Operational strategy: 8 dimensions that influence content virality

In recent years, we often hear about hot products and hot content, which is actually another way to express virality. The basic sign of viral content is that it spreads quickly on the Internet and attracts a wide audience in a short period of time. How can a product achieve virality? The author of this article analyzes it from eight dimensions, hoping to help you.

Virality is important and has long been ingrained into Internet culture.

In recent years, you may have heard of popular products and popular content.

This is actually the value brought by viral communication, but everyone has used a different word to express it.

Of course, the premise of viral communication is that your product and your content can hit the "pain points".

For content creation, you may have touched upon some hot social events, sparking widespread discussion and so on.

Viral content can take many forms, and different people have different criteria for judging it.

For example, by some standards, you might have written a few viral articles that have been viewed by millions of people.

However, when you compare the article to other viral content, you might find that its impact is minimal.

The basic hallmark of viral content is that it spreads quickly on the Internet and reaches a wide audience in a short period of time.

Generally speaking, you can design content to go viral to some extent.

What dimensions should we pay attention to?

You can give yourself the best possible chance by following this formula:

• Create a “list post” with preferably 10 item categories;
• Make sure it’s a fairly long article, at least 2,000 words. Articles between 3,000-10,000 words get the most shares on average.
• Try to stick to positive themes that evoke awe, laughter, amusement, and joy;
• Write your article based on the current popular trends sweeping the world, such as AI ChatGPT, which has become popular in recent months;
• Include visuals: An image is a must;
• Insert your byline at the end of the article to enhance your credibility;
• Post on a weekday, Tuesday is ideal;
• Reach out to relevant influencers and try to get them to share your article with their followers. If you can manage to get five influencers to share it, you will most likely quadruple your exposure.

Let’s talk about each dimension in detail below.

First, you need to understand a few of the elements that hold viral content together.

01 The first influencing factor is the type of content

What types of content get the most traffic?

For example, it is easier to watch a 5-minute video than to read a 2,000-word article.

Additionally, listicles perform better overall.

Like 10 ways to do something.

The main reason is that such content is clearer and easier to read.

02 The second element is the length of the content

There’s a common misconception about long content: if it’s long, not many people will read it.

In fact, longer content gets shared and spread more often.

While people may not read the entire long article, they may still scan it.

In fact, it can be seen from the requirements of major self-media platforms that they will provide more traffic support for medium and long content.

If you want your content to be shared among a wide audience, aim for at least 2,000 words per piece of content.

In addition, there are some suggestions on the frequency of posting.

I have personally experimented with posting frequency while keeping the content quality consistent.

The background data performance of publishing an article every 3 days is obviously much better than that of updating only one article a week.

The specific operation strategy requires everyone to conduct quick testing based on the actual situation.

This is actually the same as making a product: iterate quickly, fail quickly, and improve quickly.

03 The third element is to evoke the right emotions

Generally speaking, there are seven triggers that attract readers.

They are: passion, mystery, alarm, prestige, authority, and unconventionality.

In actual application, you can choose the appropriate trigger according to your personality and content positioning.

Passion here refers to the "sense of participation" proposed by Lei Jun.

What is a sense of participation?

A sense of participation is the most basic feeling of an organic being, and it is the feeling that a person is connected to the world.

in other words.

It means that you can identify with the readers, understand them, and comprehend them.

Whether it's good or bad, the feeling of resonance is always there.

To connect with your readers, you have to be passionate and moving.

If your readers feel your passion, connect with them and you’ll see the value of social sharing.

Mystery can stimulate our imagination and suggest more possibilities.

If you can create curiosity in the title of your article, it will increase the reader’s willingness to read it.

Titles aren’t the only way to use mystery triggers, story thinking can keep readers interested.

The use of suspense is one of the most powerful tools in storytelling.

Suspense makes your readers anxious to know what happens next.

Make your readers eager to know about your next post or next status update.

The premise is that you have to tell your readers what beneficial content you will provide them.

Or just build anticipation by announcing that you’re developing some shiny new brand.

A sense of mystery keeps your readers curious and makes them eager to learn more.

Alerts are when you use deadlines to nudge people into action:

If you don't download it now, the eBook will no longer be available for free;

If you don't buy now, the price will go up, or the course will end.

This is one way to use an alarm trigger.

Another is to inspire action by focusing on people’s fears—what they worry about most.

For example: fear of being forgotten after death.

Reputation increases your readers' perceived value to you.

How can you be admired and respected and recognized for what you have accomplished?

You have to acquire your own identity, which is your personal brand.

What is a personal brand?

A personal brand should be a three-dimensional image established in people's minds by a unique, distinct, definite and easily perceived collection of information conveyed by an individual's external image and inner cultivation.

In other words, a brand is a reliable and high-quality license.

Whether it's a parent or a dictator, authority figures use their authority to control us.

Authority on the Internet is not dictatorial, and you cannot force others to listen to you.

But if you become an authority, people will want to know what you have to say.

They’ll seek your advice, they’ll want to link to you.

First determine your niche and mission, you must find a way to be different in order to stand out.

Going against the grain is about creativity and innovation.

It’s a problem that everyone sees it one way and interprets it another way.

Example:

• Use of foul language;
• Deliberately misspelling words;

Puns are a good example.

Wuling Hongguang, which understands female users the best, once played with fun puns that only Chinese people can understand, and incorporated extremely popular and hot elements in the current market into its content.

The original colors were black, gray, silver, pink, brown, and blue.

Wuling packaged the products into names with strong local accents such as "pitch black", "gray", "Northeast silver", "snail noodles", "big coffee", and "hidden blue", which are eye-catching.

04 The fourth is to take advantage of trends, that is, hot issues or events

If you can create content based on something that’s currently extremely popular, your potential for virality increases exponentially.

Although the shelf life of this method may be short, you can still generate a lot of exposure over a period of time, which is also the basic strategy of many traffic owners.

05 The fifth is visual effects

People love visuals, they make even the most mundane content come alive.

Including images in your content increases the chances of being shared, and articles with at least one image significantly outperform articles without any images.

Regarding this aspect, generally when you publish content on different platforms, they will prompt you to add pictures.

06 The sixth is to add the author’s signature

A signature briefly tells readers who the author of an article is, thus adding credibility to the article.

More trust = more traffic

Make sure to include your subtitle in every post, preferably with a professional-looking headshot.

Trust can also be called reader loyalty.

You can dabble in prestige, or you can try your hand at authority.

But you can’t fall into and lose trust, you have to build it consistently.

The Internet world is full of disguises. You can discard other triggers, but you can't do without trust.

07. Release content at the right time

One factor that is often overlooked is the day of the week when the article is published.

Studies have found that when articles are published on weekdays, the chances of going viral are greatly increased.

More specifically, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays are your best bets.

08 The eighth is the power of influencers

If you can get influencers to share your content with their readers, the potential for virality can take hold.

Even if you can only get one influencer to share your content, the results can be significant.

The Everyone is a Product Manager public platform has reposted my articles many times, and the average reading-to-fan rate is above 1%, which is 10 times higher than posting articles directly on the platform.

But if you can somehow get five influential people to do it, it’s likely to have a huge, mind-blowing impact.

One strategy to attract influencers is to first look at the type of content they have shared in the past. Then, you can write articles around similar topics and reach out to the influencer or pitch your article once you’re done.

By going viral, you can create instant exposure for your brand, increase your social media following, generate tons of leads, and grow your brand equity.

Apart from this, it is reasonable to expect that your sales will also increase significantly.

Author: Wei Peng; Official Account: Product Person Wei Peng