How To Go Viral With Social Media In 2022

How To Go Viral With Social Media In 2022

For most social media content creators, going viral is a huge dream. Having your content watched by millions upon millions of people, endlessly shared and constantly quoted, shows that you’ve made it (although there’s always the pressure to create a followup hit, of course). There’s no doubt that most content creators would kill for the chance to go viral.

However, doing so is not easy. If it was, then everyone would have their fifteen minutes of fame on social media, but it just doesn’t work that way. Creating a post that goes viral involves lots of rules and different conditions; there’s no hard and fast rule for going viral, but there are certainly ways you can try to influence whether it happens or not. Here’s how you can try and go viral with social media in 2022.

Get a big following

You’ll be exponentially improving your chances of going viral with your content if you have lots of followers. It stands to reason; the more people that see your content, the more likely it is to be shared, thus increasing its chances of going viral (which, in the end, does only mean that lots of people see it and share it). There are lots of ways that you can amass followers. By posting at the right times, judging your content well, and always making sure to engage, you can try to increase followers, but you can also use services like SocialFollowersFree, which can often make the whole process of gaining followers much easier.

Try to anticipate trends

It’s easy to say “try to anticipate trends” when it comes to going viral on social media; after all, anticipating trends and being able to create new ones is exactly what makes viral hits. Still, it’s something you should be trying to do if you want to go viral. Keep an eye on trends that seem to be up and coming on whatever social media platform you’re using. Watch closely and see if you can see hashtags increasing in relevance and number; if you do, you might be about to see a trend explode, so try and get in on the ground floor with your content. Make videos, post tweets, or share images themed around that trend or that hashtag.

Make people feel something

Stories often go viral when they appeal to certain kinds of emotion. While it’s true that viral stories can sometimes play on anger or fear, it’s much better if you manage to get your story to go viral by eliciting hope or optimism in your viewers. Stories about resilience in the face of adversity, overcoming overwhelming odds, or heartfelt emotional moments between family members (or even animals!) have a much higher chance of going viral than other kinds of content. If you’re ever tempted to prey on fear or negative emotions for your viral content, just remember that you still have a reputation to protect for the future.

Be funny

Another way to try and ensure that your content goes viral is to inject it with humour. People are much more likely to share funny jokes and memes they see on social media, so try to make humorous content. This goes double for platforms like TikTok, where funny videos make it a lot further than other kinds of content do. In fact, when people are sceptical about TikTok, others often use funny videos to try and convert them, so your video could even end up being the one shown to someone who “just doesn’t get” the platform. Make your content funny and you stand a much better chance of it being shared far and wide.

Don’t force it

No matter what you do, be sure not to try and force your content to go viral. When businesses attempt to create viral campaigns for their advertising without actually considering the quality of the content, this is called “astroturfing”, and it can backfire spectacularly. While you may be frustrated that your content isn’t going viral, trying to ensure that it does by exploiting certain loopholes or imploring followers to make the video viral is only going to hurt your chances in the long term, and it will certainly scupper your chances of creating more than one viral hit. In the end, your video going viral is based on luck, so there’s a lot of hoping and waiting involved.

Keep it simple

Viral content is usually short, sweet, and simple. Unless the video, post, or image in question goes viral specifically due to its complexity, you’ll usually find that short, bite-sized content stands a better chance of going viral. This is because more people can consume and understand it within a shorter space of time; people will read, laugh, and send, rather than spending a lengthy amount of time trying to figure out exactly what you’ve written or created. No matter which platform you’re posting on (unless it’s Facebook, where longer-form content can also sometimes go viral), remember the golden rule: keep it short and keep it simple.

Research your demographics

In order to create viral content, you’re going to need to start thinking like a brand (because, if your video goes viral, that’s essentially what you are). That means researching and understanding your core demographic. Each viral video that’s been popular in the last decade or two has had a demographic to which it appeals the most. Think about what kind of content you’re trying to make. Who would be best disposed to consume it? While astroturfing isn’t a good idea, that doesn’t mean you can’t target your content at the people who are most likely to enjoy it, so use built-in social media analytics tools to understand who you appeal to and how you can take advantage of that.