creating viral content : the viral guide

28
THE VIRAL GUIDE | TRINFINITY | HTTP://WWW.TRINFINITY.CO 1 Jasper Trinfinity | http://www.trinfinity.co 2016

Upload: trinfinity

Post on 13-Apr-2017

214 views

Category:

Marketing


5 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 1 Jasper Trinfinity | http://www.trinfinity.co

2016

Page 2: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 2

Page 3: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

Viral marketing is the only marketing virus that doesn’t have a vaccine. Viral content can be a game changer in getting traffic , leads and conversions regardless of what industry you're in. You want your product and content to be seen by as many people as possible.

But the viral marketing is unpredictable. Crafting a successful viral marketing campaign is more difficult than it looks. It requires careful planning and research. To go viral , you need to get a number of things right. The content , the wording , the timing and the channels. Elements of human behaviour and psychology are predictable and can be leveraged. Covering enough of these bases gives your work the best chance to go viral.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 3

Page 4: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO

CREATING VIRAL CONTENT

A successful viral campaign largely involves invoking strong emotional reactions to your content.

A number of experts have been quick to point out that it is impossible to “create” viral content and that virality is not a product in itself but an effect. A viral reaction to an image/blog post or a video can occur, but the content cannot be viral through its very nature.

But Is That really True? Is It Possible To “Create” Viral Content?

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 4

Page 5: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

IN THIS GUIDE :

• What is virality and why do people share content?

• Understanding, and then charming, your customers with your content.

• Some case studies of past viral content.

• A suggested process for making content that will be shared.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 5

Page 6: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

VIRALITY

Viral marketing is a marketing strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product. It refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people in their social networks, much in the same way that a virus spreads from one person to another.

The basis of viral marketing is in the spread of information by word-of-mouth (see Word-of-Mouth marketing), but modern technology has allowed the viral effect to include many Internet-based platforms as well.

The main objective of viral marketing in a marketing context is to have higher levels of engagement with consumers.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 6

Page 7: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

Predicting viral content can be quite frustrating as it is very unpredictable and what people may be inclined to share changes now and then– there are many pieces of great content that have gone viral and plenty that have gone nowhere, so what are the differences? And what commonalities (if any) do the pieces of content that have gone viral share?

The emotional sentiment hidden in the content that are shared the most to see are what largely what makes content go viral. Positive content performs better than negative content but this largely depends on the context.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 7

Page 8: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

The key to social sharing is to hook the viewer/reader – the more you hook them (positively or negatively), the more active they are in sharing content; even content that is unrelated to the cause of their mood.

“Positive content that inspires surprise, amusement and awe is shared more. Negative content that inspires anger and anxiety is shared more.”

Content that inspires low emotional arousal (sadness) is less viral.

People share content for different reasons. Example, in the hope that it will raise their social standing, generate reciprocity (i.e. to get something tangible or not in return) , to simply to help others and to entertain others.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 8

Page 9: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

Hence, it’s no surprise that surprising and interesting content is highly viral. Similarly, consistent with the notion that people share to inform others, or boost their mood, practically useful and positive content is more viral.

As much as we have said there is no sure way of reverse engineering viral content, lets cover some bases that will set you up for success in your viral marketing efforts.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 9

Page 10: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 10

Page 11: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

1. HEADLINES

Write headlines that leave no ambiguity Some headline types resonate more over others. For your content to go viral, you need to have resonating headline. 80% of readers never make it past the headline: According to some sources, on average, eight out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only two out of 10 will read the rest.

As we started out saying, there has never been more content vying for reader attention — more channels, more content, more publishers all competing for our time and mind share. This means the modern internet user is forced to be more discerning about the headlines they click on, and is hyper-cognizant of where they are investing their time.

Traffic can vary by as much as 500% based on the headline: According to Research by a Viral Media Site Upworthy , tests show that traffic to content at Upworthy can vary by as much as 500% simply because of the headline. "The headline is our one chance to reach people who have a million other things that they're thinking about, and who didn't wake up in the morning wanting to care about feminism or climate change, or the policy details of the election," says co-founder Peter Koechley.

The more explicit the headline is the higher chances that the reader is going to read the article.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 11

Page 12: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

Put another way, humans don't like uncertainty. A headline like "30 Ways viral marketing is worse than dating Taylor swift" removes any ambiguity about what the article is going to do for me. It tells me exactly what I will and will not get from it: This may be a reason why BuzzFeed has found such success with readers using these headline types.

