Everyone wants their content to go viral, right? Why else would we spend hours and hours working on blog posts, creating infographics and crafting engaging messages on your social media accounts? We want people to read it.
There is a big difference between creating content and creating engaging content that people want to read and share with their friends online. If you are not getting the results you want from your content development plan and failing to get the far reaching exposure that will expand your brands online presence, then you need to make a change.
Unfortunately, creating great content does not necessarily mean that it will go viral. There are a number of key reasons why your content is not going viral.
The following points bring to light some of the most common mistakes that professional and novice content creators make when creating online content:
- Your content lacks an emotional connection: Tapping into your readers emotions is essential. People love content that appeals to their emotions, especially when you tap into problem areas and offer viable solutions. Start by using emotional words and phrases in the title of your blog post or video and try using a basic problem/solution style in the body of your post.
- Your content is not inherently shareable: One of the biggest mistakes that people make that prevents their content from going viral is that they create non-sharable content. This is why it's viral to understand your audience and tap into their interests. Write about topics they want to read about, be current, tell a story and provide the information your audience is searching for online.
- Your timing is off: Timing is everything. For example, no one cares about romantic date ideas to sweep your sweetheart off their feet on Valentine's Day if it's posted on February 15th. This is important for everything you post. When you post is also very important -- look into the times and days of the week when your content is most likely to share, and create a timeline that will help you maximize the impact of your content.
- Your content is not visually appealing: Looks matter! Your content needs to look the part. The design needs to look professional, have attention grabbing elements and be visually appealing to your audience.
- You are not sharing on the right social channels: If you want your content to go viral, you need to not only share it on the correct social channels online, you also need to tap into the audience that is interested in reading and sharing your content. Think about your connections. Do you know any friends, family or colleagues that have influence in a topic area? Is there a particular social media channel that is intuitive for the type of content you want to share?
Rectifying these issues to better position your content will help you reach a wider audience -- an audience that is looking for and actually wants to read your content.