The Secret Sauce of Viral Content: 5 Tips to Create Content That Gets Shared
Viral content is content that is shared widely and rapidly online. It can be anything from a funny video to a heartwarming story to a thought-provoking article. Viral content can be a powerful marketing tool, as it can help you reach a large audience and generate awareness for your brand or product.
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There is no guaranteed formula for creating viral content, but there are some things you can do to increase your chances. Here are 5 tips to create content that gets shared:
1. Create high-quality content
To capture your audience’s attention and keep them coming back for more, it’s crucial to create high-quality, engaging content. This means writing pieces that are well-researched, informative, visually appealing, and relevant to your target audience’s needs and interests.
Here are a few tips for creating high-quality content:
- Choose topics that matter to your audience. What are they talking about? What are their pain points? What do they want to learn? Once you have a good understanding of your audience’s interests, you can start to brainstorm topics that will resonate with them.
- Do your research and gather credible information. When you’re writing about a topic, it’s important to make sure that you have your facts straight. Cite your sources and avoid making claims you can’t support with evidence.
- Write in a clear and concise style. Get to the point quickly and avoid using jargon or overly complex language. Aim to write in a way that is easy to understand for everyone, regardless of their technical expertise. Refer to the best copywriting tips for additional advice.
- Use visuals to enhance your content. Images, videos, and infographics can make your content more engaging and visually appealing. Use the best photo and video editing apps for professional results. They can also help to break up your text and make it easier for readers to scan.
Proofread your content carefully. Before you publish your content, be sure to proofread it carefully for any errors in grammar, spelling, or punctuation. You can also ask a friend or colleague to proofread it for you.
2. Make it easy to share
Once you’ve created high-quality content, the next step is to make it easy for people to share it. This means including social sharing buttons on your website or blog, ensuring your content is mobile-friendly, and optimizing your images and headlines for social media.
How to make your content shareable? Here are a few tips:
- Include social sharing buttons on all of your pages and posts. Make it easy for people to share your content with their networks by including social sharing buttons on your pages and posts.
- Make sure your content is mobile-friendly. More and more people are using their smartphones and tablets to access the internet, so it’s important to ensure your content is mobile-friendly.
- Optimize your images for social media. Social media platforms like TikTok, Twitter and Facebook have specific image dimensions recommended for sharing. When you share an image on social media, it will be resized to fit these dimensions. However, if you don’t optimize your images for social media, they may look blurry or distorted. To optimize your images for social media, you can use a tool like Canva or PicMonkey.
- Write catchy headlines and descriptions that will encourage people to share your content. The headline and description are the first things people will see when they come across your content on social media, so it’s important to make them count.
Example: Imagine you’ve written a blog post about a university’s marketing course offering, particularly how easy it is now to complete the course since it’s designed for in-person, online, and hybrid classes. You want to make it easy for marketing students and professors to share your post, so you include social sharing buttons on the top and bottom of the page. You also ensure that the image you chose for the post is optimized for social media.
In addition, you write a catchy headline and description that will encourage people to share your post. For example, you could write:
Headline: How Long Does It Take To Get A Marketing Degree
Description: Discover how to earn a marketing degree in four years or less with our comprehensive guide.
3. Promote it on social media
Social media is one of the most powerful tools for promoting your content and reaching a wider audience. With billions of users worldwide, social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn provide a unique opportunity to connect with potential readers and customers.
Here are a few tips on how to promote your content on social media:
- Use relevant hashtags: Hashtags are a great way to get your content seen by people interested in the topics you are writing about. When you share your content on social media, include relevant hashtags in your posts.
- Tag other users or organizations: If you mention another user or organization in your content, tag them in your post. This will notify them that you have mentioned them and may encourage them to share your content with their followers.
- Use social media ads: Social media ads can be a great way to target a specific audience with your content. You can use social media ads to target people based on their demographics, interests, and online behavior.
