7 Ways to Boost Your Viral Content Strategy

If your content goes viral, it can create a huge opportunity for your business and brand because people will spread your message and product for you at a rapid speed in a short period of time.  There is no guarantee that a post, video or other media will go viral but there are steps you can take to boost your chances because viral content have certain elements in common. In this article we present some of these elements.

1. Create Interactive Content
Interactive content generates participation, commenting, and shares. This type of content includes giveaways, fill-in the banks, puzzles, quizzes and more. People particularly enjoy content that is about them, such as a quiz to find the best types of jobs for them. As they share their results with others and share the quiz with them, they create more engagement for the content.

2. Create an Interesting Headline
The headline is a key part of the content because it will determine whether or not people will continue reading. Headlines that make people curious tend to work well. For example, here is one headline from the home page of Yahoo!: “The One Time It’s OK Not to Pay Off a Debt.” This headline will make people curious to read more.

3. Write Inspiring Stories
Writing stories that inspire people and stories that people can relate to or are personal to them increases the chances that your content will be shared. People love to feel inspired and like to read positive stories such as a man rescuing an elephant.  The human desire for inspiration is also the reason why inspirational quotes are so popular on social media.

4. Be Short and Concise
Most viral content is short and to the point. This makes it easy for everyone to view, understand, and share the content – even people with not much time or those with short attention spans. Therefore, most viral videos are only 30 seconds to a minute long. For blogs, use appealing images and bullet points to make the content easily scan-able.

5. Be Authentic
People enjoy genuine content so your content does not need to be highly produced or overdone or require a large budget to create. Sometimes, just a simple funny genuine video will go viral.

6. Share the Secrets of Success
Whether they want to get fit, get into the perfect relationship or succeed in business, people want to know the secretes of success. This is why these topics rank among the highest for engagement and shares.

7. Affect Emotions
Content that has a powerful impact on people’s emotions has a better chance of becoming viral. This content can be amusing, inspiring, beautiful, shocking, heart-warming, warning or surprising. People also like to share content that makes them look smart or clever. For example, LinkedIn sent out emails to people who had the top viewed profiles from the year before and many of these people shared this news. As a result, LinkedIn’s reach and members increased.