Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Content Outliers: Learning from
the Web's Most Viral Content'
Posted by jamesporter
Let's start with some questions.
Do you want coverage for your brand in major publications?
Do you want significant increases in your backlink profile?
Do you want a larger, more engaged community?
Do you want thousands of new visitors to your site?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, then you should be thinking
about creating viral content.
What can viral content do for you?
This is a piece of content we launched 4 months ago.
Since launch it has been featured on CNN, ZDNet, and Fast Company, has hit
over 500 linking root domains, has earned over 95k social shares, and most
importantly, has driven 270k+ unique visitors to the client's site.
So, how can you start creating viral content?
First things first: What do we mean by viral content?
Any sort of content where the viewership grows rapidly as the result of
sharing. Here's a good primer.
Secondly, how do we get good at viral content?
Looking back at past viral success is a great way of understanding what's
going to be successful in the future, so we need to get our hands on some data!
To get that data, I worked with the team at BuzzSumo, a content marketing
research tool I highly recommend.
We dug into their database to find the 2,000 most-shared pieces of content on
the web that were published within the last six months.
For each of those domains, we then pulled the second-most shared pages, which
gave us a great opportunity to do some maths and identify the "content
outliers"âthe pages on a site that have massively outperformed other
content on the same site.
(source)
For this analysis we looked for content outliers within the top 2,000 list,
and also took a deep dive into the top 50 most-shared pages.
So, what did we learn from the analysis?
1. Make visual content, because it's easy to engage
Of the top 50 most-shared pieces of content, 48% were video, and 24% were
image-based.
That means 72% of the viral content analysed was primarily visual.
So why is visual content so successful? Visual content is incredibly easy for
people to understand and engage with. By reducing the engagement demands on the
viewer, we're increasing the amount of people that take the time to engage with
our content and therefore increasing the size of our audience that engage and
share.
2. The quality of your idea is EVERYTHING
This sounds obvious, but it's worth drilling into. In his excellent book,
"Contagious: Why Things Catch On," Jonah Berger flips contemporary thinking on
his head by saying that mavens (influencers) are less important than we think.
The real key to viral success is the quality of the idea.
This piece of content from Mirabeau Wines, "How to Open A Bottle of Wine
Without A Corkscrew," is an incredible example of a winning idea.
To date, this piece has been shared nearly 1 million times, featured in The
Telegraph, The Mirror and Time Magazine, and has been viewed over 5 million
times on YouTube.
Content marketing tip: Forget everything else, just get your idea right. How?
To start, read this.
3. Create your content around scalable themes
What stood out in the data from BuzzSumo was the broad appeal (scalability) of
the topics that were being shared. Marriage, friendship, family, cancer, and
personal improvement featured in more than 30% of the top 50 posts.
But why did they feature so heavily?
These concepts are relevant to a large audience and provide the opportunity
for wide-scale sharing.
As a content marketer, when ideating content, you need to make the distinction
between targeting a niche audience and targeting a broad audience.
Niche audience
More viral due to shared values ideals and interests of the niche
Broad audience
Less viral due to the disparate nature of the group, but with opportunity to
operate at a much larger scale
The audience that you choose to target has a major effect on the level of
success that your content is likely to achieve.
Content marketing tip: A third way is to target a broad niche. This involves
creating content that is interesting to a specific niche audience, which then
stimulates interest in the larger market.
By doing this you get the benefits of the concentrated sharing of a highly
passionate user base, which then stimulates interest in the larger market.
Using 'The History of Dance Music' as an example, you can see the way the
content could spread through the web, from:
Highly active and passionate dance music fans > Interested dance music fans
> General music lovers
4. Make content interactive
Interestingly, the two most shared pieces of content pulled from BuzzSumo were
both quizzes:
Content
Social Shares
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ashleyperez/what-career-should-you-have
4,419,323
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/12/20/sunday-review/dialect-quiz-map.html
3,478,306
There are many reasons why this content killed it, but one of the key reasons
is the interactive nature of each piece. By forcing users to interact with a
piece of content to fully experience it, you increase their level of engagement.
