Today we’re going to talk about the third and final type o content - viral content.
Technically, any type of content COULD become viral content. You could write a really incredible educational article and it could explode on social media overnight. Trendy content often has the power to go viral, but the effect doesn’t usually last long. You’ll see a brief surge in traffic, and then it wanes to nearly nothing before too long.
The type of viral content we’re talking about now is the kind that never really wanes. For example, celebrity gossip CAN wane over time, but sometimes the traffic continues for a long time because new information come out on the story and renews its popularity.
Cute anima videos and shocking crime stories stay popular for a long time. Interest doesn’t wane too much, mostly because these topics have wide enough appeal that they don’t reach critical mass for a longer period of time.
Viral content is usually either...
Funny
Exciting
Shocking
Entertaining
Some mix of these
It’s not easy to create viral content. Most people who deliberately try to create it fail, because they think they know what people will like and don’t, or because they fail to get enough influencers to see and share the content.
Sometimes it helps just to profit off OTHER people’s viral content. For example, if you see a particular video trending on YouTube or Facebook, you can embed it into a page on your own site or share it to your own social media accounts to piggyback off its success.
You may not profit from it directly if you just share to your social media accounts, but you WILL benefit by getting more followers because your current followers will share the content and some of the people who see it will end up following you.
Viral content doesn’t necessarily have to be exactly in your niche, but it does at least need to relate loosely to it.
For example, if you have a beauty website you might post celebrity gossip from time to time because there would be a significant amount of overlap between the two markets.
Or, if you have a pet care website, you could post shocking, cute or funny animal videos. They’re not exactly about pet care, but many people who are interested in pet care would be interested in that type of content.