How To Create a Viral Article: 6 Subtle Steps To Big Success

A blog post is a diary, discussion, and mass engagement all rolled into one. This is used by both John Doe and General Electric and with equal success. And if you take and pass through a fine sieve 4,618 blogs, including all posts from the moment of their foundation to April 3, 2014, in the amount of 1,167,426, and then analyze the viral component of each of the posts, represented by multi-format pieces of social sharing (tweets, likes, pins, etc.) in the amount of 1 915 428 305 units, then, you see, you can answer the question “How is a virus created?”

Step one: Day.

Millions of posts are posted to blogs around the world every day, but is there a perfect day to post? It seems that yes. Judge for yourself, here are the bare numbers:

Days of the week in order of posting frequency:

1. Tuesday and Wednesday: 18% each of all posts published during the week

2. Thursday: 17.9%

3. Monday: 17.2%

4. Friday: 15.9%

5. Sunday: 6.8%

6. Saturday: 6.3%

Days of the week in order of frequency of sharing:

1. Saturday: 18% of the weekly volume of social sharing

2. Sunday: 14.6%

3. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday: 14.1% each

4. Friday: 12.7%

5. Monday: 12.5%

As you can see, publishers and content consumers have different perceptions about the best time to offer/take over blog posts. While the former try to focus in the middle of the workweek, the latter prefer to do it on the weekends. Only 13% of weekly blog posts are “at the right time, in the right place,” while 87% are published when there is little or no demand for them.

The ideal point at which the competition curve at its minimum and the consumer activity curve at its peak miraculously converge is on Sunday. If you’ve run off your feet in search of an ill-fated ROI, Sunday is the easiest place to find it. And there is only one problem that prevents the vast majority of marketers from getting it: “Damn it, it’s Sunday!”

Step two: Time.

Have you ever had the feeling that those who write the posts and those who read them are in fact the same people? Even so, you probably thought it was just a game of your imagination. Prepare to be surprised — this is the very real reality. Just take the next two diagrams, flip one of them, and try to align them — they will contact like gears from a Swiss movement, sleeve to sleeve, groove to groove.

In principle, we have here a repetition of the problems discussed above insoluble weekdays, people prefer to build positions in the workplace, and to consume them — in any more, will fit even the early morning and midnight. Even the only exception to the general rule occurs in the first hour after midnight when the number of publications suddenly increases and the level of social sharing collapses as if in a mirror reflected in the curves presented here.

Agree, it would be foolish to complain about your readers and demand that they change the schedule of familiarization with our posts exactly the opposite. Most likely, content producers who are not averse to having the maximum audience and maximum ROI while the vast majority of competitors are sleeping (eating or doing other nonsense) should change their habits and try to follow users — this simple strategy has never let anyone down. and never.

Step three: Letters.

Is there a correlation between the popularity of a post and the lettering in the title? Direct and direct! Moreover, even if we take into account the Letters, and not the semantic content of the top line of the text, written in bold and designed to instantly transmit to the reader’s brain a summary of the entire post.

Given the fact that, according to the classics of copywriting, many more people bother reading the headline than delving into the main text, the popularity of a post should be considered only in close connection with its title. Simply put, a colossal share of the sharing of any post can be safely attributed to a well-written title. And here is convincing proof of this:

Blog post authors tend to be tempted to give their content headings of about 40 characters. At the same time, the readers of the posts have their own point of view on the ideal length of the title. In their opinion, it should be no less (and no more!) 60 characters. In this regard, playing with readers turns into walking on a blade. A step forward or backward means a catastrophic drop in the viral potential of fasting. But for those who are able to stay on the razor-sharp edge, overwhelming success will be a well-deserved reward.

Step four: Signs.

A separate topic is strong emotions in headlines. And if many of us know the correct answer to the question “Is it worth putting a question mark in the heading?”, Then only a few will be able to correctly answer a similar question regarding the exclamation mark. The fact is that only a few know that the question of the expediency of “exclamation” should be formulated not from the point of view of “Is it worth it or not?”, But from the point of view of “How much is it worth?”

It is easy to see that in this case too, the viral potential of most posts is far from being used to its fullest. While 94.89% of posts do not have a question in the headline, the cruel reality requires you to put at least one, because in this case, the level of social sharing of the material will almost double. A measly 5.01% of posts following this simple rule get access to 46.3% of shares. What is it ?!

The situation with exclamations is more complicated. The absolute majority (97.24%) prefer not to deal with them at all. And this would be the only reasonable approach, if not for one “but”, which is formulated as “four exclamation marks in a row.” Those who, by naivety, or inspiration from above, manage to put exactly 4, and not 2, 3, or 5, receive, on average, more than 2 times more shares than cowards who are used to being content with less. In general, such emotional extremals get 33.72% of the total number of social sharing content available in the content marketing market. Cheek brings success!

Step five: Capslock.

Believe it or not, in the sequence of inconsistencies we have illustrated between the desires and capabilities of content creators and their readers, there was a place for a happy intersection of their interests. And it refers to the case of the letters used. Both of them believe that 20 percent of enclosed characters is quite enough to give the title of any post the necessary expressiveness, significance, and simply attractiveness (from the point of view of pure art).

However, those who do not attach any importance to the topic of “big” letters (and there are no less than 12.14% of them) do not lose so much in comparison with the adherents of the standard — they account for only a third less social sharing. The situation is very bad only for those who do not turn off caps lock at all or turn it off, but only sometimes — such perverts are ostracized by readers, which in our case means expulsion from the “social chart” and, probably, from news feeds.

Step six: Strategy.

It lies in the fact that it does not exist. That is, it can be anything. Standards-lovers and content-extremists who love walking the thin red line are almost equally likely to be successful.

And here, perhaps, the point is whether you are able to overcome feelings of fear and herd instinct to set your own, unique, standard, for example — 80 posts a day. And the fact that there are few such unique people only says that few dare to do such an act.