Viral content

What Is Viral Content?

Viral content is online content that achieves a high level of awareness due to shares and exposure on social media networks, news websites, aggregators, email newsletters and search engines.

How do I make my content go viral?

First, you need a goal. Know your target audience, figure out what speaks to them, and create content with a unique “hook” to pique their interest. Viral content often has a visual element, so consider including a video, image, or GIF of some kind.  

Do I need paid ads to create viral content?

No. While some paid ads can go viral, running a paid ad campaign is no guarantee that you’ll create viral content. Focus on creating cool content and, if you have the marketing budget, run paid ad campaigns to help increase your chances of going viral. 

What are the benefits of this strategy?

The market is increasingly competitive in search of consumer attention and resources. What companies must do is find ways to differentiate themselves. 

After all, the user is impacted by countless pieces of information over a day, and it is necessary to be precise in your message.

Producing Viral Content appears as a valid option to strengthen your company’s authority further and, of course, its brand awareness. Below, you can see the main benefits of this strategy.

Greater reach

For content to go viral, this means that it has generated many shares. In other words, it is a message with a much wider reach. Instead of limiting its impact, for example, to its usual audience, it ends up reaching users who didn’t even know your brand.

Within an increasingly connected scenario and fewer physical barriers, it’s an opportunity to expand your business. 

For e-commerce, for example, it can be a chance to communicate with potential consumers in more remote cities.

 Natural approach

Consumers also no longer want an aggressive approach from companies. 

Do you want a better way to introduce yourself to users who didn’t know your company other than from funny or relevant content? The reaction of potential consumers tends to be much better.

Without forcing your brand’s presence among a specific audience, the impression becomes even more favorable. For those who plan, for example, to build customer loyalty, starting a relationship from this dynamic can be a great enabler.

Lower costs

The great secret in producing a Viral Content is precisely its organic growth. It means, in practice, that its investments to reach a large audience are smaller. 

Your company didn’t need paid advertisements, for example, because the sharing was natural.

As a positive consequence, the ROI of a viral content campaign becomes excellent. 

Without much effort, your company’s message could reach users you didn’t even think you could communicate with.

The good news? It’s done without spending any more money.

Brand Awareness

As much as Viral Content’s primary focus is not always the company involved, this strategy also helps position your brand as an authority in its segment. Even if most users don’t want to know about your company, some people will.

It is a way to establish your brand as a reference. Within such a competitive market, it can be natural to make yourself present in digital channels and differentiate yourself from the competition

Why Is Viral Content Important?

A single piece of viral content can generate significant amounts of brand awareness and traffic to your website. And because most of the traffic that you get comes from social shares, viral content is relatively cheap compared to paid ads. But there’s a catch: Viral content is tough to pull off. In fact, a content marketing study that we ran discovered that a small percentage of content (called “Power Posts”) drive most social sharing.

In other words: most content gets virtually zero shares. But a few top performers tend to dominate. So how do you get your content to go viral? Check out these best practices.

Best Practices

Focus On Trending Topics

When it comes to viral content, your topic is KEY. Specifically, you want to create your content around a topic that’s blowing up. That way, you can ride the wave. And the best way to find growing topics? Google Trends. All you need to do is type in the topic you want to write about.

Write Viral Headlines

When someone sees your content getting shared on Twitter, Facebook and other social sites, your title is what ultimately pushes them to click. So while your content itself is super important, your title can make or break how your post does. According to research by Conductor, headlines with numbers are 36% more likely to generate clicks.

Create Captivating Introductions

If you want to create a viral post, it’s easy to overlook your introduction. That said: people only read about 28% of a blog post. So if you want your post to go viral, you need to hook readers fast. This means your intro should be compelling and interesting. Besides that, you might also want to try using short sentences. Dr. John Morkes found that short sentences boosted content readability by 58%.

How Can Viral Content Drive My Marketing ROI?

Viral content is marketing that pays for itself. Think of it this way: You create content, and then it’s shared widely around the internet.  Although you can run a paid ad campaign if you want, it might not be necessary because all these individuals are sharing your content online for free.  As a result, you can save money on marketing and, therefore, boost your ROI.  

PLACES TO FIND VIRAL-WORTHY NEW SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT IDEAS

1.Use Pinterest as a search engine

2. Lurk Facebook Groups

3. Use Plann’s Content Prompts

4. Use Answer The Public

5. Ask Your Audience On Instagram Stories

6. Watch Instagram Reels

7. Peruse Stock Photo Sites

8. Checking Our Trending YouTube Videos

9. Stalk Your Competition With BuzzSumo