How to Write Articles That Go Viral
“Ultimately virility is all about helping others express their reluctantly shared feelings while doing so from a safe distance.”
What does it take for something to go viral?
Have you ever written an article that received many shares on social media sites? If you haven’t already, you’ll learn ten content writing tips that will increase the chances of your posts going viral on the internet.
If you have, you will be able to revisit these ideas and potentially improve your writing to gain much more exposure, visibility, and popularity concerning the subject and topics you are attempting to introduce.
You’ll be a social media force to be reckoned with if you understand the key concepts listed below!
1. Understand Social Media Market Trends:
It would help if you always kept an eye on what topics are trending on social media. You could be writing an article about a product, a service, or fiction or nonfiction.
Whatever it is, it must be relevant today or on the verge of being important tomorrow. The majority of people do not want to read about something they are already familiar with.
People try to avoid this type of content because they believe it is rehashed to tell them the same thing they have already heard to increase search engine traffic.
Excellent tools are available, such as Twitter Trends and Google Trends, to help you understand the market buzz.
Using these resources, you can write relevant details based on what is popular today or likely to be popular tomorrow. Also, find out when the best time is to publish a blog post based on your target market.
2. Create More In-Depth Content:
According to data from a study of the New York Times most-emailed list, Longer content is more likely to be shared. This isn’t to say you should stuff your content with filler, but the more context you provide, the more valuable the piece becomes to others. Writing a story is one of the most effective techniques to write a long, impactful article that goes viral on social media.
In fact, if you can make it a long engaging story or a how-to guide with educational value, these are always very well received. People adore it when someone tells them a story they are enthralled about.
People also prefer to be presented with a series of content, or chapters, as it were. In other words, you should deliver a portion of your story once every week or every two weeks. This will allow those interested in sharing their enthusiasm with their friends and directing them to your blog, forum, or posting network to learn more about your story and build up more hype.
You can use a tool like Storify to pull in rich content from your publications and other social media reactions.
3. Choose an Effective Title and Keywords
You must choose effective keywords that will help people find the articles you write based on the info you’ve discovered in your market trends and tools like Google Keywords. These keywords will direct relevant, targeted traffic to those articles. Using the right keywords can effectively bring people to your articles who want to share them on social media. A compelling title is also necessary to entice users to click on your writing. This is especially effective if you’re writing about social issues that people are eager to learn about and share.
4. Identify Keyword Density
Don’t try to stuff your articles with keywords to get people to read them. Using this method, you may discover that you have the opposite effect.
Your content should read naturally and with emotion. It should give the person reading it, a reason to share it with their friends on their preferred social media network (taking ownership of your article’s views publicly.)
Most search engines and social media users will do everything to avoid this type of content.
5. Make your content exciting and emotionally engaging.
Speak to the audience rather than to yourself. Always make your content unique to attract more people.
You never want to write duplicate content that people can find elsewhere when writing for social media. This tarnishes your reputation, and people will not return to read any of your future content. They are less likely to share your content, which is what is required for it to go viral in the first place.
Consider creating and incorporating interesting new content such as images, infographics, videos, or other rich media that people enjoy seeing on social media.
One of the most effective ways to go viral is to tap into people’s emotions, which are triggered by high energy responses caused by feelings of awe, anger, and anxiety.
It’s similar to how Howard Stern’s detractors listened to him longer than his fans to see what he’d say next.
6. Make it possible for your content to be easily skimmed.
According to research, users have time to read no more than 28 percent of the words on an average web page visit, with 20 percent being more likely. Use a thumb image at the top of your articles to help your readers digest the opening passage and encourage them to read on.
7. Don’t Stuff Keywords Into Your Content
Keyword stuffing and keyword density are almost synonymous. It isn’t, however.
When one keyword is found too close to another, this is keyword density. Keyword stuffing occurs when the same keyword repeatedly appears in the same article.
The majority of intelligent readers do not want to read articles that repeat the same word. Pay attention to what you’re writing so that you can pique people’s interest, which will lead to your article going viral.
Virality occurs instantly by arousing interest on social media rather than through gaming search engines, which result in a slower accumulation of traffic over a more extended period.
8. Underpromise and Overdeliver on What You’re Writing About
If you’re writing about Third-World problems, write about Third-World problems. Do not start writing about a specific subject and then switch gears and start writing about a product or service.
Tell your audience what you’re going to write about, and then give them ten times the information they expected. Make your first point just as compelling as your last.
Your articles will go viral on social media if you under-promise and over-deliver. People are looking for content that is both interesting and useful.
9. Share It On Social Network
Spread your post to as many relevant social networks and communities as possible. We recently looked at how to create multiple entry points into your content by sharing it on the major social networks and, more importantly, niche communities like Social Media Today to help build buzz around your great content.
You should also ensure that your articles have optimal sharing buttons and fantastic images attached, making it easy for people to share your work.
Must-Ask For Feedback
Finally, you should test your article to ensure valuable information.
You can accomplish this by sending your writing to a few people you trust for constructive criticism. This ensures that you are not writing something downright dull for other people to read or contains errors.
In addition, solicit feedback from your audience. Getting your audience involved is one of the most effective ways to increase traction and engagement with your content.
You now have ten tips for writing social media articles that go viral. If you use these strategies regularly, your content will not only go viral but it may even be picked up by some more prominent news outlets, adding fuel to the fire.
I have to end this with a question because rule #10 requires it, otherwise, I’ll be breaking my own set of rules. I’d be really interested to hear about the strategies you’re using to go viral on social media.
