Everyone wants to create viral content, but only a few succeed. While there is no guaranteed method or set-formulae that helps make content viral, there are very clearly some elements that significantly increase the chances of your content going viral, while missing these is a clear recipe for a lack of virality.
“Virality isn’t luck. It’s not magic. And it’s not random. There’s a science behind why people talk and share. A recipe. A formula, even.” —Jonah Berger, Best-Selling Author of Contagious
“Not all viral loops are created equally. Some are more effective than others. The effectiveness of the viral loop is measured by its K-factor. The K-factor measures how many additional users the original user will bring in when they sign up for the product. For example, if someone says their K-factor is 0.5, that means one new user will be brought in for every two new users acquired. The Holy Grail is achieved anytime a K-factor is greater than one.”
There are many nuances to making incentives successful, but it all comes down to giving users a compelling reason to invite their friends and an equally compelling reason for the friends to accept the invite and try out the product.
Can you identify the one thing about your product that users want more of? Have you tested offering this to them for free if they get some friends to join?
Cliff Lerner – Tech Entrepreneur / Author – Explosive Growth
STEPPS (what makes people share)
Why is some content shared significantly more than others? The answer lies in STEPPS (Social currency, Triggers, Emotions, Public, Practical Value, Stories). Content that incorporates one or more of these elements, is significantly more likely to be shared as compared to content that does not.
Learn more at STEPPS – The secret to creating content that make people want to share.
SUCCESs (what makes content sticky / memorable)
SUCCESs (or Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotion Stories) describes the 6 key elements that make content sticky in the mind’s of readers, and the effective use of these concepts can help ensure that your readers continue to retain your message over longer periods of time.
Recommended Books on Viral Marketing
Contagious: Why Things Catch On
Authors: Jonah Berger,
There is something that makes some products stand out while others don’t — but what is it? What is it that makes some advertisements become a global hit, while others are barely watched? Jonah Berger gives you 6 basic principles that will make your product or idea contagious and shows you how you can answer those questions for yourself.
Other concepts on Sales & Marketing
Sales Process – Key Steps
Any sales process goes through a series of steps – from making the first contact, getting the meeting, making the pitch, handling objections to the final close. To be successful in sales, you need to learn and master each of these steps individually, to be able to ensure that a bottleneck in one part does not impact your overall sales.
Know Your Customer / Reader
It is essential that you have a strong understanding of your customer or reader, in order to be able to tailor make your content to resonate with them. You need to understand who they are (their age, sex, demographic profile), their interests, what stage of the journey they are on and more to be able to make your communication a success.
Niche
A niche denotes products, services or interests that have a high appeal to a select smaller group of people, as compared to the general populace. By laser focusing your services and communication to the needs of this smaller group, you can gain much higher relevance than trying to target everybody.
Sales Personality
Having a good sales personality is essential if you wish to succeed in sales. A sales personality includes all the key personality traits that characterize a good salesman, including a genuine desire to help, the ability to listen, enthusiasm, confidence and presentability amongst others.