Brainstorm viral ideas

Gone are the days when we generated content that appealed to Google and other search engines. These days, your focus should be on content creation which is helpful and emotionally resonant, that your target audience will benefit from. At that point, they’ll help you spread your message.

Start a content marketing brainstorming session by answering these questions:

• Do you have a trending idea that people will want to know about?
• Is your idea funny?
• Will your idea evoke controversy in your industry?
• Will your idea provoke an emotional response in readers — e.g., pain, pleasure, anger, surprise, etc.?
• Can you add video, an infographic or attention-grabbing images?
• Of the blog posts and articles you’ve already written, which kind typically receive the most social media shares?
• Do your readers prefer short blog posts or longer pieces of content?
• How easily can you connect with industry influencers and ask them to share your content?
• What’s the best day/time to publish your content creation?

Remember that a content marketing strategy with a positive flavor will perform better online. When you consistently elicit positive emotions, people will naturally be attracted to you.

Another approach is to avoid reinventing the wheel. Identify the content writers, website owners and industry bloggers who tend to dominate with every piece of content that they create. Find their best performing articles, then leverage their topics and headline styles to craft something more powerful and enticing.

To find viral content in your industry, follow these two steps:

Step #1: Go to Buzzsumo. Type in your keyword (e.g., “on-page SEO”) and click “Go.”

Step #2: Check your results to find the headlines that got the most social shares.

Buzzsumo shows us that in the past year, the topic “on-page SEO” was extremely popular. Over 10,000 people shared articles about it on Twitter.

Remember that most topics that went viral didn’t explode overnight. The vast majority of them take time to gain traction, which is often sustainable in the long run.

The same virility rule applies to videos and other kinds of content creation. Sustainability is far better than a viral surge that disappears overnight.

Going back to our list of headlines, the next step for an effective content marketing strategy is to model your headline after one of those viral headlines. Study it, then craft a better one:

Original viral headline #1: 5 More Brain Triggers to Drive Conversions on Your Website or Landing Page

Fresh and clickable headlines:

• 15 Powerful Brain Triggers to Drive Conversions on Your Website
• 13 Foolproof Brain Triggers That Will Increase Your Conversion Rate

Original viral headline #2: Illustrated Guide to Advanced On-page Topic Targeting SEO

Fresh and clickable headlines:

• The Definitive Guide to Advanced On-page SEO That Works
• How an Illustrated On-page SEO Guide Will Improve Your Search Rankings

Upworthy uses emotional triggers and a sense of urgency as part of their content marketing strategy to inspire its loyal readers to share links on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Take a look at some recent Upworthy headlines that went viral:

Here’s another example of a successful topic that went viral, from Copyblogger Media.