When creating social media posts to promote your content, be sure to:
- Use high-quality images and videos: Visual content is more likely to capture people’s attention and encourage them to click through to your website or blog. A study found that 91% of consumers prefer video over other content types.
- Write clear and concise headlines: Your headline should be clear, concise, and attention-grabbing. It should accurately reflect the content of your post and give people a reason to click through to read more.
- Use a strong call to action: Tell people what you want them to do next. Do you want them to visit your website? Read your blog post? Share your content with their followers? Be clear and direct in your call to action.
Example: Imagine you have written a blog post about the latest trends in social media marketing. You want to promote your post on Twitter, so you write a tweet that includes the following:
- A link to your blog post
- A relevant hashtag (#socialmediamarketing)
- A strong call to action (“Learn the latest trends in social media marketing and how you can use them to grow your business.”)
You also attach a high-quality image to your tweet that is relevant to the topic of your blog post.
4. Target the right audience
Hitting your target audience with your content is crucial to achieving your goals, generating leads, increasing brand awareness, or driving traffic to your website. To do this, you must understand where your target audience spends online and publish your content accordingly.
The first step is to identify your target audience. Who are you trying to reach with your content? Once you know your target audience, you can start researching where they spend their time online.
Here are a few ways to research your target audience:
- Use social media listening and analytics. These social media tools provide insights into your audience’s demographics, interests, and online behavior.
- Use Google Analytics. Google Analytics provides insights into the traffic to your website, including demographics, interests, and referral sources.
- Conduct surveys. Surveys are a great way to get direct feedback from your target audience about their needs and interests.
Once you know where your target audience spends their time online, you can start to publish your content on those websites and blogs.
Another great way to reach your target audience is to collaborate with other bloggers and influencers in your niche. This could involve guest blogging, cross-promoting each other’s content, or even co-hosting webinars or events.
When collaborating with other bloggers and influencers, make sure to choose partners who have a similar audience to yours. This will help you to reach new people who are likely to be interested in your content.
Example: Imagine you have a blog about social media marketing. Your target audience is small business owners.
To reach your target audience, you could:
- Publish your blog posts on websites and blogs frequented by small business owners, such as Inc. Magazine and Entrepreneur.com.
- Use social media targeting to reach small business owners on Twitter and Facebook.
- Collaborate with other bloggers and influencers who write about social media marketing for small businesses.
5. Use visuals
In today’s attention-scarce world, visuals are essential for capturing and retaining your audience’s attention. Studies have shown that visual content is processed 60,000 times faster than text-only content, making it the perfect way to communicate complex ideas quickly and effectively.
Here are a few tips for using visuals effectively in your content:
- Use original, high-quality images and videos: Your visuals should be professional and visually appealing. Avoid using low-quality or stock photos.
- Create informative and visually appealing infographics: Infographics are a great way to present complex data in a visually appealing and easy-to-understand way. A study found that infographics are the most used type of visual content by marketers.
- Use visuals to tell a story or illustrate a point: Your visuals should be more than just decorative; they should help to tell your story or illustrate your point.
- Optimize your images for search engines: Make sure to optimize your images for search engines by using relevant, informational keywords in the file name and alt text.
Example: Imagine you’re writing a blog post about the benefits of social media marketing for small businesses. You could use the following visuals to make your post more engaging and informative:
- Image: A high-quality image of a small business owner using social media to promote their business.
- Video: A short video testimonial from a small business owner about how social media has helped them grow their business.
Infographic: An infographic that illustrates the top 10 benefits of social media marketing for small businesses.
Conclusion
Creating viral content is not easy, but it is possible. By following the tips above, you can increase your chances of creating content that gets shared. Just remember to focus on creating high-quality content relevant to your target audience.
Surrinder Pandita is a content writer at RankHandy. He has more than 6 years of experience writing for the marketing, HR, and business sectors and aims to provide high-quality content.
