By Aaron Couch

With some blogs and videos getting hits in the hundreds of thousands, you’re probably wondering, “how can I get in on the action?” To get your content to go viral, all you have to do is create something so unique and earth-shatteringly interesting, that others will be compelled to share it with their friends. Sounds easy, right?

Okay, maybe it’s not that easy. But, there are ways to improve the likelihood your content will get the adoring attention you’d like it to receive.

Viral content tends to be:

Unique. Content you just can’t get anywhere else.

Easy to understand. Contains writing that connects with people by using a conversational tone and real world stories.

Informative. Full of helpful information or breaking news (especially a good scoop).

Below are more specific ways to increase your content’s viral potential.

The forwarding factor

Create content that will make people want to share it with their friends. Word of mouth is incalculably valuable, and can attract thousands of visitors to your blog or article.

Studies have shown asking your readers to pass your page along greatly increases the chances they will. Encourage your readers to forward your link in an e-mail, and give them the option to add it their facebook or twitter accounts.

And don’t forget to tell your friends about your latest work. “Stuff White People Like” creator Christian Lander insists he never did anything to publicize his funny blog, save for sharing the link with 20 friends when he first launched it. In turn, those friends forwarded the link their friends, and so on. The blog blew up from there, and millions of views and a publishing deal later, the rest is history (watch Landers talk about his blog’s success).

Write for your audience

While it might seem like making the most general, wide-appealing blog or article is the best way to attract visitors, it’s actually better to tailor your content to a specific audience. Make your reader feel like an “insider,” and they’ll be more likely to return and pass on your link.

Are you a parent and a musician giving people a look at what it’s like to raise your children in a tour bus? Do you have a blog chronicling the mishaps and mischief of your overweight cat? Whatever your content is about, find your niche, and run with it!

Just look at the popular series of youtube videos, “Hi I Am Marvel…and I’m a DC.” Using action figures and funny voices, its creator parodies the bickering that goes on behind the scenes of superhero films. While perhaps only funny to those who follow the comic book world, these videos have received over 5 million views, real proof that having a niche is a great way to success.

Link to great websites

It might seem counterproductive to send your readers away, but linking to high quality sites will establish you as someone who can point readers to interesting places. Your article or blog could even be just a list of links. For example, how many aspiring writers do you think have consulted lists of places to be published online?

So maybe there’s no guarantee your blog or article will go viral, but don’t lose heart. With a little work and planning, you just might have the next big thing on your hands—or at least something someone will like enough to share with their friends.

References From CopyBlogger:

5 Steps to Going Viral on Twitter

Viral Marketing With Blogs

5 Social Media Lessons I Learned from Working with a Hollywood Actress

Guest Blogger Aaron Couch is a freelance writer and musician from Kansas City.  He has experience writing and designing press releases, as well as planning publicity campaigns. Check out his band at www.myspace.com/anotherholiday

By Michael Bennett Cohn

In online publishing, one of the most commonly discussed metrics is “engagement,” which usually means “quantity and quality of user comments.” So, if you write a blog post, nobody comments on it, then that’s low engagement. If a hundred people comment on it, then that’s high engagement (assuming they are substantive comments).

Engagement is not necessarily the most important metric in determining the success of a piece of content; just the most obvious one. A brilliant essay may be read by a thousand people, only five of whom leave a comment. Those five people might just happen to have the right combination of characteristics: Interest in the subject, desire to have a personal connection to the author, agitation that their own point of view wasn’t considered, or a sense of responsibility to give public praise, or criticism.

And yet, engagement is the metric most likely to have a real effect on the author. Its presence demonstrates beyond all doubt that another human being, and not just a browser, has processed what was written. Putting something you’ve written online, and then watching the pageview count increase while nobody leaves comments is frustrating and daunting. Sure, people are loading the page, but are they even bothering to read the whole thing? Did they love it so much that they didn’t want to sully the conversation with their banal praise? Did they not understand it? Did they get bored after the first few words, or did they read the entire thing? Did they catch the references? Was the piece even read by the type of people for whom it was written?

There is a time-tested and true way of getting quality comments on one’s own posts:

• Write comments on other people’s posts on the same site. Your fellow writers will appreciate the attention, and repay it by paying more attention to your own stuff. This also creates a snowball effect, wherein the engagement rate on the site as a whole goes up. This is a good thing, even if the majority of the comments on the site were written by other contributors to the same site. That’s because, when a new user, who has no personal ties to the site, sees it for the first time, they are much more likely to get involved and start commenting if they perceive that a lot of other people are already doing so.
• Write comments on other people’s posts on other sites. More and more, comment systems allow the commenter to attach a URL of their choice to their comment. Usually, this URL is where a user will go if they read your comment, want to know more about you, and click on your name. Nobody is more likely to do this than the person who wrote the post on which you’ve just commented. The identities of the people who leave comments may seem random and diverse, but the truth is that many of them are returning the favor I did to them by commenting on their own blog. It happens quite frequently… I leave a comment on a new blog that interests me, and then, less than 24 hours later, ping! There’s a comment on miconian, by that same blogger, thoughtful and respectful, even though the two posts in question are usually on completely different subjects. It’s as if they’re saying: Thank you for validating my existence. I will now repay the favor by validating yours.
• When you do get comments, respond to them, giving the readers the sense that what they have to say matters and is being taken seriously.
• When you comment on others’ posts, say something of substance. This can be difficult. Your time is valuable, and as you struggle to formulate your thoughts, you are simultaneously doing a cost/benefit analysis. Is there really a point to leaving this comment? Will anyone actually read it? Won’t someone else come along and say the same thing that you were planning to say, but better, if you just leave well enough alone? An hour from now, will you even remember this website? And yet, the truth is that, when you bother to go through the trouble of demonstrating that you take another person’s work seriously, you quite often create a fan of your own work. Suddenly, to the person on whose work you have commented, you are no longer just one of a million authors in the abstract. You are an author with a personal connection to the reader. When that person reads your comment, they’re going to wonder who you are, what your story is, how you find your way to their work, and what else you like. They’ll click on your name, go to your blog, and check out your own stuff. Maybe they’ll subscribe to your RSS feed, or start following you on Twitter. And so, when you write something else, and you promote it, they’ll be back to read it again.
• Actively seek out sites that are already popular with your intended audience, and leave comments there. Not only may the popular author bless you with a return comment, but their readership may be intrigued by what you have to say, and follow you back to your own blog.
• Add to the conversation in a genuine way. Saying “I agree with this” or “This really resonated with me” is actually the weakest, least helpful kind of comment, if that’s as far as you get. (Similarly, saying “This sucks” is a waste of everybody’s time, including yours.) Some of the best comment threads I’ve ever seen grew and grew because a few commenters used the original post as a jumping-off point for telling related stories of their own, linking to other work that they’ve been reminded of, etc. And then, best case scenario, commenters start responding to each other. When this happens on a regular basis, the site comes alive in a whole new way. Users start leaving comments on new posts, and those comments are directed at other readers as much as, or more than, they’re directed at the author. A great example of this can be found on every single post on Making Light, where commenters are so eager to engage in a positive and intelligent way with each other that they will do so, by the hundreds, in response to absolutely anything that’s posted.

Engagement has a bit of the prisoner’s dilemma to it: Most relationships start out with both parties feeling cynical, and one person has to actually rise above immediate self-interest. But the biggest fans you get will be the ones who feel like you’re paying attention to them too.

Guest Blogger Michael Bennett Cohn is the Publisher of Revolving Floor, a interactive online literary magazine.