how to go viral - guide

7/24/2019 How to Go Viral - GUIDE

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We would like to say thank you

to:

Herpreet Grewal(FM World News)

Nick Judd(Envee Media)

Travis Bernard(TechCrunch)

for providing valuable feedback

on this guide.
https://twitter.com/travisbernardhttps://twitter.com/NickJudd78https://twitter.com/Herpreet_Grewal


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made with love by the team behind


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Hey there!

If you ever hear the phrase viral content in your line of work, you know

how we all feel about it. Brands try to achieve it, agencies try to explain

that its not that simple, and publishers work hard to make it happen as

often as possible.

Blogs, online magazines, and news sites are well aware of one major

issue: The homepage is dead. There are tons of research papers, studies,

and examples of how home page traffic is declining for media and of

how social media is now taking over.

If you think about it, you can rephrase it like this: Social media is thenew homepage.

Social media is the new homepage.(Click to Tweet)

While this might not be the case forever, we attempted to create a

guide that serves as some sort of framework to maximise the efficiency

of your efforts of attempting to grow your sites audience through social

media.

In this guide, well be following a simple format: 5 chapters that cover

our framework, and in each chapter, we provide a definitive list of blog

articles, studies, and books to go down the rabbit hole.

We attempt to make this guide a reliable companion of the digital

marketer. Feel free to drop me an email ([email protected])

with your thoughts on this guide; we want to hear your feedback.

Have fun,David

David Szabo

Co-founder & CEOBrandvee Limited
http://brandvee.com/mailto:[email protected]://ctt.ec/1dSjJhttp://brandvee.com/


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How do you differentiate normal content from viral content? Often we turn tohistorical data, and we say a content went viral when the data looks something

like this:

Thats the spikewere looking for.

But why does that even happen?

Theres a great deal of researchers and authors who tried to figure out the whysand hows of this spike. Check our link collection at the second part of thischapter if youre interested.

For now, lets say that when this spike happens, that means a near perfect,delicate, and short-term balance existsbetween the way the content itself wascreated, distributed, and promoted and the audience.

The key here is the short term. This is why you cannot put a deterministic valueagainst virality as threshold. Anything that goes way above normal can beconsidered viral. Id highly suggest to see how this viral spikes still end upincreasing the normal as well and end up in an ever-growing spiral. Check TheLinkbait Bump article for that.

Anything that goes way above normal can be considered viral.(Click to Tweet)

The first thing we need to clear up is that going viral is not magic. While theresstill a great deal of luck in this (there are way too many variables in the equation),if you follow our framework and apply consistent trial and error, youll definitely be

able to dramatically grow your audiences size and engagement.

Kill the buzzword: viralcontent
http://ctt.ec/1_5cX


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To understand what really happens when something goes viral, think of it like anepidemic. Usually, when you publish your content, theres a limited percentage of

your audience you can directly reach. This is the organic reachof your Facebookpage, the click-through of your sponsored content campaigns, your emailsubscribers, app users, and visitors of your site who come from organic and searchsources.

And then a proportion of all of these people will start clicking on sharing buttonsand copy/pasting the URL of your content to their friends on messaging apps,texts, emails.

When the latter kind of behaviour locks into a loop and keeps happening, a spikehappens in your traffic. This is when your audience keeps passing your contentalong from one sharer to another, like when a carrier infects someone with thevirus, and the new infected also becomes a carrier.

In your case, the pathogen is your content and every time you publish a new one,you test how catchy it is.

Before we move on, lets differentiate your websites traffic into three majorgroups. Well use this segmentation later.

Seed views

When you, as a marketer/editor/social media manager, share a link to your sitesomewhere (it can be your social media account, page, email newsletter,sponsored Facebook ad, etc.) and someone clicks on that link, thatd be a seedview.

It was shared by you but the only thing you did was plant the seeds. Youll look atclicks, engagement, conversion, etc., from this one. Depending on your industry, amajor part of your audience might come from seed views. But now, were lookingfor something else.

