Definition

Online content that is highly shared on social media, in a short period of time, because it provides a high level of information about a brand is called viral content.

Description 

Spreading brand awareness is important to increase traffic to your website. One way to spread information about your brand is by using content. 

Engaging content which is shareable brings in higher traffic and affects the probability of sales. The piece of content which is circulated rapidly from one user to another on the internet  becomes viral. It is relatively cost-effective marketing which is compared to paid ads.

Importance of Viral Content

A viral content is important for a brand because it:

• Generates significant amount of traffic
• Increases brand awareness
• Makes marketing cost-effective 

Best Practices to make a Viral Content

Getting content viral for increasing brand awareness is an integral part of marketing. This is how you can make a content viral:

• Focus on the current and trending topics:  Creating a viral content that blows up the internet can be a cakewalk for brands if they focus on trending topics.

You can choose to find topics on Google Trends and weave any form of content around that. It increases the visibility on the search engines and makes the brand popular.

• Write viral headlines: A catchy title can intrigue the readers and excite them to read your post. A research by Conductor shows that headlines with numbers are more likely to get clicks.
• Insightful introduction: Introduction of a content cannot be missed. If you want to captivate the readers and keep them engaged for a longer time, it is important to include an insightful introduction that is compelling and interesting. Best way to include this is to include research and data points. Substantiating informative content loops in reader’s attention.
• Colourful visuals: Include images to make the content exciting and to engage readers for more time. Xerox in their research found that 80% of people engage more when there are plenty of visuals in the content. In another research, 94% of people generate more views on social media.
• Long-form of content: Long form of content gets you more visibility, more proof of authority, and industry expertise. The probability of sharing the content increases.
• Create emotionally charged content: Emotional content can be memorable and effective. Writers can use both positive and negative emotions to spur their audience to act. Emotional content is good to story tell because it connects with the audience.
• Publish practical content: Practical content like “how-to” guides can keep the audience to read. This type of content has high chances of going viral. 
• Don’t miss the infographics: Infographics increase the visitors by 12% and inspire the audience to share the graphics with friends on social media.

Future of Viral Marketing.

Viral marketing is here to stay as the number as the number of internet users is increasing every year to reach 5.3 billion by 2023. Apart from this, the abrupt growth in the social media platforms also promotes the growth of viral marketing.

Rise in competition contributes to the birth of demand to increase self-awareness of brands.  It will further lead to making viral marketing a success.

Example

“Dunk in the Dark” is the historic example of viral content marketing. Started immediately by Oreo in 2013 to capitalise the situation amidst an intense third quarter battle between American Football Teams, a power outage for 45 minutes, the American cookie brand went on their feet to tweet “Dunk in the Dark”. 

Just after the tweet, the brand had posted the same content on their Facebook account. And in no time, the tweet accumulated around 15000 retweets and Facebook recorded 20,000 likes.

The image posted with the tweet could fetch USD 525 million earned media impressions. Oreo’s followers on Twitter increased by 8,000 and that on Instagram increased to 36,000.

FAQs

What are the elements of viral content?

A viral content is:

• Surprising
• Positive
• Actinable
• Interesting
• Emotion intriguing

What do viral content marketing have in common?

It has these things in common:

• Organic
• Timely 
• Bold

What makes viral content good?

Below are the characteristics of it:

• High-quality
• Infuse positive emotions
• Offer entertainment
• Simple 
• Engaging headlines
• Offer information
• Repurpose old content
• Engage the audience 
• Add images to post
• Offer more facts 
• Understand target audience
• Practical content and “how-to-guide”
• Use infographics
• Publish during peak hours
• Follow the trend

Also Read –
Learn How to Create Social Media Content with a Social Content Plan