By Brenda Berg
The internet is absolutely full, if not overflowing, with content. With this in mind, it’s understandable if you feel a little bit disheartened at the chances of creating content that will go viral.
However, it’s still not impossible when you’ve created the right content. Imagine sitting back and watching your view counter hit the hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands and then into the millions. Gives you goosebumps, doesn’t it?
It’s possible to get your content to these levels, and you don’t have to sell your soul to the devil to make it happen. Today, I’ll show you how.
Write Articles & Blogs
You can’t have viral content without content. This means you’ll need to write articles and blog posts consistently about topics relevant to your business. Of course, image and video content may go viral, but surveys show that articles are much more likely to strike gold.
However, you don’t want to just churn out thousands of articles. Instead, try to create high-quality articles that provide truly valuable information to the reader to make them think, ‘Yeah, that was worth reading and definitely worth sharing.’
Listicle Articles Perform Best
Take a look at your own personal social media feed. How many articles do you see with a number in the headline? I’m talking about things like ‘Top 10 Ways to Comb your Hair’, Top 5 Holiday Destinations’ and similar articles.
This article format is the most likely to make your content go viral. The information is relatively easy to digest and is broken down into bite-size chunks that don’t take the user long to read, but still provides quality information.
Also, note that listicle videos are just as effective!
Guarantee Accuracy in Your Content
Nobody is going to want to share content that’s poorly written and difficult to read. Consider the person who is reading content that’s full of mistakes and how you would feel about it. With this in mind, you’ll understand the importance of proofreading your work for errors.
When creating your content initially, check out online resources such as the Perdue Online Writing Lab so you can get it right first time.
Don’t Use Plagiarised Content
In terms of SEO, if your content is plagiarized it will simply be ignored when indexed by the search engines, which will dramatically reduce the likelihood of it going viral. Likewise, it can also get you into a lot of trouble as a business if the content is copyrighted.
Plagiarism can happen intentionally and unintentionally, so it’s always worth checking to make sure there are no infringements. Fortunately, this can be done easily using plagiarism checker tools like Plagium.
Use Visuals in Your Content
Never underestimate the power of visual media in your content as it’s one of the main make-or-break factors when it comes to going viral. There’s a huge variety of visuals you can use.
You can implement photos and pictures, graphs, animations, GIFs, memes, maps, infographics and more; that’s just scratching the surface.
Using images gives you the ability to really connect with your users on a direct level. It gives them the ability to absorb an image and the story it’s telling in relation to your content, making it even more compelling and therefore even more likely to go viral.
Top Tip: You may have seen the recent flurry of time-lapse videos on your social media feeds. That’s because they are so effective! Try to incorporate them creatively if you can!
Use Content that’s Interactive
The level of interaction that your content provides is a great way of increasing your engagement rates and keeping users on your website for a longer period of time. Interactive content sounds expensive and labour intensive, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
Think surveys, quizzes (like BuzzFeed quizzes), images, and other forms of media that your users can click on to interact with. The more entertaining your interactive content is, no matter what it may be, the more likely it is to go viral.
Education & Inspiration
As mentioned a few considerations ago, the best way to go viral is to provide your users with valuable content that they can take something away from. The best way to do this is to create content that fits one of two niches; Educational or Inspirational.
If readers find something that can have an impact on their work, life, or education, they will come back and you’ll build loyalty. It is hard to do it all by yourself, especially when your blog is growing fast. You may need to to hire a team or freelance writers from sites like Freelancer. Remember when your audience is growing you have to develop your blog with it.
Take a look at your Instagram feed. When it comes to foodie posts, you’ll normally have a picture or video of a delicious looking dish with instructions on how to make it, usually in quite an easy and simple way. This could be classed as both educational and inspirational.
Consider all aspects of your industry. What could you write or post to inspire people? What’s going to make them say, ‘Wow, this is what I want to do!’ Likewise, try to think of interesting questions related to your industry that people won’t be able to resist finding the answer to.
Conclusion
Of course, no matter what kind of content you create, social media is going to be the fuel for shares, likes and comments. Once you’ve created content using the tips above, make sure you post at the right times and share your content in the right places. Then sit back and watch the views roll in and your business take off to new levels of success!
Author Bio
Brenda Berg is a professional with over 15 years of experience in business management, marketing and entrepreneurship. Consultant and tutor for college students and entrepreneurs at Oxessays. She believes that constant learning is the only way to success.
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Melody McKinnon is an internet entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in a wide range of online business models, backed by a formal business/marketing education and enhanced by training and mentorship. She has owned or managed both educational and ecommerce websites. Her book, 7 Recession Proof Online Businesses to Start From Home, is available from all major ebook retailers.
Melody has worked with many businesses in a multitude of capacities. She can often be found on CanadianDigitalMedia.com, CanadiansInternet.com, CanadianFamily.net, and AllNaturalPetCare.com, as well as other quality digital publications. Her content has earned reference links from highly-respected websites, magazines and university textbooks.
