To get people reading your content, you have to make it interesting. But it has to be more than interesting: it has to be personalized, interactive, and fun. It has to be shareable. You have to create a viral loop.
What is a viral loop?
Click. Share. Repeat. In essence, this is how a viral loop is created. One reader will interact with your information, share it with their friends and family, and then those friends and family will share it with their friends and family. There are two components that help make content more inclined to incite a viral loop: an interactive component and a call to action.
What is the best content for a viral loop?
It’s not always easy to predict which types of content will go viral and which ones won’t. If companies could do that, they wouldn’t need to put so much effort into their campaigns. In some cases, well-written stories will strike a chord with audiences and get shared over and over again. Other times, it takes something else.
3 content types for creating a viral loop
In general, there are three types of content that have a better chance of creating a viral loop. These include stories, interactive apps, and quizzes. These have the ability to incite emotion or create personalized, unique results so people may be more inclined to share that information or the results with their friends and family.
Examples of viral stories include the story about Mamoudou Gassama, who has been nicknamed Spiderman, and how he climbed an apartment building in France to save a young boy who was dangling from the balcony. This story incites an emotional response from the reader, more than likely one of awe, surprise, or happiness, and people want to share that response with others so they can experience the same emotions.
Other topics that can go viral include studies or stories that allow people to compare themselves to others. In some cases, studies that make a shocking claim, including about how second-born children have the potential to be criminals, allows people the opportunity to reinforce what they already believe (perhaps an older sibling who shares it with their younger sibling) or for people to prove that they aren’t as bad as others view them to be.
Examples of interactive quizzes that have gone viral include those that allow people to input information about their personality and have results that are based on their choices. These include informing people what celebrity they are most like, what type of environmentalist they are, or how they can become a better person. In each of these examples, the results are tailored to the individual and give them an easy opportunity to share their results with others.
How do you create content for a viral loop?
When it comes to determining whether an app, quiz, or story will get the best results for a viral loop, that will be up to the discretion of the business and what they want to accomplish. If you are creating an app or quiz, there are platforms and websites that you can use so you don’t have to do it on your own. Of course, if you know how or have someone in your company that knows how, have some fun!
When it comes to a story, you’ll need to write something that gets people’s attention. The best information often revolves around inciting some type of emotion in the reader, whether it be anger, sadness, happiness, or curiosity. Controversial topics often do this trick well and can start a conversation and have it shared on social media sites. Remember to include an interactive component (perhaps asking for their opinion or including a poll at the end) and a call to action for the audience to share it with others!
After you’ve determined what type of content to create, there are some things that need to be incorporated to help it become successful as a viral loop. These include knowing your audience; a goal of educating or entertaining—or both; images that people want to share; and a call to action to encourage people to share it. Making this last step easy (as in requiring one click of a button) will give you better results in people sharing the information to their social sites.
Other elements to incorporate to create a viral loop
People love anything that bolsters what they already know about themselves or what they believe to be true about themselves. This reinforces their ideals and how they view themselves, and it may encourage them to share that information with others, which will in turn interest other people to have their personality reinforced and so on. In addition to learning more about themselves, audiences also like elements that deal with pop culture and incites their curiosity.
Creating content that creates a viral loop can be as simple as developing an app, quiz, or story that encourages audiences to be engaged with the information. It has to be easy for them to access and to share. That way, it encourages others to participate and share the same information.