What Does Viral Mean?

I am sure you have heard a million times the phrase “going viral,” but what does it actually mean? 

What Does Viral Mean?

As a blogger going viral can be a defining moment for a blog. Not only can you get a ton of traffic and more exposure to your blog, but it can help to create more connections and build authority for your brand. Plus, the added benefit of gaining new readers!When something goes viral it technically means that there is a large number of people viewing a specific post, page or video in a short amount of time. The hard part is defining the actual numeric value of going viral. Everyone’s gauge for the amount of people viewing it will widely differ. For your blog, it may mean having a couple thousand people view it in a day while others may say that something went viral when it has millions of views a day.For me, I like to view it as a significant increase in traffic within a short time period, or having a large amount of social shares that is way above normal. The term just means that it went viral or is rapidly spreading across the internet. [bctt tweet="What does viral mean and how can I go viral?"] The important question that you are probably thinking right now is how can I have something go viral? Almost anything can go viral, yay! Here are some similarities that I have found to be common amongst viral content:Evoke Emotional ResponseIn order for people to be compelled to share your post or video you want to evoke some kind of an emotional response. Whether it’s joy, surprise, fear, or anger. Readers are more likely to share your posts when you trigger an emotion.Useful, Valuable or EntertainingYour content needs to be helpful, entertaining, useful, or solve a problem. Within viral posts you will most likely find some kind of advice or action for the reader to take. People are more likely to share when they believe they know something that others do not. Try to solve a common problem or entertain the reader that they will feel the need to share it with their friends and family.Awesome HeadlineCreate a title that is intriguing without giving it all way. Write a headline that is catchy and force the readers to want to click through to your article or video.ShareableAny post that I have seen go viral always has a clear call to action in which the reader can easily share it on their social media accounts. Make sure your social icons are clearly displayed.If you do have something go viral or see a huge increase in traffic, here are a few tips:

• Go back and re-read the post. Every single word. You may have written it years ago when you first started blogging. Is it written well? Anything new you can add? You want to make a good impression on all these new visitors. I know a lot of the posts that I wrote in the beginning are not up to par.
• Check to make sure you have linked to other posts on your blog that are relevant to the post going viral.
• Add in any of your affiliate links to boost revenue.
• Add in a call to action or a link to subscribe to your email list

What does going viral mean to you?