Your content going viral can give your business a huge boost. Here’s how you can create professional content that has a good chance of going viral.

Social media is one of your most powerful marketing tools. There are more than 1 billion people on Facebook and hundreds of millions use platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn.

If your content goes viral on one of these platforms, your business really benefits.

Take American comedian Conan O’ Brien as an example. After leaving his TV show on NBC, Conan launched a stand-up tour using Twitter.

He had the advantage of the buzz from the TV situation behind him. Still, his campaign essentially amounted to posting an image promoting his tour on Twitter.

The image went viral and Conan sold out all 32 of his shows within 2 hours of the tickets going on sale.

That’s the power that a single viral post wields. Here are five tips that will help you to create professional content and increase its chances of going viral.

Tip #1 – Understand the Qualities of Viral Content

Before you can create viral content, you need to understand the qualities that this type of content tends to have.

These aren’t hard qualities. Something can go viral without having a few of them. However, they are some of the most easily identifiable:

  • Good Timing. The right post at the right time can trigger viral awareness. That’s what happened with Conan. Everyone wanted to know what he’d do next after losing his TV show. His content gave them the answer and went viral in the process.
  • Accessibility. The content’s easy to view and people can relate to it in some way.
  • Humour. If something tickles a person’s funny bone, they’re likely to share it with friends.
  • Consumable. A 10,000-word whitepaper isn’t going to go viral. A poster or quick video has a much better chance because it’s easier to consume.
  • Tells a Story. People connect to stories over facts and figures. If you can grab them by the emotions and tell an interesting tale, your content may go viral.
  • Shareable. This is where the social media aspect comes in. If you’re covering a subject that people want to share and discuss, your content may go viral.

Create content with these qualities in mind to increase your chances of getting a viral smash.

Tip #2 – Answer a Question With the Content

Once you’ve chosen a topic, it’s time to figure out what’s trending about it. This is where Amazon, Quora, or Google’s automatic search function can help.

Just type your topic in and look at the questions that people are asking. These are obvious pain points and trends for your content to cover. If you can give a great answer to a popular question, you’re creating something for people to share.

Dig a little deeper into your topics and figure out what people really want to know.

Tip #3 – Boost Your Content

There’s no “organic only” rule when it comes to viral content. Some pieces may go viral without any prodding on your part. However, it doesn’t hurt to boost your content to get it in front of more people, especially in the early days of the campaign.

Say you’ve created a video on Facebook. You can spend a few dollars per day boosting that content. Select your target audience and just see what happens. When the data comes back, exclude the groups that aren’t reacting. Dedicate the budget from them onto the groups that are liking or sharing the video.

You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars a day on boosting. Just do it enough to keep getting the content in front of fresh eyes. Eventually, the organic shares will start coming.

Tip #4 – Don’t Stick to One Social Network

Facebook may be the big hitter for many people. It certainly has the most active users. However, that doesn’t mean you should exclude other social networks from your strategy.

Again, let’s say you’ve posted a video to Facebook. First of all, you can augment the views and shares you’re getting on that platform. Post the video to niche groups that relate to the topic your content covers. You’re spreading the content yourself instead of leaving it on your business page.

Then, share the videos on other platforms. There are plenty of tools out there that let you quickly create a post that shares your content across several platforms.

You’ll also find that some content resonates better on one social network than another. For example, if you have a B2B piece, it’s more likely to go viral on LinkedIn. If you’re only sticking to one social network, your content isn’t reaching its full potential.

Tip #5 – Retarget the Warm Audience

A good chunk of the people who see your content aren’t going to convert into customers. At least, not straight away.

This is your warm audience. You’ve gotten them interested but they might need a final push to turn them into customers.

This is where ads come in handy again. Create a landing page and build your viral content into an ad. Target that ad at the people who’ve already seen the content and direct them to your landing page.

You can even create custom audiences for these ads based on the traffic that your content received.

This is how you turn your viral content into a lead magnet. Don’t assume that someone won’t buy from you if they’ve seen the content and not interacted. A little extra push or a gentle reminder may encourage them to convert.

Conclusion

There’s no foolproof strategy for creating viral content. Sometimes, the strangest things can go viral without any effort put into a strategy.

But why leave it to chance?

With these tips, you should be able to create content that has all of the right qualities for going viral. You can now also see how to give that content a boost and ensure it reaches a bigger audience.

Plus, you now understand how retargeting can get you more leads and increase the content’s viral potential.

This is just one part of what should be a larger social media marketing effort. Growth Marketing Systems can help you to build your social campaign.

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