What Kind of Content Tends to Go Viral?

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If you’re trying to get your content to “spark”and go viral, it helps to have a strong understanding of what kind of content tends to go viral. Of course, nobody can predict what will go viral, nor can you make something go viral 100 percent of the time. But by understanding what kind of content tends to go viral, you stand a much better chance of creating something viral yourself. Here are a few of attributes of content that tends to go viral:

It’s human – It’s rare that a factual, statistical, or economical video goes viral. Instead, it’s usually the most human videos that go viral. The singing homeless man on the street. The baby laughing at something senseless. An incredible display of guitar prowess.

It has strong emotional content – The more emotions you can arouse in your audience, the better. Let’s take one of the world’s most viewed videos, the “Charlie Bit My Finger” video. The video features a child whose baby brother bit his finger; he laughs and complains at the same time. This video has an astounding 854 million views (as of September 2017)! One of the main reasons this video took off so quickly is because of how palpable the emotions were in the video. The watcher can almost “follow along” with the boy’s emotions and also experience the joy of playing with a baby brother.

It provides unique information – Informational videos can go viral, but the key is that the videos provide content that can’t be found anywhere else. For example, one video that went viral featured a science professor showing how to light a candle without ever touching the wick. Informational videos work in many different industries, but the most important thing is that there’s something truly unique about them.

It appeals to specific groups of people – Content that tends to appeal to specific groups of people does very well if it has strong emotional or informational content. For example, political videos that are either informational or emotional can go viral just by being passed among a party’s members. New food laws, something which may be seen as boring, could be very interesting to vegans if it affects the foods they’ll be able to purchase. A video about the new laws could really take off among that specific community.

These are some factors that go into determining whether or not a video goes viral. A viral video really means that a lot of people want to pass on your content. The key, as with many other things in business, is to create something so amazing that people want to share it.

Have you created viral content? Share it with me and tell me about its success!