Viral views

Every time you publish a post, youre testing how catchy it is. Once you haveplanted the seeds and visitors start pouring in, if the content is indeed contagious,viral views will spike. Thats when your seed visitors start driving others by sharing

your links. Thats what youre aiming for.

Other viewsTheres also a third group, which we obviously have to mention but does notdirectly affect what we want to achieve. Every other visit you have, coming fromnon-social sources like search or organic, will also play a role in getting viral trafficdone, but you dont have a direct impact on that. What were looking for is tooptimise your resources around making those spikes repeatable, so consider thisone as a plus.



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Why does that happen only occasionally?Elements of Viral Content

[ARTICLES]

How to Make Your Content Go Viral (by Jonah Berger)

7 Key Elements for Viral Content (by Susie Brown)

Creating Viral Content? The Secret Is Get Contagious... (by Derek Halpern)

Why Content Goes Viral: What Analyzing 100 Million Articles Taught Us (by NoahKagan)

The Secret to Online Success: What Makes Content Go Viral (by Liz Rees-Jones,Katherine L. Milkman and Jonah Berger )

Why Content Goes Viral: the Theory and Proof (by Carson Ward)

Viral Marketing Cheat Sheet: 7 Tips To Give Your Marketing Strategy A Boost (byMegan O'Neill)

Lessons from Blog Posts that Went Viral (by Jessica Davis)

Viral Marketing Case Study: How a Brand New Blog Generated 17,584 Visitors InOne Day(by Brian Dean)

A Data-Driven Guide to Creating Viral Content [New Infographic] (by Brian Dean)

How to Create Viral Content That Generates 2,500 Visitors Per Day(by Neil Patel)

How to Make Viral Content: 9 Tips from the Greatest Viral Content Genius on thePlanet (by Dan Lyons)

Viral Link Building: How To Create A Link Explosion (With A Can Of Coke)(by DavidMcsweeney)

https://blog.ahrefs.com/viral-link-building-with-coke/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://blog.hubspot.com/opinion/9-viral-content-tips-zimmerman/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://neilpatel.com/2015/06/23/how-to-create-viral-content-that-will-drive-2500-visitors-per-day/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://backlinko.com/viral-content/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://backlinko.com/viral-marketing/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/08/05/lessons-from-blog-posts-that-went-viral/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/viral-marketing-cheat-sheet/83813/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://moz.com/blog/why-content-goes-viral-the-scientific-theory-and-proof/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-secret-to-online-success-what-makes-content-go-viral/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/noah-kagan/why-content-goes-viral-wh_b_5492767.html/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://socialtriggers.com/craft-contagious-content/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/06/28/7-key-elements-for-viral-content/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://jonahberger.com/how-to-make-your-content-go-viral/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuide


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[BOOKS]

Contagious: Why Things Catch On (by Jonah Berger)

Made to Stick: Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck (by Chip Heathand Dan Heath)

What happens when you see a spike in traffic?Metrics & Benefits

[ARTICLES]

10+ Content Performance Metrics You Have to Measure (by Tamas Torok)

Stop neglecting your viral metrics (by Jay Kulkarni)

Metrics for Viral Content and the ROI of Social Media [Slideshare] (by Alex Nelson)

Content Marketing: How To Measure Content Performance Holistically (byBenjamin Spiegel)

The Content Marketing Expert Guide to Analytics & Metrics (by Larry Kim)

How to Measure the Success of Content Marketing (by Jodi Harris)

Content Marketing Metrics: How to Drive Action Instead of Reaction (by Rob Yoegel)

A Checklist for Measuring Your Content Marketing Success (by Roger C. Parker)

The 4 Types of Content Metrics That Matter (by Jay Baer)

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/content-marketing/the-4-types-of-content-metrics-that-matter/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2012/06/checklist-for-measuring-marketing-success/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2012/06/content-marketing-metrics-that-drive-action/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2012/06/measure-success-content-marketing/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2015/01/07/content-marketing-analytics/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://marketingland.com/content-marketing-measure-content-performance-holistically-73169/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.slideshare.net/alextnelson/alexnelson/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.imediaconnection.com/content/20411.asp?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://blog.brandvee.com/10-content-performance-metrics-to-measure/?utm_source=ViralGuide&utm_medium=LinkClick&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.amazon.co.uk/Made-Stick-ideas-others-unstuck-x/dp/009950569X/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.amazon.com/Contagious-Why-Things-Catch-On/dp/1451686579/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuide


