Why My Content is More Viral than Your Content

There’s no surefire formula for creating viral content. However, there are a few attributes that most viral things have in common. If you follow the recommendations below, the material you create will be much more likely to be passed along.

  

1) Keep it Bite-sized – Viral content should be able to be consumed by the viewer in 30 to 180 seconds. Notice that the unit of measure is seconds, not minutes. One more time, think in seconds, not minutes. I don’t think twice about forwarding along a quick video, a set of images, or a clever paragraph or two. Even if the receiver didn’t appreciate it as much as I did, it didn’t waste much of their time. The longer your content is, the fewer people will get to the end of it, and the fewer people will share it.

2) Keep it rough and authentic –  Your audience and your volunteers and your donors aren’t looking for a highly-manicured product. They want something real. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put a lot of time and thought into your content. You should. But don’t be afraid to let the humanity show. Think of reality TV here. People have some strange, bizarre fascination with it.

3) It needs an awesome headline - Most bloggers call that “linkbait”. The headline should be something that a) makes people want to read it and b) is named in a way that they would feel comfortable passing it on. It needs to be compelling and catchy. A recent one that comes to my mind is “What Every Entrepreneur Could Learn from Justin Bieber”. I clicked on it, and I shared it. As a general rule of thumb, you should spend as much time coming up with a clever title as you do creating your content.

4) Use images – There’s an old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. It is. Use powerful pictures. Hire a good photographer. But keeping with point number 2, don’t stage the pictures. Capture real candid images.

5) Use lists – Along with pictures, lists have a tendency to get views and to get shared. How many blog
posts have you read which are titled “6 Ways to Increase Optimism about Fundraising   at Your Non-Profit”, or “4 Mistakes Every Non-profit is Making”. You know what I’m talking about, you read those!

6) Allow reaction – Let people comment freely! Reaction sparks interest. I’m on a mailing list for alumni from my school who were in my major. Someone will share something in an email and other people will respond. But sometimes an email will come across that’s an orphan – no one replies. Then a few days later, after I’ve forgotten about it, someone does. And then someone else does. And then all of a sudden I’m sick of deleting the email because EVERYONE has something to say. If it weren’t for discussion, that email and those ideas would have died alone. Discussion sparks involvement, which increases the likelihood that someone will pass it along.

7) Allow interaction –  This is a trick direct mail advertisers have known for years. If you send an ad that requires the customer to scratch-n-win to see what they get, or pull off a sticker and put it somewhere else, response rate increases significantly. There are lots of ways to get users to interact with your site. Have them sign a petition, let them play a game you’ve created, have them take a quick survey, let them volunteer. The ideas are endless.

Make it share-able – I see it, I like it, I want to pass it along. You need to have buttons right there for me to share it on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and email. Make that easy for me. And when you’re working with Twitter, be sure to leave 10-12 characters at the end of your template Tweet so that people can re-tweet it. Sharing should be easy.

On that note, please share this article!