Written by: Vickie Sullivan | October 23, 2014
What Content Goes Viral
Have you ever wondered why the most stupid thing gets the most attention on the Internet? Me too. That’s why I couldn’t stop reading this Hubspot article about how hyper-growth companies such as BuzzFeed and Upworthy get those followers. My favorite findings:
- Emotional triggers. Too many of us thought leaders bring out our research. But without a compelling emotional component, too few people will benefit. And no, it’s not manipulative to appeal to our readers’ emotions. The caveat: unless you are calling them a loser for not buying your stuff. That’s just not nice.
- Build your content around your platforms. Yes, the readers come first but also pay attention to where they hang out. BuzzFeed knows that they get a ton of traffic from Facebook, so guess what? They create content for the Facebook readers.
- Value and originality are not the same thing. This is the most challenging for me as I pride myself on being an original thinker. And…if you uncover and comment on a story that went under the radar, that’s valuable too.
Behind every video we make, every podcast we do, there is a small but nagging dream that “this thing could go viral”. Perhaps if we adopt some of these strategies from the big players, we can increase our share of the bandwidth too.
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