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The Linkbait Bump: How Viral Content Creates Long-Term Lift in Organic Traffic(by Rand Fishkin)

[TOOLS]

Maya by Brandvee - Chrome bot to help decide which stories to post to socialmedia

The Top 5 Free Content Analytics Tools (by Amanda Walgrove)

What are the long-term benefits of viral content?

More followers on your website More people sharing your content More email or RSS subscribers More search traffic Better search engine ranking

http://contently.com/strategist/2015/01/08/the-top-5-free-content-analytics-tools/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.brandvee.com/maya?utm_source=ViralGuide&utm_medium=Toollist&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://moz.com/blog/linkbait-bump-viral-content-lifts-organic-traffic-whiteboard-friday/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuide


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Everything starts with your audience. You might be already familiar with quite afew things here. Well dive into two parts really:

The first one will be your buyer personas or your audience segments(depending on your business model).

The second part is about trend research.

Lets talk about these personas or segments. There are some tools and resourcesout there (also listed here) that help you come up with a great approach tosegment your audience. Usually what is missing is one simple fact:

Quite a few of them also know each other outside the world of your brand.

This means that theyre influencing each other, which will have a great effect ontheir content preferences and consumption. You might want to dig into this tofind your real influencers who drive traffic through regularly sharing links withonly a handful of people (probably via copy/pasting).

Think of Pareto. Is it really possible that 20% of your audience is responsible for80% of your traffic? If you had the chance to send a message to that 20%, how

would that message look?

Lets go on with this idea. Lets say we know that if this 20% picks something up,the rest of your audience will become active due to their influence and sharing, or

you could say it is due to their advocacy. Well cover this later, but for now, letsfocus on understanding what this 20% wants.

You need to get two things right:value and timing.

For value, you can use tons of tools, and there are other great guides for research

materials, such as keyword research or creating outstanding content based onSEO data. Its all about finding what keeps your audience engaged but impliesthat theres room for improvement.

Once you have a few ideas, you can prioritise them by timing (if its hot, its good; ifthe topic is not trending, see why). After that, youll need to create a 10x bettercontent. Sounds hard, but if you do your research right, at this point youll alreadyhave tons of ideas on how to bridge the gap between whats needed and whatsout there now.

Hop on trends and bridge gaps


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I suggest you follow these steps:

1. Identify the most influential 20% of your audience, and treat them as themost important segment of your audience.

2. Build a list of topics and sites theyre most interested in. This is your basis forresearch.

3. Look for gapsout there in content quality. Use our list of resources below toget this right. At this point, you should have quite a few ideas on what to writeabout that would be a 10x better content.

4. Listen to chatters, noise, and signalson public social channels; once a topic istrending, thats your opportunity to create and publish your top content.

Look for gaps and create 10x better content for your audience. (Click to Tweet)

Nothing different. Nothing new. Except for the fact that youre focusing only on ahandful of visitors and leave sharing and driving engagement to them. Once you

have it right, you should have a more focused, clear approach to driveengagement.

Of course, you might want to run a content campaign for a client, doing nativeadvertising. Or you are in charge of a larger department of a certain topic. Yournewsroom probably already has the best practices on what to write about.However, having these monitoring solutions set up for you to constantly alert whatmakes your audience tickgives you incredible leverage.

Take a look at the second half of this chapter to see how others are doing it.

http://ctt.ec/B2hdb


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What makes your audience tick?Talk to Your Audience

[ARTICLES]

How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business [Free PersonaTemplate] (by Pamela Vaughan)

The Formula Of Creating Accurate Buyer Personas [Infographic] (by Irfan Ahmad)

The Science of Building Buyer Personas [Infographic] (by Eric Siu)

But How do you do that? Ask the right questions

How To Talk To Customers When Everyone Is Lying To You (by Rob Fitzpatrick)

The Mom Test [Slideshare] (by Rob Fitzpatrick)

Have you validated your personas?