Headlines with numbers are two times more likely to generate clicks vs. “how to” headlines, according to research by Conductor. And a study of 150,000 headlines revealed that odd-numbered headlines have a 20% better CTR than headlines with even numbers.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 12

Page 13: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

2. USE [BRACKETS]

Bracketed clarifications, which are clarifications of the type of content represented by the headline - e.g. [Infographic], increase CTR when included in headlines. In an analysis of over 3 million headlines, Outbrain found using [brackets] in a headline bumped up CTR by 38%.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 13

Page 14: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

3. SHORT DESCRIPTIVE URLS ARE

2.5X MORE LIKELY TO ATTRACT A CLICK.

No, not all of the web's links are that messy. However, many links are long and wordy for SEO reasons. One of the factors Google and other search engines consider in ranking are keywords in the URL. This creates a conundrum for the user - the URLs help describe the content, but are lengthy and are not easy to share on emails, web pages, and especially social media services like Facebook and Twitter. Shorter URLs are becoming more and more integral to getting traffic and sharing content.

Permalinks to your content will also perform better if they are descriptive for example for viralmarketing.com/cool-cats over viralmarketing.com/blog/post?id=5421!6g.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 14

Page 15: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

4. INTRO=SHORT SENTENCES:

People only read 28% of a blog post, so you need to hook them fast. Master The Art Of Blog Post Introductions And Keep Your Readers Reading. While introductions are the first impression for the reader, they ought to be the last impression for the writer.

Examples ;

“I once wrote a blog post that killed a man.”

“The 20,000 customer registered in our system, and the team let out a victorious yell. We’d hit our goal, thanks to the red button.”

What are we going to do about your low-performing blog?”

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 15

Page 16: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

5. COLORFUL HIGH QUALITY IMAGE

ABOVE THE FOLD:

Skyword research found that content with at least one image generated 94% more views on social media.

Any image --boosts content credibility by 75%. Setting a featured image ensures your social shares include an image. Social shares with images get 150% more retweets on Twitter and 53% more Likes on Facebook.

Image quality also makes a huge difference. An internal Marketing Sherpa study found that pro images received 121% more Facebook shares than“ semi-professional" photos.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 16

Page 17: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

6. TL:DR IS FOR NEY YORK TIMES BEST

SELLERS

Professor Dr. Jonah Berger found that longer content was 76.8% more likely to be heavily shared. Aim for at least 1,500 words per post. People feel content is so valuable that they are willing to link to in-depth content more than they are willing to link to content that is short. Simply put, The social web prefers content rich pages

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 17

Page 18: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

7. PUT SHARE BUTTONS ABOVE THE

FOLD:

A Google study found that elements above the fold are seen by 58% more people than those pushed further down the page

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 18

Page 19: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

8. INCLUDE AN INFOGRAPHIC:

Info graphics generate 2.3x more social shares than how-to posts, according to data from Buzzsumo.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 19

Page 20: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

9. PUBLISH TIMING

Timing is of optimum importance. Find the optimum time to publish based on the time when there is a lot of activity online – and your target audience is online.

27% of all social shares occur between 8am and 12pm EST, Shareaholicdiscovered.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 20

Page 21: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

10. USE "SCANNABLE" TEXT:

Like short paragraphs, subheadings and bulleted lists. Dr. JakobNielson discovered that "scannable" online content boosted readability by 47%.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 21

Page 22: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

11. GET EMOTIONAL:

A study published in the Journal of Marketing Research found content that elicits the emotions "awe", "surprise" or "anger" was 28.3% more likely to go viral

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 22

Page 23: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

12. MENTION INFLUENCERS:

Link to influential people in your post (and let them know about it). A Columbia University study found that for your content to go viral, influencer shares were "critical".

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 23

Page 24: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

13. BE INSANELY PRACTICAL:

Highly-practical articles are 34% more likely to go viral.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 24

Page 25: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

14. SEO TAG COPY=ADWORDS ADS:

Adwordsads are designed to maximize clicks. Base your SEO title and description tags on Adwordsads to maximize traffic from search engines.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 25

Page 26: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

15. ASK PEOPLE TO SHARE:

Include a CTA at the end of your post...and make it personalized. Hubspotfound that targeted CTAs ("Share these weight loss tips") outperformed generic CTAs ("share this post") by 42%

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 26

Page 27: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

That’s it for our viral guide. To one degree or another, all successful

viral marketing strategies use most of the principles outlined above.

Learn these foundational principles of viral marketing. Master them

and some good karma will definitely come your way.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 27

Page 28: Creating Viral Content : The Viral Guide

Contact Us

phone numbers

: 254-715-849520

: 0708-420-724

: 0708-508-231

Contact Us – Our Emails

General Inquiries: [email protected]

Sales: [email protected]

Career Opportunities:[email protected]

Support: [email protected]

Trinfinity Limited

Nairobi – Kenya.

T H E V I R A L G U I D E | T R I N F I N I T Y |

H T T P : / / W W W . T R I N F I N I T Y . C O 28