The more people that engage with a piece, the more people will share it.
Content marketing example: This interactive piece detailing the tech sector's
acquisitions since 1999 has been a great success.
Why it worked: The content encourages engagement via scrolling or zooming to
drill into the data.
5. Stimulate an emotional reaction
A key way to create viral content is to stimulate an emotional reaction.
Why is emotional content so often viral?
At a simplistic level, our emotional experiences are amplified through
sharing. So when we experience a strong emotional reaction, we want to share it.
Think of social buttons as a vent for expressing our emotional experiences.
What's really interesting though is that the emotion you stimulate (positive
versus negative) is less important than the strength of the emotional reaction.
Recent research has found that the strength of the emotional reaction is
absolutely key in viral content.
I defy anyone to read this article about a mountain pathway in China without
experiencing some sort of emotional reaction (mine: seriously sweaty palms!).
This piece has been shared over 1 million times and it's the strength of the
emotional reaction that has stimulated people to share.
(source)
Content marketing example: As a content marketer, it can be pretty difficult to
create an emotional reaction if you're in a boring industry. But you need to
look beyond your products to your audience and the things they love and care
about. Think of the Dove Real Beauty campaign. Soap is boring. They took an
existing emotional issue that their consumers cared about and developed it into
an incredible marketing campaign.
6. Leverage social triggers
Hat tip to Jonah Berger again for this one. If we can link our content to
existing environmental cues, then it's more likely that we will get our content
noticed by our target audience. This works because we are leveraging existing
audience awareness to get cut through.
By playing off issues that are already front of mind for our audience, we
increase a piece's chances of success.
There were various examples of this throughout the BuzzSumo data, but a key
one (not in the list) was from Time, titled "The Selfiest Cities in the World."
Selfies are a major social trigger at the moment, so Time have hooked their
content into that.
7. Personalised content
What can you teach people about themselves? Content that allows people to
better understand themselves and their relative standing with the rest of the
world performed really well in the data sample.
The following is a great example of this type of content. By making content
specifically about a user you automatically stimulate interest.
8. Target an audience likely to share
We all know that you need to create content for a specific audience (and
ideally for your customers). But you can increase your chances of virality by
targeting audiences that are highly likely to share...
If your content is targeted towards a group of people that don't share a lot,
then it is going to be harder to create viral content in that space.
Pro tip: An audience that Buzzfeed target their content towards is the "Bored
in Work, Bored in Line" audience. Basically this audience is a group of people
who are bored, surfing the web, looking to be entertained or surprised.
The "What Career Should I Actually Have" is a classic example of Buzzfeed
targeting this audience.
Content marketing example: Another great example of audience targeting comes
from the site "Wait But Why," called Why are Generation Y Yuppies So Unhappy. By
specifically creating content for and about Generation Y (a highly active
sharing group) they were able to increase their chances of success. This article
was syndicated to the Huffington Post and became that site's most shared piece
of content (1.2 million shares).
Pro tip: According to viral kings Upworthy, "middle-aged women are the biggest
sharers on the web. If you can target them, do!"
9.Take a contrarian viewpoint
A great way of stimulating an emotional response is by taking a contrarian
viewpoint. An example from the buzzsumo list of contrarian content was this:
Content
Total Shares
Christopher Columbus Was Awful
1,164,991
By taking an entrenched viewpoint and flipping it on it's head, you're making
a piece of content a must read because you are challenging people's existing
views.
10. Reinforce viewpoints people already have
Another viral content approach is to make people feel right. Creating content
that reinforces what people already think and feel is a great way to stimulate
sharing.
This video is about people using their phones too much and not living in the
moment.
It expresses a sentiment that a lot of people related to, which in turn
increases their propensity to share.
Content marketing example: Upworthy focus the majority of their content
towards existing viewpoints that people already have. Whether it's LGBT,
education, parenting, guns and crime, by playing off existing emotionality, they
increase the virality of their content.
