Summary: Crafting Contagious Content

1. Understanding Virality: Virality goes beyond content quality. It involves understanding the psychology of sharing and the factors that make content shareable. Learn about crafting contagious content.
2. Key Principles of Virality: Analysis of Jonah Berger's “Contagious” and Nir Eyal's “Hooked” to identify key principles for crafting contagious content, and Dan Zarrella’s Zarrella's Hierarchy of Contagiousness. These include leveraging social currency, triggers, emotions, practical value, stories, and understanding triggers, actions, variable rewards, and investments.
3. Process to Go Viral: There’s a process for increasing the chances of going viral, including audience understanding, content creation aligned with contagiousness principles, testing and adaptation, audience growth, engagement and relationship-building, measurement and optimization, iterative improvement, timing and consistency, user-friendly approaches, value-oriented content, social sharing elements, and collaboration with influencers.

Introduction: Crafting Contagious Content

My journey with content creation has always been driven by a curiosity: how can I craft content that not only resonates but also spreads like wildfire? Once, a quote post of mine took off on LinkedIn, but it was a happy accident rather than a planned strategy. It contributed little to my professional growth. Despite this initial success, I've yet to recreate that viral moment.

To delve deeper into the art of virality, I turned to three insightful books I read a few years ago:

1. Zarrella's Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas by Dan Zarrella
2. Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal
3. Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger

I analyzed the three books to get a deeper insight into crafting contagious content. Here are the results.

Have you read?

How to Write Viral Content: A Look at Contagious by Jonah Berger

Summary: Hooked by Nir Eyal

Review – Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness: The Science, Design, and Engineering of Contagious Ideas

Understanding Virality

Virality isn't just about content quality. It's about creating contagious content that spreads organically. This involves understanding the psychology behind sharing and the factors that make content, products, or ideas “sticky” and shareable.

Key Principles of Virality

Contagious by Jonah Berger:

1. Social Currency: Craft content that makes the people who share look good or feel like insiders. People want to share things that enhance their image.
2. Triggers: Create content or products that link to everyday triggers, ensuring they are top-of-mind for your audience.
3. Emotion: Emotional content is more shareable. Identify the right emotions for your audience and evoke them in your content.
4. Public: Make your content accessible and shareable to a wide audience.
5. Practical Value: Solve problems or provide value to your audience. Practical content gets shared.
6. Stories: Wrap your content in compelling narratives. Stories are memorable and easily shared.

Hooked by Nir Eyal:

1. Trigger: Understand both external and internal triggers that prompt action. Know what drives your audience.
2. Action: Simplify actions to encourage habit formation.
3. Variable Reward: Keep users engaged with novel rewards and experiences.
4. Investment: Encourage users to invest time and effort into your product, fostering long-term engagement.

Zarrella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness:

1. Exposure: Increase your reach by growing your audience.
2. Attention: Capture attention with engaging headlines, subject lines, and content.
3. Motivation: Encourage sharing by including a clear call to action.

Process to Go Viral

Audience Understanding:

• Research and understand your target audience's desires, emotions, and pain points.
• Know what motivates them to share content or engage with products.

Content Creation:

• Create content or products that align with the principles of contagiousness, which include.
  • Evoke Emotions: Craft content that stirs emotions within your audience. Emotionally resonant content is more likely to be shared because it connects with the feelings of your audience.
  • Tell Stories: Incorporate storytelling into your content. Narratives are memorable and engaging, making it easier for people to share your content as they can relate to the story.
  • Provide Practical Value: Develop content that offers practical value to your audience. Content that solves problems or adds value to people's lives is more shareable because it addresses their needs and interests.
  • Use Triggers Effectively: Employ triggers, both internal and external, to prompt action from your audience. Triggers serve as reminders for people to engage with your content, increasing its contagiousness.

Testing and Adaptation:

• Continuously experiment with different triggers, content formats, and distribution timing.
• Analyze data and feedback to identify what resonates most with your audience.

Audience Growth:

• Dedicate time to growing your audience on various platforms.
• Exposure to a larger audience increases your chances of going viral.

Engagement and Relationships:

• Regularly engage with your audience to build relationships.
• Strong relationships increase attention and motivation for sharing.

Measurement and Optimization:

• Regularly assess the performance of your content or products.
• Use analytics to identify strengths and areas for improvement.

Iterative Improvement:

• Based on data and feedback, iterate and enhance your content or products.
• Continually improve their contagiousness.

Timing and Consistency:

• Experiment with content distribution timing to reach a broader audience.
• Maintain consistency in messaging and interactions.

User-Friendly Approach:

• Make it easy for users to take action.
• Ensure that your content and products are user-friendly and accessible.

Value-Oriented Content:

• Focus on providing value to your audience.
• Address their needs and interests in your content or products.

Social Sharing Elements:

• Include social sharing buttons and encourage users to share your content.

Collaboration and Cross-Promotion:

• Collaborate with influencers or partners to expand your reach.

Conclusion: Crafting Contagious Content

By following this process, you can significantly increase your chances of creating and promoting content or products that have a higher likelihood of going viral. Remember that achieving virality often requires consistent effort, adaptation, and a deep understanding of your audience's growing preferences and behaviors.

Next Steps

Wondering what to do next, you can do all of:

1. Buy my new book, Leadership Reading: Spilling the Tea on How Top Leaders Read

2. Subscribe to my YouTube Channel

3. Join the Art of Learning Membership Site

4. Download Unlock Your Genius Power Reading Tips Sheet

5. Buy me a cup of coffee!

If you want access to my Bookish Notes, please consider joining my membership site, the Art of Learning.

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