The virality of content is a curious phenomenon. Sometimes you write a simple article or you turn a video. You publish it and a few days later, your content triggered hundreds of shares.
Without knowing why, you have created viral content. Many entrepreneurs and marketers would like to know the secret of virality.
It’s true anyway!
Which entrepreneur would not want to have more exposure for his brand, ideas or products quickly? In fact, virality is simply the best way to quickly gain visibility and traffic without necessarily paying for it or being an SEO wizard.
The 5 ingredients to make viral content
1) The social value: Share what motivates your audience
Social value is the idea that people who discuss a subject, in public or on social networks, do so because they want to appear interesting, intelligent or “cool”. If the mere fact of talking about a product or idea makes us look like someone interesting to others, then chances are we’ll talk about it around us. It is the social value, the value we place on the information we share with others. In fact, this desire to share our thoughts and experiences is at the root of the phenomenal success of social networks.
2) Content
It’s not just the titles that will help your content become viral, the content itself has a say.
Let’s take an example.
You sell organic products and you would like to be a little more visible on the Internet?
For example, you could write an ultra-comprehensive blog post about the dangers of pesticides and share it on your social profiles. It is likely to be shared by others, because from the outside, it implies that they 1) care about their health and that of others and 2) care about the environment and the food brands they consume.
3) Emotion: Caring is sharing
This concept is simple and you surely know it. We share and discuss things that involve strong emotions. Whether positive or negative, it does not matter. Moreover, one of the emotions that sticks to our TV screens and triggers the word of mouth in a crazy way is fear.
Fear is selling. And that’s true. Why do you think the media is constantly talking about the misfortune of others or the attacks? Because it makes talking! Because we read and share this kind of articles. For the greatest happiness of the media.
It’s not just negative emotions that make you sell and trigger a monster word of mouth. Joy or hopes are emotions that trigger sharing.
4) The public: Become your own PR representative
People tend to mimic what others do. Rather than choosing ourselves, we prefer to emulate or be influenced by the choice of others. This is called social proof.
But you can’t imitate what you can’t observe. The idea here is to make your products or ideas more observable to others, making them easier to imitate, and therefore more likely to become popular. We want our products / ideas to do their advertising on their own.
Have you ever seen how many people use a Mac in a Starbucks?
There are many!
For several years, Apple has placed its logo on its laptops so that the user sees it when opening it.
The problem was that the logo was presented backwards for others when someone was using it, which posed a problem of recognizing the logo and could even harm the image of Apple. Steve Jobs, as a good marketer, made the decision to place the logo in such a way that it is visible to the public and not to the user. Today, in public places, the luminous apple is recognizable on all Apple computers. The visibility of a consumer choice by a large number of people triggers a well-known human behavior: imitation. If a lot of people use the Mac, then it’s probably a good idea, and we should use one too.
How can this apply on your social networks?
On Facebook or Instagram, you can make your content more observable by the public via advertising. For example, if you have a Facebook page, you can boost your publications from $ 5 and show your content potentially in front of more than 1000 people. Or you can softwre related to Automatic Viral Alternative. Based on my experience, it works!
Keep in mind: can people see you using your product? How can you design your product so that it does its advertising itself (ex: MacBook)? Do you use an unconventional logo, sound or color for the public that could be highlighted?
5) The practical value: produce useful content for others!
Why would someone want to share your content if it does not add value?
This value is the utility. If we can talk about a product or content that can help others (i.e save money, save time, improve our health, etc.), then we will talk about it around us. It’s something natural.
How to do on social media?
Here again, it’s easy to set up. Your product is super useful and can improve people’s lives. How to make people know it? The answer (and it’s still the same): Create useful content. Why not make a video that explains the usefulness of your product or its new features? It’s more and more common on social networks.
Hopefully the 5 tips above can help you to produce viral content.