Probably most of your assumptions about your buyer personas are wrong. Inorder to escape from the deadly field of assumptions the next necessary step is

to get out of the building: find these people and talk to them.

http://www.slideshare.net/xamde/summary-of-the-mom-test/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqHR7CUPVbA&utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239566/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2014/08/how-to-create-buyer-personas-infographic.html?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33491/Everything-Marketers-Need-to-Research-Create-Detailed-Buyer-Personas-Template.aspx?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuide


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Find problems and questionsKeyword Research & Questions

[ARTICLES]

Back to Fundamentals: 6 Untapped Keyword Sources that Will Boost OrganicTraffic (by Neil Patel)

3 Super-Actionable Keyword Research Tips to Try Right Now (by Elisa Gabbert)

How to do Keyword Research the Smart Way: Targeting Interest and Intent (byBeth Morgan)

How to do Keyword Research: Tips, Tools and Techniques (by Sam Applegate)

Read forums and Q&A sites:

13 Best Sites to Get Your Questions Answered! (by Srikanth Ad)

[TOOLS]

10 Best Free Keyword Research Tools (by Fenja Villeumier)

What are the benefits of keyword research?

you will know what words and phrases your customers use when they search

you can find long tail keywords, where the competition for the keyword islow and targeting is more specific.

you can identify more specific, unanswered questions related to your field

you can generate fresh content ideas

your content can be more optimised for search engines and can achievehigher ranking for that specific keyword.

http://blog.linkbird.com/en/content-marketing/10-best-free-keyword-research-tools-content-marketing/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://thenextweb.com/2009/08/25/sites-people-opinions-questions-answered/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.samapplegate.co.uk/keyword-research/how-to-do-keyword-research-tips-tools-and-techniques/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://blog.kissmetrics.com/keyword-research-smart-way/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/08/06/keyword-research-tips/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://moz.com/blog/untapped-keyword-sources?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuide


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Hit the iron while its still hotHop on Trends

Identify content that gets shared: add your own thoughts and make them better.You will have an idea what kind of content people like. This is called SkyscraperTechnique.

How to Create Viral Content Using the SkyScraper Technique (by ChristopherGimmer)

The Skyscraper Technique May Actually Improve Your Content Marketing (byGarrett Moon)

[TOOLS]

Tools to find popular content:

18 Easy Ways To Find High-quality and Popular Content (by Tamas Torok)

Listen what people are talking about:

Top 10 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools (by Ruxandra Mindruta)

5 Social Media Listening Tools That Every Business Should Be Using (by Simon Tam)

Top 8 Social Listening Tools That Do Way More Than Listen (by Brad Neathery)

http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/top-8-social-listening-tools-do-way-more-listen/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-young/5-social-media-listening-_b_5317531.html?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://www.brandwatch.com/2013/08/top-10-free-social-media-monitoring-tools/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://blog.brandvee.com/18-easy-ways-to-find-high-quality-content-to-share/?utm_source=ViralGuide&utm_medium=LinkClick&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://coschedule.com/blog/improve-content-marketing/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.bloggingpro.com/archives/2014/11/18/how-to-create-viral-content/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuide


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Experience says that regardless of your industry, post cats on social media and

everyone will go crazy. Theres actually science behind that, saying that more than27% of global internet traffic is related to cats. Photos, videos, whatever. Insane!

But you cant post cats, can you? (Unless youre in the pet business. Then youshould definitely do that.) So what should you do? If you followed the steps weproposed earlier, you should have a data driven list of potential content that couldfit into your field, whether youre running a blog or youre an editor at a news site.

This section will be short. You already have lots of input on content formats basedon your research and your resources, so just browse the list below to find answersfor your questions you have in mind.

