It’s every marketer’s dream to have their content go viral, and rightfully so. When your audience is engaged and willing to share your message with others, it means greater brand visibility, more customers and increased sales. But what makes something go viral? Why does some content do better than others? Read on to find out our top tips for creating viral content.
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value
The most fundamental ingredient for viral content is value. Before you can even begin dressing up your marketing campaign and packaging it for an audience, you have to ask yourself why they should be interested at all. Do your products or services add value to their lives in any way? Does your business make things more convenient or more practical for them? Will the knowledge you’re sharing improve their position or change their lifestyle?
Start by making sure the content you have to offer is actually worthy of their attention and figure out exactly why they should care.
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social currency
It’s okay to admit we all want to be liked. When we socialise with friends and meet new people, we want to make a good impression and not come across as boring, bigoted or unpleasant. Your customers are equally as concerned with how they present themselves, and will therefore tend to share information that improves their reputation or puts them in a good light.
If you can create content that makes your audience appealing to others or gives them bragging rights, e.g. inspiring stories, useful info or members-only perks, they’ll be more likely to share it around.
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emotion
When you’re competing for customers’ attention, you need to find a way to make them stop what they’re doing, ignore everything around them and focus on your ad. How do you do that? Emotion.
Using emotion will arouse your audience and motivate them into action. Whether that’s because they are so enraged about tax rises or they’re in awe of a new medical breakthrough, tapping into the customer’s feelings will make them more likely to interact with your content. Sharing emotional connections also strengthens relationships, so your readers/viewers will be more motivated to share it around with friends and family.
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stories
One of the key ingredients in any good advertising campaign is storytelling. Without it, you’ll end up with content that’s completely overloaded with information and bland messaging, giving customers no insight into who you are as a company or why they should care.
This kind of soulless content is the reason so many businesses struggle to get the attention and engagement they desire. If you can wrap up your marketing in a captivating story and give the audience a reason to care, you’ve a greater chance of making your content go viral.
Creating viral content isn’t easy – if it was, everyone would be doing it! There’s no perfect recipe to guarantee success, but incorporating these tips should help you create better content and get more engagement from your audience.