Gone are the days when something goes viral, it puts fear in the mind of people. Everyone wants to stay away from it but since the advent of social media, creating viral content is what everyone wants to do.
In addition, since the introduction of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and now TikTok! Users have been trying to find steps to help create viral content that will gather popularity and attention.
Viral content can make an average person a celebrity in the blink of an eye,
How did this type of content come to be and what are the steps for you to create one.
To be a viral Content Creator, there are simple steps you can go through to create the viral Content and you will learn them all in this article.
What Does It Mean That Your Content Has Gone Viral?
Your content has bigger chances of becoming viral, the more it is shared by your target audience. As a creator you need to share your content in many platforms and in many ways you can.
Also,you have to be make your work shareable by making it easy for the content to be tagged or downloaded then the chances for it to go viral increases tenfold.
Furthermore if you create content for the purpose of marketing, you should know there is a small chance of a viral content generating leads as an average social media user also spend fifteen seconds on a content before moving on to the next content.
This is according to Forbes magazine.
Viral Content: Where did it all start?
The origin can not really be pinpointed. It is also unclear where the word birthed from. Some say it was an article authored by Jeffery Rapport which he called the “Virus of Marketing” in 1996 or it was coined by Draper Fisher Jurvetson in a Netscape Newsletter in the year 1997.
Even if we don’t know the source of the word” viral content”, one thing is clear! It wouldn’t had been possible without social media giants and platforms.
Essential Components of a Viral Content.
Before you know the steps involved in creating content that can blow up.
Also you need to know what will make a content go viral and according to a BuzzSumo study, content that went viral had the following important components:
- They evoked emotions from the target audience.
- The content were eye pleasing and easy to share.
- The content were from verifiable sources who were deemed knowledgeable.
Nine Steps You Essentially Need To Know To Create Viral Content.
Work on eliciting audience emotions
Your content needs to be emotional on some level, it needs to strike a chord with your audience Your audience needs to be in love with your content that they would want to share it with their friends.
Emotions like surprise, fear or joy can be used to create powerful and moving content. Your content can be funny, inspiring or can cause rage. Cute videos that involves babies, cats can also play on your audience emotion.
Embrace shock value
You need to embrace shock value, whatever can create shock especially in the first ten seconds of your video content or the first few seconds of when someone sees your image. This will invite them to hit the share button and also gives them a compelling reason to share your content.
Get People Involved.
The more people you get involved in your content, the more people who want to help you with promoting it. Content that doesn’t involve a lot of people and only involves you with only burden you with the stress of promotion which can reduce its virality rate.
Hitting the right community.
For you to blow up, your content must be seen by the right people who are interested in your type of content. Due to their interest, they can help you share with other interested persons .
Check what has been done before.
Using tools like Buzzsumo , which shows you content that has gone viral in the past. You can use popular content to model your content. You need to find a similar content to what you want to do, find content that had the most shares and use that to create your content. Don’t forget you can learn well from what has been done before.
Repurpose Content
If a content has gone viral before and it is a content you can work with. You can take that content and repurpose it into something you can use for your profile, you can go viral with other people’s content. Before you do this, make sure you have permission from the owner.
Use Google Trends
You can use Google trends to find popular content. You can find popular content on their homepage. If you create content that blows up, you will be able to increase the chance of your content going viral too.
Plan your Content around Popular Holidays or Events
When planning your content calendar, make sure you create content based on public events and holidays like New Year, Valentine’s Day, Easter Holidays etc. You have to do this for a moment to achieve desirable results.
Be An Authoritative Source
Due to the emergence of fake news pm the internet, Internet users have been more careful of the information they spread. Ensure your content is factually correct or it includes links to a verifiable source.
One Last Thing
After reading this article, you know now how to create a content that can go viral but don’t forget that your content still needs to be well planned and have a good structure. Content without these qualities won’t go viral even if you put apply the steps above.
Read more about increasing your content visiblity here.
