Grow 1%: Essence of Your Virality

Pick one of these newsletters every day, spend 2 minutes reading and 8 minutes implementing the lesson (1% of your waking day) and your socials will get 1% better.

Don't buy growth hacking classes. Save your money. Do this instead.

Why did they love you in the first place?

When you start posting regularly on a social media platform, your growth won't be linear.

This is obvious.

Some pieces of content will do better than others.

And, more importantly, some content will drive a more desired behavior than other content, like a 'like', a comment, or a follow.

Then there are moments when you go 'viral' and you'll double, quadruple, or 10x your followers from a single post.

And as social media experts, we now know three things about your shiny new subscriber base:

1. Something resonated about that post that made your fanbase want to see more of that resonate factor.
2. They're 'new', so they are not habituated to viewing your content yet and therefore are easy to lose.
3. The only preconceived notion they have of you existed within that post. The scope of your brand in their mind is extremely limited.

Choosing a viral example is just an easy way to contextualize this phenomenon. This is true with any new fan.

And is equally true if you have a back catalogue piece of content that continues to drive most of your new followers, which happens a shocking amount of the time (particularly on YouTube).

So how do you make sure these fans stick?

Dissect that post deeply, distill what made the post work, and continue to serve the essence of that post in subsequent content.

For example, if you're a toy unboxer and a Nerf gun review hits, you're probably going to want to do a lot more Nerf gun videos to keep that audience happy.

And if that video was the first time you took the toy to your backyard and tried it out, you'll probably want to do a lot more backyard trials.

And if the tone was 'sillier' than your usual fare, that may be something to lean into.

Warning: don't lean in so hard that you stop evolving. You still want to follow the 'Reach in / Reach out' rule.

But by doing this viral analysis, you can keep new fans hanging on, define your brand, and help you understand why certain content works.

My challenge for you: find your best performing post of all time, think hard about why it may have worked, and try to replicate some of those lessons on today's post.

That took 2 minutes. You have 8 minutes left. Go use your System 2 thinking and grow 1% right now!

Thank you to our sponsor BrandArmy!

About the Author

Phil Ranta, is the COO of?We Are Verified, a digital talent management and influencer marketing company. A?2021 LinkedIn Top Voice in Innovation & Tech, Phil has been creating content for the internet and building internet businesses professionally for nearly 20 years, starting on MySpace and riding trends to the present. He was the Head of Gaming Creators, North America at Facebook, the first network lead at Fullscreen, the COO at Studio71, and spent 10 years as a working comedian (including 2 years on cruise ships). He's a husband, a dad of two littles, and an insufferable digital media wonk.

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