it should be funny, controversial, popular/trendy, or both unique and useful. Funny always has the possibility of going viral because people like to share jokes and other funny content. Controversial is a risky proposition, and you may be fueling the outrage while relying on it to advertise your product or service.
Don’t create controversial content unless you are happy alienating a large part of your customer base. Popular/trendy is typically safe, though it can backfire if you join in late and looks like “me-too”. Popular/trendy plus funny almost always go viral since you’re tapping into two veins that flow equally fast. Useful plus unique can go viral, too, and unlike popular/trendy, it doesn’t become obsolete once the public’s attention shifts.
Know Your Niche and Stay Within It
Viral content works well for marketing if you’re still within your niche. For example, funny videos of practical uses of your product or amazing behind-the-scenes videos on how things are made can go viral. Making a charitable donation of your product or service with people acting silly when excited can go viral. Creating a political stance video that is completely contrary to your brand image is a mistake. Cultivate ideas that can go viral but are still relevant to your business or organization’s niche. Work with a company like Click Intelligence to build links and find those niches that can go viral without hurting your audience or marketing message.
Focus on the Visual
Visual content is uniquely primed to go viral. Infographics, immersive tours, funny videos, and slideshows are hard to summarize in a conversation, so the links to them get shared instead. They are also impossible for content scrapers to steal, while anyone re-uploading your video or slideshow is likely to keep it intact. In some cases, commentary on parts of your content is added by others, but it still includes major sections of your video or the visual itself plus the person’s narration.
Conclusion
Going viral is not an exact science, but there are things you can do to increase your chances. First, decide what viral content qualities you want the content to possess then create a list of ideas that fit your messaging and branding. Focus on creating visual content that is hard to share except through sharing the link itself on social media. Deliberately ask people to share the content with others; you’ll gain social media followers for your next attempt at viral marketing while enhancing your weight with search engines, even if the content doesn’t go viral.
