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5 Must-Know Tips For Generating Viral Content

Going viral on the Internet is a great way to reach a wide audience and generate interest in your products and services. As long as the content that is going viral is highlighting something positive for your business, you can find a great deal of success. (Basically, don’t pull a Domino’s Pizza.)

Viral content spreads fast, so you’re reaching a large audience in a very quick amount of time, which generates a great deal of buzz and attention. Viral content can also provide backlinks to the original content, which not only increases traffic, but also improves your SEO.

Some companies want to create viral content but are not exactly sure how to do it. Honestly, there’s no real way to determine what content will go viral and what won’t. (Who really thought that meme about cats would end up so popular?) Though there’s no perfect equation to create viral content, there are a few tactics you can implement that will give you a better chance of going viral.

Jump on a Trending Bandwagon

Different topics, people and events become a trending topic everyday, and if you want your content to go viral, you should tie in your own content with a trending topic. Your audience will enjoy hearing your take on a certain topic, and you will earn a bigger audience by discussing something that is popular right now.

Create an Infographic

People can’t seem to get enough of infographics. If you want viral content, do some research, find some statistics on a topic that interests your audience, and have a graphic designer create an infographic for you. If the information you find is interesting enough, that infographic will spread like crazy.

Do Something Strange

As mentioned before, there’s no rhyme or reason as to why certain things go viral, but some of the most strange items do, and it is the strangeness that makes them go viral (think Honey Badger). Do something strange, make a video with strange characters, write something completely off the wall—any of these tactics can be the reason your content goes viral. If not, at least you had fun being strange in the process.

Use Videos to Show Value

Your audience will be more willing to share an interesting video than they will be to share interesting content. Why? Because we have the attention span for videos. To be safe, though, you should try and keep your video short so that you do keep the viewer’s attention. Post it on YouTube, post a link on your social networks, and watch how people push out the content for you.

Try Other Methods

If you don’t take the time to try your hand at creating content that goes viral, you never will. Try generating content that will be interesting to your audience and push it out through your social networks. If it gets some virality, great. If it doesn’t, then you know that’s not the niche your audience enjoys. You can then use this information to help determine what content of yours has a better chance at going viral and go from there.

Being viral on the Internet is a great way to gain a wider audience. Try out a few of these tips to see if you can create viral content, and sit back and watch the audience and traffic generate.

This is a guest post written by Sarah Dunbar
Sarah Dunbar works for the online marketing team at SEOMap.  Please visit our website for more information.