Here is the full data list of BuzzSumo's 50 most-shared pieces of content on
the web along with the sharing statistics:
URL
Total Shares
What Career Should You Actually Have
4,419,323
How Y'all, Youse and You Guys Talk
3,478,306
If Only For A Second - You Need To Watch This
3,296,397
Como fazer um batuque com seu porco de estimao
3,229,795
39 Test Answers That Are 100% Wrong But Totally Genius At The Same Time
2,508,120
Russian Mother Takes Magical Pictures of Her Two Kids With Animals On Her
Farm
2,494,802
Best coin ever spent.
2,404,200
Compilation of Cats Stealing Dog Beds
2,144,399
30 Naughtiest Dogs: Youâll Crack Up When You Find Out What They Did
2,133,342
This Might Be The Scariest Trail In The World. But Youâll NEVER Guess
Where It Leads. Unbelievable.
2,108,904
I Can't Believe How Funny This Is. I Am In Tears, Make Sure Your Sound Is
Turned On!
2,048,539
Homeless dog living in a trash pile gets rescued, and then does something
amazing! Read more:
http://www.trueactivist.com/gab_gallery/homeless-dog-living-in-a-trash-pile-gets-rescued-and-then-does-something-amazing/
1,992,817
While Their Kids Sleep, These parents Pull Of This Amazing Stunt...
1,860,502
Marriage Isn't For You
1,848,969
Creative Mom Turns Her Baby's Naptime Into Dream Adventures (Updated)
1,787,279
Compilation of Cats Stealing Dog Beds
1,717,782
Beware Of The 5 lb. Bag Of Sugarless Gummy Bears On Amazon.com â The
Reviews Are Priceless!
1,646,695
After I saw this, I put down my phone and didn't pick it up for the rest of
the day...
1,631,432
This Three Minute Commercial Puts Full-Length Hollywood Films to Shame
1,599,884
WestJet Christmas Surprise Will Make You Believe in Santa
1,594,405
Murmuration
1,575,770
Marijuana Overdoses Kill 37 in Colorado On First Day of Legalization
1,529,580
A Big Butt Is A Healthy Butt: Women With Big Butts Are Smarter And
Healthier
1,514,008
Icomania
1,512,417
This Is What Happens When A Kid Leaves Traditional Education
1,464,780
See That Box? That's Where They Put the Babies. And Itâs the Most
Remarkable Thing You'll See All Week
1,462,126
Riding A Bike Over 72ft Canyon - Amazing!
1,429,648
Sexiest Twerk Choreography... Ever?
1,415,268
How to interact with the introverted...
1,409,372
KitKat Break Labs
1,400,393
You're a stay-at-home mom? What do you DO all day?
1,396,121
Robert Downey Jr Sings With Sting And Absolutely Kills It.
1,381,969
This is one happy fox.
1,358,921
What a Choir of Silent Monks Does Will Make You Laugh
1,336,482
Share This with All the Schools, Please
1,284,285
Airline Pulls Amazing Christmas Stunt on Passengers
1,276,863
What You Get When You Pour Molten Aluminum Into An Ant Hill
1,273,036
Police Chief writes EPIC letter to Kanye After He Compared Himself to a
Police Officer & Soldier
1,262,817
A Boy Makes Anti-Muslim Comments In Front Of An American Soldier. The
Soldier's Reply: Priceless.
1,231,198
Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy
1,230,618
Chase Mission Main Street Grants
1,220,665
After Reading This, Youâll Never Look At A Banana In The Same Way
Again
1,217,816
Khan Academy
1,215,464
17 Things That Happen When You've Been Friends With Someone For, Literally,
Ever
1,197,644
Hidden Camera Catches Beagle Stealing Chicken Nuggets In Epic Style (VIDEO)
1,181,805
Christopher Columbus was awful (but this other guy was not) - The Oatmeal
1,164,991
What Little Girls Wish Daddies Knew
1,114,981
Twins were born, but haven't realized that
1,075,449
Pope Francis Condemns Racism and Declares that "All Religions Are True" at
Historic Third Vatican Council
1,075,410
Married or not... you should read this.
1,040,203
Hope you enjoyed the post. Fire any questions to me in the comments. Up and to
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