Viral posts and then what?
As the technological development curve reaches an exponential growth phase, so does the access to information around the world, pretty much instantly. In this context, smartphones have become ubiquitous, addictive and transformative allowing you to be connected to the social media world all at once. No matter where you are or what you are doing, information is flowing all day long. Our interaction is no longer restricted to the people close to us, but to a global community that is eagerly curious and linked 24/7.
Although not everyone is ready to process the amounts of information that we face every day, almost all of us get to share “something” during the day or at least catch an eye on what is “trending” among our closest community of friends, family or work.
All of this made me remember the last viral post that caused a revolution among my social media community (and around the world too!) a couple of months ago. It is the post about a Syrian three-year old boy, who drowned as they made their way to Europe from Turkey on a small dingy.
The posted picture evoked so many feelings from anger and rage, to sadness and helplessness. I remember some of my friends begging others not to share the post any longer, since this image allowed them to barely sleep at night. Imagining their own children in such a distressing situation was just too much to handle. Coming from a Latin American country were hundreds of children die due to different types of violence, I also found myself surrounded by energetic comments where friends were offended by people’s attention to this type of post, while considering that nothing was being done to raise enough awareness of our own local issues that also affect security and children’s rights as well.
So, the question I want to raise is, what characteristic has a post got to have to become viral? What makes it so unusual, so worth of notice or attention and then become worth spreading? It is not about the content, but about the emotions that these information evokes in the audience for them to be so powerful.
As we all know, the desire for social approval is a fundamental human motivation that seems nowadays that everyone is so desperately looking for it. Apparently sharing something special, interesting or remarkable allows people to seem more interesting, human, funny or involved maybe? I guess that unusual posts is a way of communication, that allows people to speak out without using their own words; to feel useful in situations where they seem helpless and to make others laugh, even when they cannot come out with their own jokes.
However, what else can be achieved by sharing posts besides them to become viral? Presumably the strongest reason that most of us share posts like the one of the Syrian kid is to increase awareness of the issue involved, since they represent situations where we believe we can do nothing about. Doing this seems like the most reasonable way for us to show that we care. In this specific case, the created awareness probably raised tension among nation leaders and global communities. However, how can we know if this awareness helped to transform this emotions into actions? What else can we do for this efforts not to become more information that eventually gets lost in time?
Social media is influencing all of our decisions and is changing the way we all collaborate, generating reactions to diverse stimuli. Social media management is all about capturing momentum and seizing opportunities to transform them into tangible results. The challenge to engagement relies in maintaining the interaction with the audience, allowing the conversation to flow without letting it to fade away.
Taking this into consideration, next time you post something that everybody is talking about, think again and ask yourself what are your underlying motivations for sharing it. Chances are you start becoming more critical about what you decide to share or not.