Life beyond listicles (quick overview)Leave the cats behind

What Makes a Content High-quality? Advice from experts (by Tamas Torok)

The Nine Ingredients That Make Great Content (by Zach Bulygo)

What You Should keep In Mind: Writing checklist (by Jeff Bullas)

The Secrets of Writing Smart, Long-form Articles That Go Absolutely Viral (byMichael Grothaus)

Headlines

52 Headline Hacks (by Jon Morrow)

[TOOLS]

Headline Analyser: Is Your headline Good Enough? (by CoSchedule)

Life beyond listicles
http://coschedule.com/headline-analyzer?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://boostblogtraffic.com/headline-hacks/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.fastcompany.com/3042312/most-creative-people/the-secrets-of-writing-smart-longform-articles-that-go-absolutely-viral/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.bloggersidekick.com/write-like-a-boss-jeff-bullas/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://blog.kissmetrics.com/ingredients-of-great-content/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://blog.brandvee.com/what-makes-a-content-high-quality-advice-from-experts/?utm_source=ViralGuide&utm_medium=LinkClick&utm_campaign=ViralGuide


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BodyHow To Write Blog Posts Your Readers Actually Want To Read (by Julie Neidlinger)

33 Tips for Writing Engaging Content [Slideshare] (by E-Web Marketing)

9 Steps To Creating Engaging Content [Infographic] (by Mari Smith)

[TOOLS]

15 Essential Content Creation Apps You Need Right Now (by Melinda Osteen)

Design & Visuals

A Complete Guide to Visual Content: The Science, Tools and Strategy of Creating

Killer Images (by Kevan Lee)

Using Visual Content to Increase Blog Engagement (by Pro Blogger)

[TOOLS]

Seven Tools for Creating Infographics Without Using Photoshop (by Tamas Torok)

Life beyond listicles
http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2015/28126/seven-tools-for-creating-infographics-without-using-photoshop?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuide#ixzz3hMpdCXjlhttp://www.problogger.net/archives/2014/10/01/using-visual-content-to-increase-blog-engagement/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://blog.bufferapp.com/a-complete-guide-to-creating-awesome-visual-content?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.jeffbullas.com/2015/07/28/15-essential-content-creation-apps/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.marismith.com/nine-steps-creating-engaging-content-inforgraphic/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.slideshare.net/ewebmarketing/33-tips-for-writing-engaging-content?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://todaymade.com/blog/better-blogging/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuide


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This is where the fun starts. You are an expert in content and social media. Now

we just have to make sure to put your efforts into a framework that couldmaximise the outcome. What is the best way to distribute and promote yourcontent to be smart about your budget?

Gini Dietrich, a well-known PR professional, put together this amazing model forpublic relations and communications people, which is called the PESO model.See a basic summary on that below.

Lets spin it a bit. You are running your own media platform, so well start with thatone. Everything you publish there will count as owned media.

Then you have your brands social accounts. Facebook, Twitter, etc. This is yourshared media.

Then you have your fellow journalists, bloggers, guest bloggers, etc. This is yourearned media, your peer group of loyal and influential followers. If youre doingsomething right, theyll amplify it and skyrocket visit counts.

And after all, theres paid media. Quite obvious. In this case, thats when you payfor traffic.

Now heres the framework.

Image: Gini Dietrich, Spin Sucks

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Publishyour content on your site.

Feed it into your content recommendation engine (if you have one)

If its a native ad, feed it into your on-site promotional units. (Like arecommendation engine but solely for sponsored content.)

You should start getting some organic traffic, mostly from internalsources.

Spread like a virus


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Post your content to your social channels. This might require you to

reformat your content to fit (think of Instagram or SlideShare).

It helps if you incentivise your colleagues to post as well.

Now this is crucial: Wait. The way your smallest, most loyal audiencereacts to your content will imply the potential outcome. Check if theyreclicking on the content. If they are, how are they engaging with it? Arethey bouncing, commenting, converting, and sharing? You need toexamine this in depth through trial and error to find your silver lining.

How long should you wait? This would depend on your industry andyour audience. Smaller sites might want to wait a few hours, even days;bigger sites should have a cap of one hour.

