The holy grail of any SEO or social media marketing campaign is being able to produce content that has a strong possibility of becoming viral. Marketing teams and content creators the world over battle everyday to create something that thousands, even millions, may want to share with their friends and social networks. The keys, it seems, lie in basic human behavior. If you can tap in to those basic urges and desires, it just may produce the coveted viral content you are looking for.
The answer to viral SEO and social media marketing content success seems to lie with some fundamental psychological triggers that will spur people on to share your content. The first one seems to be that everyone likes to look good. When a piece of social media content is seen by someone they, generally, try and evaluate how it will make them look if they pass it along. It’s like recommending a movie or a television show to your friends. When they checked out your recommendation and found they enjoyed it, it made you look good, didn’t it?
Staying within this particular line of thought, humans tend to be quite social and need to stay connected with their loved ones and immediate social networks. Sharing a piece of content that was special to them helps them to do that. With the advent of social media, people can foster those connections any time they need to. Before, you could only do that in a certain setting like at church or at school or work. Forget about likes, focus on helping those people stay connected. Keep telling yourself; it’s not about you.
It’s all about the relationship. You are not trying to hard sell anyone or propping yourself up as the next great thing. It’s not about you, remember? You are reaching out, trying to show people that you can bring added value to their lives, that you are their answer to a particular problem they are having. People really do like to help other people if offered the opportunity. Here is your chance to help them help those others they care about.
Your content, for it to go viral, must meet all of these needs. If it isn’t, it is time to take a step back and re-evaluate and then re-create.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
