How to Create Content You Know Will Go Viral

How do you make content that goes viral from it’s own natural velocity? Without the need for constant promotion? Wildly popular content that is liked and shared without effort on your part?

It’s nice to have content that works for you on autopilot, but it’s not easy to create.

But if you want to generate new buzz for your business, read on.

Here are 5 ways to make your Content Marketing efforts go viral:

1. Keep Your Content Short and Easy to Digest

In most cases short content is more likely to go viral than long content is.

This makes sense when you think about it. People are flooded by content, and valuable content that doesn’t take as long to consume is going to be more likely to catch a readers attention.

With the rise of apps like Tik Tok and apps of yesteryear like Vine, attention spans are also decreasing over time.

Short content will catch a readers attention and keep it through the entirety of the content, making it more likely to be liked and shared, and to capture a new subscriber.

2. Use Graphics

It only takes a few seconds for someone to decide on whether they are going to continue reading your article. First impressions matter.

It is also largely determined by the visual elements on your webpage.

Besides using a nice color palette on your website and a nice font, you also want to breakup your text with images, infographics, charts and videos.

Content analytics company Buzzsumo has found that twice as many people share posts on Facebook that have at least one image, over content that has no images at all.

They also found that users are 30 times more likely to read an infographic than a text-based article.

When it comes to promoting content, it is clear that posts with media elements fare better. To be shared, and to be read.

3. Make it Interactive

If you want content to go viral, get your target audience involved. Make it immersive, make it interactive, and make it personalized.

Listicle’s used to cut it, but not any more. User’s are flooded with content every second, competing for their attention, so you need to make yours stand out. Especially if you want it to have viral potential.

Sure, it takes more time and resources to produce, but you’ll be rewarded for it. Great value always gets greatly rewarded.

Advanced features like Parallax scrolling, interactive graphics and multimedia elements make people notice.

4. Back It Up With Facts

If you want to secure backlinks from authorities sites, and attract an educated content, you have to be able to backup your content if it faces scrutiny.

It doesn’t have to take a large amount of your time to gather facts either. Free survey tools can be used for informal studies, or a lot of information from studies or organizations is already freely available to the public.

Quote facts as they are to show authority, or go a step further and display your research in a unique graph or infographic for extra viral potential.

5. Arouse Emotion

I find the news to be full of negativity and shock factor. It works for them because they are evoking high-arousal emotions.

But, in reality, people want to feel good. Content that elicits positive emotions like awe, laughter and joy are much more likely to be shared with friends. Think about it, do you want to make your friend feel sad? Or happy?

In a study conducted by social psychologist Jonah berger, it was found that positive articles were always shared more than negative ones. People want to spread joy to the world.

There are 6 emotions that have viral potential:

• Awe
• Anger
• Surprise
• Anxiety
• Joy
• Lust

I don’t know about you, but I like to spread awe and joy, and maybe surprise.