If youre going all in, you could kill every content that doesnt pick upafter your predefined time frame. This strategy works if you plan torelease LOTS of content and also removes the opportunity for yourcontent to drive engagement in the future.

Spread like a virus


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Once it starts attracting meaningful engagement, reach out to your

network of influencersto take on the content. Well cover a few things

about influencers in the next chapter.

This will only work if your content is doing well, as influencers will look forproof that the content theyre about to endorse isvaluableand fits withtheir audience.

Spread like a virus


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At the same time, you should start sponsoring your content. Thehypothesis is the following:

While youve been waiting, lets say one hour, you got the idea of thereaction of your audience. If theyre sharing your content, you can do themath: If every visitor gets you 0.2 new visitors on average and you pay $1per visit, by spending $100, you got 20 visitors for free. Not bad.

Spread like a virus


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This is the data part. Youll need to set up monitoring of your contentto

see when another spike is expected. If you track how fast your content isbeing passed along from one sharer to another, youll know the velocityof your content. Do not mistake this metric with other velocity numbersthat define the difference between the number of visitors now and anhour before. Thats not predictive.

Once you have the velocity metric, youll have a very simple input foryour promotion decisions: If this metric goes up, you can expect morepeople coming in the future. This is when you should start promotion.When it goes down, stop promotion and focus on other content thathas higher velocity. Even if its getting good clicks. Itll go down soon, soleave Titanic now.

You might also want to know where to promote. Id suggest using atleast two platforms: The #1 source of your seed viewsand the #1 sourceof your viral views. For example, if your Facebook shared links aredriving visitors who are then sharing your content on Reddit, you mightwant to advertise there as well.

Thats how we do it. Thats how the major viral news sites do it. Try it and drop usa message about your thoughts.

Spread like a virus


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Activate advocacyPsychology & distribution

Psychology of sharing

The Psychology of Sharing [Infographic] (by Tamas Torok)

The Secret Psychology of Facebook: Why We Like, Share, Comment and Keep

Coming Back (by Courtney Seiter)

Why people share content online [Infographic] (by Kristin Piombino)

Why people like and share content online: insight from the CMA (by Popsop)

Why Do People Share Online? The Science Behind Social Sharing (by Priyanka)

Consumer Psychology Guide (by Neil Patel and Ritika Puri)

5 Reasons People Share Content Online (by Laura Roeder)

Content distribution

Distribution is as important as content creation

10 Content Promotion Tactics From The Pros [Interviews] (by Tamas Torok)

Why content marketers should spend 50% of their resources on distribution (byJames Carson)

8 Nonobvious Tips to Promote Your Content (by Arnie Kuenn)

How To Promote Your Content To Get More Traffic (by Chris Lee)

Spread like a virus
http://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/tutorials/simple-content-promotion/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/06/tips-promote-content/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://econsultancy.com/blog/66453-why-content-marketers-should-spend-50-of-their-resources-on-distribution/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://blog.brandvee.com/10-content-promotion-tactics-from-the-pros?utm_source=ViralGuide&utm_medium=LinkClick&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://lkrsocialmedia.com/2014/11/5-reasons-people-share-content-online/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.quicksprout.com/the-complete-guide-to-understand-customer-psychology/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://socialmediawithpb.com/why-do-people-share-online-science-behind-social-sharing/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://popsop.com/2015/06/why-people-like-and-share-content-online-insight-from-the-cma/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/41806cc4-3c44-4ffd-9603-5903d23b2283.aspx?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://blog.bufferapp.com/psychology-of-facebook?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://blog.brandvee.com/the-psychology-of-sharing/?utm_source=ViralGuide&utm_medium=LinkClick&utm_campaign=ViralGuide


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If You Publish Content and Don't Promote It, Will Anyone See It? [Infographic] (byRene Warren)

12 Places To Promote Your Content After You Hit Publish (by Dave Schneider)

How Content Promotion Works for Blogs Big and Small: Our 11 Favorite ContentDistribution Strategies. (by Kevan Lee)

