Hook Your Audience By Creating Viral Content Buzz
August 9th, 2021
Getting your content to go viral is the modern equivalent of winning the jackpot. It’s the name of the game, regardless of what industry you’re in and the biggest challenge is to know how to do it. You want your beloved product and well-thought-out content to be seen by the masses — but the game is an unpredictable one.
Creating buzz-worthy content that goes viral is not an accident but an art — it takes effort, orchestration, and emotional intelligence. And more often than not, it calls for the use of an expert like the geniuses over at Nowadays who eat, sleep, and breathe social media and therefore are the masters of all things “going viral.”
But even with all the variables, there are still consistent rules for creating marketing content that make a collective emotional impact. Elements of human behavior can be pretty predictable. Leverage that, and you’re already one step ahead.
Here’s everything you need to know to hook your audience by creating viral content buzz.
What You Need To Know About Creating Viral Content
To be clear, going viral in the digital world has nothing to do with malware or catching the flu, no sir. On the internet, “going viral” means sharing something that spreads like wildfire to millions of people, with the most common medium on which content going viral being through social media. The content could be in the form of videos, images, or infographics — and even memes (who doesn’t love a good meme?!).
So, in a nutshell, viral marketing is a type of advertising that relies on a multitude of people sharing a piece of content that, as an end result, promotes a brand, company, service, or product. The important thing is that it’s shared organically by people out of sheer interest — it’s like free advertising!
But there’s a catch:
Viral content that creates a buzz is tough to pull off. But don’t worry— we put together a spicy few tips to help you hook your audience, go viral, and dominate the digital space.
Tip #1: Focus On Hot Topics
When it comes to creating buzz-worthy content that goes viral, your topic is KEY. Specifically, you want to create your content around a hot topic that’s blowing up so you can ride the wave all the way to that sweet, sweet, viral status — and then the bank!
Tip #2: Use Captivating Visuals
Nobody is interested in reading your text-heavy content. #SorryNotSorry
Make your content a million times more compelling by incorporating colorful visuals. And if your visuals are cool enough, they’ll end up in Tweets and Facebook posts — which can create a whole lot of buzz and help your content go viral.
Tip #3: Promote To The Big Dogs
Sure, you should most definitely write content for your audience. That’s content marketing at its finest. But don’t forget to drop an influencer’s name throughout your content (and, of course, let them know about it).
A recent study found that for your content to go viral, influencer shares were “critical.” This is because these folks usually have massive followings, and when they share your content on social media networks, it increases your odds of going viral tenfold.
Tip #4: Use The Right Words
One word: Hashtags.
Relevant and buzzy hashtags are the ticking time bombs of the viral marketing industry as they can either make or break your campaign.
With well over 100 million videos and photos uploaded daily on Instagram and a whopping 500 million tweets sent in any single day, it can be pretty challenging for a brand to stand out.
Fortunately, hashtags can help as they are an excellent way for brands to get their awesome content noticed on social media. Hashtags link you to everyone else using the same hashtag, and it’s how you join a global conversation on your topic of expertise. It’s how you draw people to you and how you elevate your growing brand to get heard beyond your immediate community.
Tip #5: Be Unique
Content that gets a whole lot of hype isn’t just popular content — it’s good content.
For your content to rake in the views, it must convince people to click on it without begging them to. This is where your creativity shines. Think outside of the box of traditional marketing techniques. Add emotional appeal, a dash of humor, a sprinkle of color, and voila, you have a better chance of going viral.
Tip #6: Remember, Great Content Has A Purpose
If your content has value, either by being informative, educational, or entertaining, it’s more likely to be shared. People like sharing useful stuff with others because it makes them feel “altruistic.” That’s why “how-to” content performs so well. If you make your content practical, then you’ll end up with a much stronger chance of reaching virality.
Tip #7: And Whatever You Do, Just Don’t Forget — You’re “Woke”
The Gen Z and millennial kids are the arbiters of all things viral, and there’s nothing like a hint of “wokeness” to attract their kind.
Create content that’s in NO way derogatory to any particular community, gender, race, ethnicity, etc., or risk getting #Canceled (aka brand suicide). Stick with the kind of content that’s humane and up to date with the trending memes. Use references from current affairs, popular shows, and viral tweets.
Ride The New Wave Of Advertising With Nowadays
Look, we won’t sugar coat things — you’re not the only thirsty brand out there. But that’s why we exist. We unlock the emotions necessary to inspire your target audience to take action and spread content by word of mouth.
With Nowadays, you’ll benefit from our revolutionary proprietary process for making content contagious — your unique brand will get the right orchestration of emotion, timing, and attention.
And the best part? You can sit back, relax and leave everything to us as you watch your social odometer rack up thousands upon thousands of what you want — downloads, views, likes, follows, retweets — all while sipping on a margarita in your underwear. What’s not to love?
No clickbait. No bullsh!t. Just word-of-mouth momentum. Drop us a line today and join our Hall of Fame tomorrow. Let’s do this!
Sources:
Instagram by the Numbers (2021): Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts | Omnicore
(PDF) Social media and its implications for viral marketing | Research Gate