What is Viral Content and 6 techniques to go viral

Among the many advantages of Digital Marketing, one of them is to have greater control over your strategies. And this is valid even for actions that depend on your audience’s engagement with the message transmitted. 

Viral Content is one of these options: the audience needs to be interested, but it is possible to increase your campaign’s chances of success.

By performing some techniques, the chances of your content generate relevant organic traffic becomes much higher. But how does one do that? From choosing the most appropriate channels to stimulate sharing, to even the precise message to impact your audience.

To facilitate this challenge and increase your chances to go viral, we’ll discuss some relevant topics about this strategy in this article:

• What is viral content?
• What are the benefits of this strategy?
• What are the 6 best techniques to go viral?

Do you want to understand how to put this strategy into action? Check it out!

 

What is Viral Content?

First of all, we need to understand the meaning of this strategy better. 

As much as Digital Marketing offers countless ways to attract potential consumers with the right techniques, Viral Content is not so simple to produce.

Viral Content is all the communication of a company or user that goes viral. It is shared across the different digital channels by a large number of users. 

This strategy works when the message transmitted by the company becomes more relevant than, for example, the company itself. This content can be valid for a traditional ad or even for a publication in a company blog.

The most important thing is to deliver a relevant message and stimulate this willingness to share in each user. Usually, funny, unusual, surprising, or even controversial content is the most effective way to achieve your goal.

The goal is to awaken emotions in users. A funny advertisement for your brand, for example, can make the user want to share that moment with his friends. 

The same goes for content that reveals a great secret or novelty, encouraging more people to talk about what has been discovered.

Although it depends on the audience’s reaction and therefore reduces your control, there are some techniques to increase their chances of success. And part of this challenge is to understand your audience’s behavior to offer more relevant content to go viral.

 

What are the benefits of this strategy?

The market is increasingly competitive in search of consumer attention and resources. What companies must do is find ways to differentiate themselves. 

After all, the user is impacted by countless pieces of information over the course of a day, and it is necessary to be precise in your message.

Produce Viral Content appears as a valid option to strengthen your company’s authority further and, of course, its brand awareness. Below, you can see the main benefits of this strategy.

Greater reach

For content to go viral, this means that it has generated many shares. In other words, it is a message with a much wider reach. Instead of limiting its impact, for example, to its usual audience, it ends up reaching users who didn’t even know your brand.

Within an increasingly connected scenario and fewer physical barriers, it’s an opportunity to expand your business. 

For e-commerce, for example, it can be a chance to communicate with potential consumers in more remote cities.

Natural approach

Consumers also no longer want an aggressive approach from companies. 

Do you want a better way to introduce yourself to users who didn’t know your company other than from funny or relevant content? The reaction of potential consumers tends to be much better.

Without forcing your brand’s presence among a specific audience, the impression becomes even more favorable. For those who plan, for example, to build customer loyalty, starting a relationship from this dynamic can be a great enabler.

Lower costs

The great secret in producing a Viral Content is precisely its organic growth. It means, in practice, that its investments to reach a large audience are smaller. 

Your company didn’t need paid advertisements, for example, because the sharing was natural.

As a positive consequence, the ROI of a viral content campaign becomes excellent. 

Without much effort, your company’s message could reach users you didn’t even think you could communicate with.

The good news? It’s done without spending any more money.

Brand Awareness

As much as Viral Content’s primary focus is not always the company involved, this strategy also helps position your brand as an authority in its segment. Even if most users don’t want to know about your company, some people will.

It is a way to establish your brand as a reference. Within such a competitive market, it can be natural to make yourself present in digital channels and differentiate yourself from the competition.

What are the 6 best techniques to go viral?

Investing in Viral Content can then be a very effective strategy to take advantage of all these benefits. How about finding out which are the 6 best techniques to go viral? Check them out!

1. Know your audience

To promote content organically, the message needs to be impactful for its primary audience. Only from success within this public is it possible for the content to go viral. 

Therefore, it is essential to know the smallest details about whom you want to impact.

2. Use the most appropriate channels

Now it is time to define which channels are most appropriate for communicating with your audience and going viral. 

The most important thing is to find the mass platforms most used by those you want to impact. Social networks, for example, cannot be left off your list.

It is on Facebook, Twitter, and even YouTube that your posts can gain most relevance. 

According to BroadbandSearch, users spend more than two hours a day connected to social media. Without a doubt, they are the most relevant channels to convey your message effectively.

3. Bet on interactive content

Another relevant technique to create Viral Content is to bet on interactivity. 

It is simple to use tools that increase the possibilities of engagement. This is a way to catch the user’s attention after opening the content, for example.

Provide an interactive calculator that allows the user to determine how much they need to invest, for example, in SEO on their pages. A form of going viral is allowing your content to be used more often and effectively for your persona’s routine.

Offering quizzes, calculators, and Q&A’s is a way to stimulate the user to share the content. 

After all, after discovering, for example, something that is fun or relevant that your material offered, their chances of sharing it with a friend or professional at work are much higher.

4. Don’t just think about going viral

Another important point when planning a Viral Content is precisely not to focus only on that. As we have already said, the success of this strategy also depends on the audience’s reaction, and it is essential not to play all your cards on this option.

This way, it is necessary to set up your strategy thinking about creating relevant content for your buyer persona. 

If it goes viral, excellent! But in case this doesn’t happen, you still have interesting content to impact your audience and continue generating traffic, for example.

5. Get the user’s attention

From the choice of image to the title of the content, details make the difference when creating a Viral Content. 

After all, as we’ve already discussed in this article, it’s crucial to catch the user’s attention quickly. Therefore, images and titles should be analyzed before a definition is given.

No matter how relevant the content is, users will only click on materials that catch their attention. 

Considering the information collected previously, carefully choose which images will be used, calls, and the title of your message.

6. Deliver quality content

Even if the chosen images draw the user’s attention or the title guarantees a large number of clicks, the content will only become viral if it is relevant. 

In other words, what will be delivered needs to be useful to those impacted by it.

Otherwise, the user may still feel cheated by your company, which damages your brand’s reputation.

Although it is a strategy very dependent on audience reactions — which is not so simple to control — producing Viral Content can generate many positive results. With the right techniques, it is possible to promote your brand organically and position yourself as an authority.

As one of the objectives of Viral Content is to attract more visitors to your pages, how about getting to know more strategies to promote your pages with? 

Besides relevant content and techniques for a better ranking, find out how to attract more traffic to your blog with off-page SEO!