The Ultimate List of Traffic & Content Promotion Tips from the Experts (by WadeMcMaster)

Which Channels Are Best for Content Promotion? [Infographic] (by Brittany Leaning)

How to Overcome the Content Distribution Hurdle: Lessons from Someone WhoHad No Idea What They Were Doing (by Shannon Byrne)

Comprehensive Guide to Content Promotion [eBook] (by Hubspot)

Get Heard, Get Seen, and Get Traffic with Standout Content Promotion [eBook](by BuzzStream)

What Are The Best Times to Post on Social Media (by Neil Patel)

17 Advanced Methods for Promoting Your New Piece of Content (by Aaron Agius)

How To Build Blog Audience (by Neil Patel and Aaron Agius)

What You Should be Doing to Grow Your Blogs Social Presence (by MatthewBarby)

Spread like a virus
http://www.matthewbarby.com/grow-blogs-social-presence/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.quicksprout.com/the-complete-guide-to-building-your-blog-audience/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://blog.kissmetrics.com/17-advanced-methods/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.quicksprout.com/2015/01/02/what-are-the-best-times-to-post-on-social-media/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://resources.buzzstream.com/advanced-guide-to-content-promotion/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://offers.hubspot.com/guide-to-content-promotion?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://blog.kissmetrics.com/overcome-content-distribution/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-promotion-earned-owned-paid?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.designwebidentity.com/traffic-promotion-tips/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://blog.bufferapp.com/content-promotion?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.twelveskip.com/marketing/content-marketing/1384/places-promote-your-content/http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235909?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuide


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Step 3 was Amplification, which means getting influencers to work with youso

you can reach their audiences through them. There are a handful of tools andresources on how to pick them and work with them, and there are even a few

hacks, so browse freely.

Influencers & Tools

[ARTICLES]

How to Get Influencers to Promote Your Content for Free (by Brian Dean)

How To Trick Influencers To Promote Your Website (by Matthew Woodward)

How to Promote Every Piece of Content You Create (by John Jantsch)

How To Get Your Content Shared By Key Market Influencers (And 8 Tools To HelpYou) (by Adam Connell)

How to Get Content into the Hands of Influencers Who Can Help Amplify It[Video](by Rand Fishkin)

How to Build Relationships with Popular Bloggers (Even If It Scares You Silly)(byKatharine Di Cerbo)

[TOOLS]

11 Awesome Tools for Hassle-Free Influencer Outreach (by Brittany Berger)

9 Powerful Blogger Outreach Tools (by Smart Insights)

The Landscape: SMEs List Of Influencer Identification Tools (by Jason Falls)

The Best Free (or Cheap) Tools for Blogger and Influencer Outreach (by Adam Shrek)

Empower social outreach
http://www.adamsherk.com/public-relations/best-tools-for-blogger-and-influencer-outreach/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/online-public-relations/influencer-identification-tools/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.smartinsights.com/online-pr/influencer-marketing/blogger-outreach-tools/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://blog.mention.com/influencer-outreach-tools/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://boostblogtraffic.stfi.re/outreach-steps/?sf=waapbl/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttps://moz.com/blog/content-influencers-who-can-help-amplify-it-whiteboard-friday/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/get-content-shared-by-key-market-influencers/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2015/01/06/promote-content/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/tutorials/key-influencers-promote-your-content/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuidehttp://boostblogtraffic.com/blogger-outreach/?utm_source=Go-Viral-With&utm_medium=Brandvee&utm_campaign=ViralGuide


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Are you ready to go

viral?As you can see a lot of this is about data

which can be intimidating sometimes.

Instead of providing another dashboard with

fancy charts, we built a tool called Maya.

Maya is your smart assistant that helps you

navigate through this journey so you can

focus on what youre really good at. Why

would you look at charts when all you need is

answers? See it for yourself. (Yes, its an actual

chatbot.)

Are you ready to #KillTheDashboard?
http://www.brandvee.com/maya?utm_source=ViralGuide&utm_medium=SignupCTA&utm_campaign=ViralGuide


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how to go viral - guide

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