Viral is a really difficult word to fully understand and try to replicate. When we think about things that go viral, we generally think about social networks, YouTube videos, Facebook, and etc. Some say that things go viral because its luck of the draw and it is bound to happen, and some others say somethings go viral because it has the right components and initial momentum to fuel it off for the wider audience. In most cases these generalizations are both true, however for the most part, things that go viral were meant to go viral and I’ll tell you why I say that.
Why Marketers Try to Attract Viral Attention
In one simple sentence, free traffic with no limitations. With free popular social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube, marketers are given the opportunity anytime to gain some additional exposure. And with the granted ability to do so completely free, generally marketers who study ways to capitalize on how to gain more extra attention, gain more attention from their contributions more so than the average social network user. The reason being behind this is because they test their methods continuously and try to understand the average surfer’s viewpoint and try to adjust their methods to meet their needs. Generally there is a lot of thought into trying to make something go viral. Things like the title: is it fun, edgy, and interesting? The description: does it catch the eye and leave the reader wanting for more? Tiny things like these help determine the chances for something to go viral and if you had read our post on How to Best Utilize Social Networks for Social Marketing, you would understand that. Here are some components that I found help increase the chances for something to go viral or get passed on from friend to friend.
- Incentives: A great example of incentives is a reward site called Lockerz. Although I have never tried out their system, what I do know is that what first made them a big hit rapidly, was the fact that they were giving out prizes to the general public and then things went wild from there on out. This comes to show that incentives, no matter how old the technique, are still a great way to entice viral attention
- Emotional appeal: Generally if something you are promoting has some good cause, it can generally gain more attention than the average contribution because of the emotional appeal which many viewers will feel. It doesn’t have to be something saddening, it could be something which encourages loyalty and bravery as well.
- Relate to Celebrities: Almost always do I see many dedicated YouTube vloggers relate their video content with celebrities and for the most part, their video almost always land on the front page of YouTube because of it. Relating your content to any big name, is also a great technique to give additional attention to your content.
- Appeal to Cuteness: A great example of this is this YouTube video of a little Korean boy with a ukulele singing I’m Yours. Although your video or any other form content does not necessarily have to be all “cutesy,” you can still make use of this component to your advantage to have a more refined “I must tell a friend” feel to your audience.
- Parodies: Parodies are a great way to attention more extra attention. There has always been this thing about parodies that most people enjoyed.
- Cultural or political differences: Talking about cultural or political differences can be a great way to rise awareness, which in turn can help attract more publicity. Using this to your advantage can greatly spark viral attention.
Although you are not only limited to these ideas to try and gather viral attention, these are all some great techniques you can try to replicate to help the chances your content go viral. These techniques have been repeated many times if you analyze the front pages of the very few large social networking sites out there. For the most part, if the content you are promoting is really stellar and easily endorses that feeling which invokes readers to must tell a friend, then I’d say if you could pull off pushing the content through the hard initial stages of promoting it until it becomes viral, your efforts are bound to be rewarded and get immediate publicity.
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I think the best advice I can give whenever trying to push something to go viral, is to not really force it when it comes to pushing content. If the topic or the content is really not that interesting to readers, don’t force it. It is best to take a more creative approach. A great diagram I think is a great blueprint to deciding if a video or any other content you are promoting is worth being promoted as viral, is by using this blueprint.
(Although the diagram talks about videos precisely, it can be applied to any other form of content as well)
Although understanding how things go viral can be hard to depict, it is still a topic worth researching because once something goes viral, that means free traffic — and free traffic in turn could mean more money.
