How can I go viral?
In recent months, I’ve seen an influx in my inbox over the question of “how to go viral”.
My Instagram account has seen steady growth, from 500 followers in April to 70,000 in October, which is super cool to me. Several of these followers have begged the question: how did you do it?
The short answer is - I don’t know.
Since I do know that will not suffice for those committed to growing their online following, I’ll expound on a few things I believe may have helped.
First off, allow me to beat the dead horse and tell you to be consistent in what you post. I don’t mean post every day of the week no matter what, but rather make sure the content topics are relatively consistent. If you’re posting five days in a row, but every post is absurdly different in subject, visual presentation, and audio, people won’t know what to expect from you. They’ll be less likely to invest their time into viewing you.
It’s an added bonus if the content includes something that will be beneficial to the audience. What normally makes you, as a consumer, more likely to hit the heart or save button? Typically, it’s something educational, entertaining, or something you plan on purchasing.
Secondly, make it pretty. The human eye slightly dilates at a screen full of bright color, good lighting, or catchy movements. That doesn’t mean you have to dance around the room like I enjoy doing, but also don’t sit in a dark corner and whisper to your audience for 5 minutes. They’ll scroll right past.
Third, and most importantly, don’t try to go viral. But Roni!?! You said you’d show us how to do just that!
Let me stand up on the soap box momentarily. If your sole motivating factor in creating content is to go viral, you’ll probably never get there. Why? Because the reason to your rhyme is surface level. You are not trying to add value to the social media stratosphere, educate followers, entertain people, or make meaningful connections.
Content that exists only to gain followers or create a shock effect tends to lack substance, and the audience can tell. They’re clever people.
My goal with social media has always been to educate my small (until recently) following, share my experience with leaving the corporate physical therapy world, and tell funny stories about patients and about life. Maintaining that mindset and guiding my content delivery with a steady hand has proven (so far) to be effective for me, and it might be for you too! Just make sure you’re doing it in an earnest and genuine manner, and maybe your fun following will join you for the ride.
So, for those of you who slide into my DMs and want to know the quickest and most efficient way to “blow up”, I encourage you to reframe the question and ask yourself how you can make something worth watching. Then see what happens <3
