Hi there blogger, super pleased to meet you!
I see you’ve been hard-pressed to write some really creative and informative content. I know that you’re spending a great amount of time on research and conceptualizing, Great job! Who wants some crappy content anyway, right? If you’re going to publish something, might as well make it pretty. Now I know you just want to get the word out with the slight possibility of turning some heads, correct? Nah, I don’t think so. Let’s be real here, What you really want is your post to explode and go viral. Max visits and max shares? That’s a dream and you’re out there to make it real.
However, this task is not as simple as it seems for this is not completely methodological. This will take you months after months to master, and even then you’ll never get things perfect. One strategy may not work today but will definitely shoot stars after a week. The only possible way to master this is to keep the list growing, with a generous amount of smiles to give out (you’re going to need plenty of these, even the fake ones).
Hold up, blogger. Hold on to that piece of content and let’s talk about some easy and basic ways your blog post can go viral.
Pre-Publish
This moment may very well be the most significant moment for your blog post if you’re going to try to make it viral. There are bloggers out there who just click-and-post without even thinking of what to do next. This stage is where you create your strategy and lay it out on a checklist, with targeted points and platforms.
1. Create a list of people who would want to share your post and start building relationships.
Generally,you would call these people “Influencers”. They can be celebrities, business moguls, government officials, socialites, industry experts, or public figures. These people have the ability to drive enormous amount of traffic to your content with a single share. How? They’ve built a solid connection with their audience and it correlates trust and belief. This then extends to their social media timeline, which extends to the timeline of your target audience. If you want to link-up with these influencers, you’re going to have to build some bridges. How? Outreach!
Basically, you’d want to form a list of the influencers you want to focus on and write a draft of an email for these people. This is not going to be a hard-sale, nope, not even close. This is making friends. Make sure to speak about how much you admire their work. Be careful though, you don’t want to look creepy. Best advice I could give you is to keep distance after the first email. Follow up after a few days if they haven’t replied yet.
Another tip is to stalk them to grab their attention. Look at their interests and play your part. Pretty soon you’re going to end up in their timeline, and you’re going to be someone to them. Tag them in your Tweets and engage in conversations. When they see how genuine you are, you’re almost at the finish line.
A great way to track and identify influencers is through Buzzsumo, a magnificent tool where you can research a whole lot of data for you content campaigns. The most notable feature for me is Buzzsumo’s ability to produce a list of influencers for a specific keyword. This surely comes in handy when identifying who you want to contact. An added bonus is Buzzsumo’s ability to show the sharers of a particular content; you may want to tap those people to. There’s a really big pool of people out there waiting for good content!
This is Buzzsumo’s search results for Influencers on the keyword Content Marketing. The list is sorted by Relevancy. Indicated below the names are link to their blogs, plus their twitter handles. Handy!
2. Create a bunch of copy for social media platforms and make a checklist!
There is a lot of content out there for this stage, but let’s try to make it simple for you. In order to get the initial attention you need, you’re going to have to share it to ALL the social media platforms you have access to. That means sharing it to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and all that jazz. Identify those platforms and ready a set of copy materials for each specific platform. You’re going to need this to start that avalanche you want. Think of this as a snowball effect.
Also make sure to create your checklist. You don’t want to miss a single step when climbing this mountain, the peak is well worth it and the view from up there (your analytics) should be gloooorious!
3. Start talking about it! Make a big noise and start firing up the hype for your new content.
You should start making noise so that people around you know that there’s something coming and they should expect it (even If they really don’t). Make them want it before you give it to them. Releasing trailers of the content should work if you’re working on something really extravagant, but a simple tweet or two should do the trick. Just make sure to build the hype, and everything (or everyone!) else should follow.
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Publish
This stage is where it all goes down (or up). The stage is set and lights are lit, you’re content is up! This stage is not where you lay and wait, but where you execute a bunch of your strategies. You’ve planned well, you should execute better.
4. Post on social media sites.
Hold your checklist and start posting. Make sure to edit your copy materials depending on the community/group you’re posting in. Some may work well for certain groups, while some may just suck. The key here is relatability (is that even a word? well, you get it), and make sure to play it well.
Another tip is to strive to get to a “Top Contributor” status if you’re main platform is LinkedIn. Being one has so many benefits, and getting eyeballs is one of them. Most Top Contributors are industry leaders, which means you’re in good company. Take advantage of the moment and build relationships!
5. Take advantage of Blog Aggregators, Bookmarking Sites, and Blog Syndicators.
Warning: These are not cheat codes, nor shortcuts. These are avenues you can use to drive more traffic to your blogroll!
Blog Aggregators are sites that will curate content from all over the Internet. They will curate either by relevancy or top shares. Either way, they will get your name out there. There are some great aggregators out there; you just have to look around!
Bookmarking Sites are very similar to Social Media platforms; the only difference is that these sites are focused on sharing content as a community. Some of the very notable bookmarking sites I use are StumbleUpon, Reddit, Digg, and Scoop.it. Do you see their similarities? They are all totally geared towards content sharing and bookmarking (literally!). Reddit even takes it a notch higher by making it super targeted with subreddits. These sites are super awesome but they will require you some community time. Make sure to introduce yourself properly with a few helpful links before diving into hardcore promotion! There are still lots of bookmarking sites out there, start your search!
Blog Syndicators are sites where bloggers can freely republish their content without being fined with content duplication. A bunch of bloggers use this avenue to gain publicity, plus the added traffic. One of the most famous Syndicators today is Medium. Medium is actually one of my most favorite sites for it is literally very simple to use! I recommend that site heavily, but there are plenty more out there and you should definitely look around.
6. Get talking! Talk to influencers!
Remember those people you made friends with? Contact them and tell them you have something they might like. This should drive max amount of traffic to your content if they do appreciate it and share it. Most of the time they won’t, but a pot of gold isn’t far away if they do! What you need is a great way to transition from a “friend”, to a very insightful “source”. If this becomes fruitful and you snag a loyal pal, you may very well have found your go-to influencer.
The email outline is essential. It can make or break your mission, which is why you should take time in writing your message. There are great write-ups about this and I suggest you get started on reading up.
Post-Publish
Nope. Not yet, Blogger. You’re not done yet.
The best time to promote your content is when you already know who likes it when it goes live. Watch the stats carefully and analyze the market you’ve hit hardest. This is the stage where you can take advantage of the data you have from analytics. Plan out and make your last punch the hardest.
7. Don’t let the fire die, re-promote!
Re-promoting is such a significant part of blogging and it is such a huge dismay that majority of bloggers tend to miss the opportunity to do it. Doing this stage is clearly imperative because of the fact that you might not even have reached your audience yet. You might have hit the tip of the iceberg and who knows? You’re traffic may become even bigger if you dive right in and re-promote your content.
The trick is to re-visit your past checklist and redo all the stuff you did that gave you traffic. Write another set of copy materials for all your social networking sites. You can even re-contact the influencers who gave you shares. The possibilities are still endless and it would be a shame for you to kill the fire you started. Go ahead, re-promote and go viral!
8. Ramp up the keyword and watch ‘em come!
Shout out to my SEO brothers! Keywords are key (pun!) to getting organic traffic and depending on your content, you may just turn it into evergreen content. Your content still has the possibility to go viral months after publishing.
These are just tips to get you there, and there are plenty more write-ups around the net about this. I’ll give you a list below on what to read. Read carefully and follow the influencers, you might just pick up the golden advice that gets your blog viral.
