Going viral is a problem everyone wants to solve. It’s the holy grail of marketing and advertising, and it can make your brand or product an overnight success. But what if you’re not a major corporation with millions of dollars to spend on marketing? What if you’re just an individual who wants their content—whether it’s a video, blog post, or something else—to go viral? Well, then you’ll want to follow these easy steps!
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Go viral with these tips.
If you want to make a video go viral, it must have these three things:
- What is the shareable element of your ad? This could be an emotional story, a cool visual effect, or anything that makes people want to send it on to their friends. It’s important not just to think about how you can make this content interesting for yourself as the creator, but also how it will appeal as something someone else would want to send around on social media. This is where your audience comes into play because they are the ones who will determine what kind of content goes viral in your niche market (and if there isn’t enough potential for sharing within the segment). You need something that will capture their imagination and keep them coming back for more!
- Easy sharing mechanisms are built in from day one so that people can easily post videos from your site onto their own profiles with just one click; otherwise, they may not bother at all.
- If you aren’t targeting specific groups, then there’s little chance for success unless you’ve got some great creative ideas up your sleeve that stand out against other competitors.
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How do you create something that has a chance of going viral?
There are many ways to create something that has a chance of going viral, but the most important thing is to follow the steps below.
- Create something useful, entertaining, or interesting.
- Make it easy to share on social media or through email.
- Make it relevant for your audience (make sure people will share it with their friends).
- Make it easy to understand by using simple language and an easy-to-follow structure.
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Is there a formula for making something go viral?
Is there a formula for making something go viral?
No, there isn’t. But you can use some general rules to give your content the best chance of going viral. It’s more about the content than what you do with it.
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What about creating something with the intent of making it go viral?
- Don’t try to force it. You don’t want to make something that goes viral just because you want it to be viral. If you do, the content will show and feel forced, and people will see right through that.
- You also don’t want to create something that is just entertaining or informative, because again, it will come off as forced.
- If you try to make something that combines all three aspects of entertainment, informativeness, and virality, then it may come off as forced (or at least unnatural).
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What makes someone share content online?
What makes someone share content online? Here are the seven qualities of content that make it go viral:
- It is relevant to your audience’s life or beliefs.
- It is easy to share. At least, more easily than other options on social media.
- The content is entertaining in some way, whether it be through humor, novelty, or drama (or all three).
- The value of the information contained within the post is clear, and people can understand what they will get from it if they read it or watch it.
- The information contained within the post offers unique insights into a topic related to your industry and/or niche market that hasn’t been discussed elsewhere on the internet yet (and probably won’t be discussed much after you do). This helps give people bragging rights among their friends when they share this content with them; “Hey look at me! I found something new! ” This also enhances their status as an expert within their community by sharing something fresh and different with them instead of regurgitating old news that anyone can find anywhere else online already (unless you happen across an awesome new source like BuzzFeed or Reddit)
A positive message goes far beyond just saying something nice about what someone said or did – we’ve all seen those posts before – but instead focuses on providing useful information in response to a question asked by one of our followers on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram etcetera.
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It has to have one of these focal points.
In order for a piece of content to go viral, it must have a focal point that is relatable. You can’t just create a viral video about cats and expect it to go viral because not every person on the planet loves cats.
It has to make them feel emotion. People want their lives to be filled with joy, happiness, and excitement; they don’t want boring things like work or school to get in the way of that feeling. That’s why you need your content marketing efforts to be around something exciting! Make sure you’re using videos with content that makes people feel something deep inside them, so they’ll want more when they’re done watching whatever it is you’re showing them (the same goes for images).
It has one of these focal points: relevance/alignment with beliefs/emotions.
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It has to be easy to share.
When creating viral content, it’s important to make sure that your audience can easily share it. You may want to consider adding buttons or links that allow them to do so. Here are some ways you can make sharing easy:
- Social media buttons: This includes Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and even Pinterest. A good rule of thumb is to have at least one share button per page on your site (e.g., the homepage and single post pages).
- Mobile optimized: Having a mobile-friendly website will help drive more traffic from mobile users who use their phones as their primary source of browsing the web.
- Website functionality: You should also test whether your site has the necessary infrastructure for email marketing campaigns or any other type of automated campaigns, such as an RSS feed subscriber list sign-up form embedded within a blog post or article on the same topic as what you’re promoting with this particular ad campaign.
There are some general rules you can follow if you want your content to spread online in a big way.
There are some general rules you can follow if you want your content to spread online in a big way:
- Make sure it’s relevant to your audience. If the content doesn’t connect with them on a personal level, it likely won’t take off.
- Make sure it’s easy to share. If people have difficulty sharing your content (or worse, if they don’t want to), then there’s no point in creating something that only reaches a few people at best.
- Make sure it’s easy to understand. You don’t need an MBA-level thesis or an advanced degree in rocket science, but if someone needs 10 minutes of brain power just to understand what you’ve done, what’s the point?
- Make sure it’s emotional! Though this may seem obvious, few businesses care about how their customers feel when they interact with them; in fact, most would rather ignore those feelings entirely because emotions make decision-making more difficult for executives who prefer numbers over humans any day!
Conclusion
If you’re looking for a way to make your content go viral, the first thing you need to do is figure out what makes something shareable. We’ve already covered some of the major reasons why people share content online: because it makes them feel emotion, aligns with their beliefs or life experiences, and is easy to share. But there are also some other things that will help your work stand out from all the other stuff on the Internet—and these tips can be applied across different types of media. Things like using humor (humor), being visual (visual appeal), telling stories (narrative) or using data-driven statistics (data-driven).
Now It’s Your Turn!
In your opinion, which tip among those listed above is the best? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below. Kudos!