What if your organization posted a video, photo or article on the internet, and thousands, or millions, of people saw it?
Hopefully, if the online reaction is positive to what you put up, it could mean considerable exposure for your business or nonprofit, which in turn could mean more revenue and donations.
In fact, it can bring you overnight success.
Online content becomes viral when it is shared over and over and over again on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Many CEOs dream of creating something that goes viral. But with millions of daily posts on social media, blogs and websites, this isn’t ease to achieve. And yet, it’s not impossible, either.
Want to try and create a viral post? Here’s a quick guide on how to do this.
— Focus on issues in the news. Make sure your content is current because you’ll have a better chance of having it found and viewed because people are searching for it on search engines and social media. Focus on Google News and keep track of what’s trending on Twitter, which is where a lot of important news breaks.
— Create a video. Videos are a big part of what people do on the Web. A funny, engaging or inspiring video will get shared like wildfire on Facebook and Instagram. Upload your video on YouTube or Vimeo, and once people discover it, they’ll do all the promoting for you by sharing it.
— Don’t be dull. You need to say or do something that’s never been done before. Or you need to offer something that impacts people’s lives and emotions. To get people motivated to share, they need to be excited by your story.
— Get someone big to notice you. Videos, photos and other stories often go viral after celebrities find them and share them with their supporters. One way to catch their attention is to tweet them consistently on Twitter and hope they notice what you’re doing.
— Use Humor. Viral campaigns usually take off because they are funny. Take a chance and make us laugh out loud. If your content is ridiculously funny, chances are, it will be shared a lot because at the end of the day – what do people really want? To be happy, right?
In reality, there’s no true measure in predicting whether your story will go viral or not. Successful campaigns are rarely copied.
But if you try some of the above techniques, there’s a good chance that your content will get noticed – and perhaps it will achieve the ultimate marketing prize of going viral.
Leon Fooksman is the founder and CEO of Digital Storyline, a social media and content marketing firm specializing in storytelling for nonprofits, government agencies and small businesses. A graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Leon is a former newspaper reporter who has helped dozens of agencies find, tell and publish their best stories.
If interested in storytelling, Leon is offering one-on-one coaching on storytelling techniques to advance your organization’s mission. Contact him here: leon@digitalstoryline.com
