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We all are living in a digital era. Here is content is the king. You would surely agree to it. The market is the content consumer and there is more demand of the content than ever. It is only because of the engaging content which adds value, teaches, and entertains the audience, any business is getting popular. The average person spends at least 15 hours in a day reading and studying different types of content.
Yes, obviously the media is changing constantly. Sometime we like to watch a video on laptop, while at some point of hour we send texts from our smartphones and even listen to music while browsing through the articles also is an addition to the list of thing that we do on various media. However, the common pattern that you will notice here is that we are somehow always connected. Content is something which can capture the attention just like that. And by attention we mean capturing the leads and customers, selling products and services online, spreading brand awareness, and building a winning reputation by a brand.
So, what is important here is to know why a content is important to get viral.
Viral Content
Viral content is any piece of media which becomes popular wildly over internet overnight. The media could be anything from a Youtube video to a Facebook post, to a tweet, and almost any type of social media content. Viral means that content is getting shared by people thousands and thousands of times on various platforms. And, when this happens your brand gets exposed to a whole new audience, which obviously led to generate leads organically. You may also think as getting your content to go viral on the internet as same as hitting the lottery. Just in simpler form, we can say that a great content that’s intended to be shared online and spreads like a virus is a viral content.
Most of the marketers dream of getting their content viral for getting thousands – if not millions – of people to find the content. That’s because it takes a lot of time and efforts that they spent a lot of time creating. And the efforts are worth a while. A single line of viral post can generate significant amount of brand awareness and can generate useful traffic to your website. Considering that the traffic that comes from social shares is organic, viral content is relatively cheap as compared to paid the ads. Yes, not everything comes easy. Viral content is tough to pull off. Now that you must be wondering how to get social shares or how to make a content viral? Here are some of the best tips and tricks by the experts.
1. Do your research
You can’t make something viral overnight. So, what is important to do that is the research of the subject. You need to go and research deeper into the subjects with new research because it is among the effective ways to drive shares on the social media. You may have noticed there a number of websites which get a lot of shares for their piece of content. That’s because they know how to position and tag effective and relevant things. Posts that are heartwarming, happy, and inspirational tops the list. Yes, it has been followed by some of the people and it has worked wonders. What else you can do is the form of warnings. It is again more directive research. To gain the attention, you can do research which is referred by earlier suggested people to warn people of things. This would surely be a hit. What’s comes next is the trends. A subset of any research is showing trends. Follow some trends and post something related to it. So, all you need is to stand out and break out potentially from the content hustle-bustle.
2. Images attract more shares
It isn’t new for us if someone says images get more views and shares. We all are aware of the fact that compelling images increases engagement. And, that’s what exact do we need to get the viral post. Nowadays, almost every platform of social media allows us to share the images and content both. In other words, we can say that on an average, twice as many people love to share the posts with at least one image in the post. And, we get the trick here. This tells how important is having a visual element mixed in with bodies of text.
3. Browse viral content sites for ideas
Of course, each one us have to get a start from somewhere. So, what else could be better than scanning through the viral content which has already been a hit on the internet. Honestly, the ideas which you may be looking could just be found lying there. So, here the lesson is to learn to save time and avoid reinventing the wheel by scanning viral content sites for ideas. You can work and improve on those ideas or even can customize for your readers, making them want to share on their social pages. Some of the best examples from which we can learn is the Huffington Post, since this site already have a culture of consistently creating viral content. It is a news site and their headlines aren’t fully explanatory. They ensure to make an attractive headline so people click on that.
Yes, you may also want to write yours that way, big and bold. Moreover, video content is also something that goes viral just like that if people like it. Few of the elements which can make content go viral are the authority of the site, your timing, topic chosen and the author. Also, one additional tip, put your social share buttons like your click to tweet or your Facebook share on your blog. This makes sharing easy.
4. Feel Good Content is the need of the hour
Some of the few things which can make a content go viral is the feel good content. People should be happy reading the same. The biggest thing that determines if the content should go viral is if people feel compelled to share it. Every content that we make we surely want it to go viral so, before posting something, ask yourself, ‘Are people going to share this?’ The question along will give you an idea if your content will be shared by people or not.
Always remember one thing, the content which is shared by the people is something that makes them feel good. Few of the things that are tops the list are funny, cute, emotionally eliciting things. By no way boring things stand a chance. Any post has to be provocative and entertaining to gain the audience. By this way you will get an understanding of what the general public will be relate to. If your video represents something that is controversial or extreme, you may have a harder time connecting to your audience. So, be sure to post something that your audience likes.
5. Captivating Introductions and Colorful Visuals
What else could be better than having a content which has captivating introduction? And, the icing on the cake would be having that introduction with colorful visuals. For creating a viral post, it is important to create an introduction that attracts the customers to read the post and react on it. Just a small research based example for you. Your know people only read about 28% of a blog post. So, if you want your post to go viral it is highly important that you create a post to attract great readers fast. This means the intro that you are providing in your content should be compelling and interesting. Besides, try to make use of short and meaningful sentences. It will hook the reader to your post. As per research short sentences boosted content readability by 58%. And as we also discussed earlier, inserting images makes your content much more compelling.
6. Appropriate platform selection
Apart from just focusing on the content and the quality, it is also important for you to select a relevant platform for your content to be posted. Remember that each and every social media platform is different. Always be sure what you are posting where. Not every platform is going to give you a hit. So, it is advisable to everyone that before creating a content, choose a platform on which to specialize. Twitter, LinkedIn Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook are all good platforms. You can choose any to start a viral marketing campaign. But, be sure to create the content that can differ depending on the platform you choose. For example, if you are choosing Instagram, a series of Instagram Stories or an image with a compelling caption would spark viral shares online. Same way, if you are choosing Pinterest, make sure it has quotes and messages.
The Bottom Line
Now that you’ve read the entire article, remember to create a content which is of quality and relevant to the user. While looking to generate traffic for your business website, make sure you show people how they can implement the advice which you are giving them. Take your time to show them with an example. You can also help them by giving them next action steps. And on more thing, don’t just upload anything for the sake of doing so. Write with emotions and good feel to it. It will allow you to target emotions of the people so you know your content will get shared.
