What's helped your blog post go viral?

[edo]

I guess one of the obvious answers is getting your blog accepted onto the Google News platform, but the big G seem to be a law unto themselves in who they will accept onto it. I use PRFire.co.uk's free press release service to have a stab at getting onto it, but it's pretty hit and miss.

Just wondering what specific tactics other members have done on Digg or other social media sites to make a post go viral.

[ASPD]

I think getting a really awesome content is job number one - I understand you were asking something else actually, but if your content sucks nevermind how you will deliver it to people - they won't pass it over. IMO, unlike most techniques, viral marketing does not allow you to use lousy material, as your success depend on the user's reaction. Some of the stuff that have proved to attract people

- stunning, attractive titles
- Controversial topics causing violent reactions from the reader
- Free items (something nice, though, not total garbige), plugins, applications, files, services, ANYTHING cool and free
- Offbeat day-to-day items, especially the fun ones
- All kind of funny stuff

Obv that's not all but can give you an idea. Now, let say that you're promoting an aff blog oriented in notebooks, pocketbooks, pc and so on. You can write a nice review on this cool laptop bag, which transforms in a table ( believe it or not, i received several times a link showing this exact item, i guess people fidn it very original)

http://www.dhyra.com/2011/01/laptop-bagstransform-into-seat-mini.html

then, other than the PR and some social bookmarking, you could also go some big general forums, find the related section and post it, you can buy/make a fake FB profile and post it/send it via message to the friendlist (less probable to earn a ban if the content you send around is interesting), some organic ranking (commenting in order to keep on the Real time search can be a true blessing in this cases but only works on very hot topics like news or scandals) and so on.

Of course there might be some nice strategic tactics, but the these types of content will get you there without performing any special tricks

[dogboy]

ASPD is all over it.

The only thing I might be able to add is a foggy idea about how the math might be involved.... but I've never seen any equations, and couldn't come up with one myself if I had too... but, well, if I had to, these are the main variables in my equation, as I see them:

- the value of the information to the avg person, relative to what news is out there currently, and what is conceivably possible. Is this a big deal to me? Is this a big deal to others around me/I know/can tell?
- the number of channels the info can flow from the initial source to the total audience (TV, Radio, Newspaper, or just during the half time show during the superbowl?) as well as the 'total reach' expressed as a percentage of the total population. There is still 10%? maybe you can't reach within X timeframe.
- Fidelity which is tied in part to the complexity of the information. Will the person understand what is being explained to them? Or will the message degrade from transmission to transmission?
- the number of initial dissemination points. Great news/terrible dissemination  = failure, lame news/incredible dissemination = possible success, etc.)
- the value of sharing this information with others, usually expressed as the avg shares per individual ...which partially hinges on the number of channels the info can flow from the downstream sources to other downstream sources who are already not aware of whatever you are trying to show them.
- Time. How long is the duration of viral-ity? Is there a build up before hand, like New Years? Is it flash news that becomes useless just as fast? Or something that will hold people's attention for days/weeks/years?  I's it a race with a start and a finish, or does it run until it just peters out and dies?
- Authenticity. Who told you the sky is falling?  Drunk bum, or your best friend? (unless the drunk bum...
- Orchestration Was this spontaneous, or planned carefully to maximize all the synergistic feedback cycles possible?

...plus a bunch of others. You could break this down for hours, but that's the better part of it, I think.  In other words, rate what ever you want against each metric and see how different scenarios turn out.  War is a good one.  Minor/major political scandal. Sale at Kmart, one day only. Rockstar on Facebook vs regular 'un-socialized' country bumpkin vs AK fur trapper.

Right now, personally, I'm working on a Facebook app I hope that is going to go viral.  It combines 'mobile', 'social', 'payment', and 'local', all wrapped up into a very digestible, easy to understand and useful little app.  It really is my best effort, so once it is completed in 6 weeks or so, I'll probably unveil it in the members only section, for a little under the hood show and tell.  Until then, that's about all I have to say about that:)

[eurotrash]

This one a while back got loads of press, radio and even TV.  It was really funny - especially ripping the web agency apart in the comments.

http://www.edinburghsucks.com/2005/05/05/rev-councillor-aitken-promotes-porn/

[Gurtie]

Hey Edo - Google news is actually quite formulaic, there are a few good posts around explaining how to get accepted - think one was SEOidiot and there's one by PureContent, couple of others two. Obviously once you're accepted you have to appear frequently to get any volume

Nice info ASPD and Dogboy all I would add, which doesn't really answer the question but is important - you have to understand what you want to achieve and act on it. It could just be brand promotion, or people signing up to your rss, or links - but there's bugger all point getting 100,000 people to your site to watch a video if you don't have a big logo right next to it, have an rss button prominent or give people a simple way to link to you.  If it happens by accident then you might not be able to do much about a CTA, but if you plan it, you need to plan the whole strategy not just the getting peoples attention bit.

Can you tell I had a meeting yesterday with someone who wanted to "do social media" but wasn't quite sure why?

[edo]

Many thanks for all the replies. Brilliant info. Clearly this is a super high-quality forum.

As for actual tactics on how to get your viral-primed content out there, one of the routes that appeals to me is heavily touting Facebook's "recommend/share" button on any given post.

I already use their "like" button on posts, but the former seems much better suited to "going viral" as it includes the title, picture and summary of the post on the person's wall wheras the latter displays just the title.

I've noticed that more and more big news sites (in the UK anyway) are switching from Fbook's "like" to "recommend". For example (see bottom of article):

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/mystery-of-the-mummys-chinese-travel-ban-2205033.html

Not sure why any big site promotes Digg anymore though. It seems to me to have been dying a slow death for some time now.

Cheers,

Ed