How To Go Viral On Social Media

Here’s how to go viral on most social media...starting with how to go viral on LinkedIn:

Post high-quality interactive content.

Stop focusing upon going viral

Know your audience well.

Be real and be human.

Share personal stories.

Focus upon helping people.

Focus upon becoming a resourceful person.

Build your personal brand.

Compellingly tell your story.

Be honest, vulnerable and genuinely connect with other people.

Optimize your LinkedIn profile and keep it updated.

Make sure your pictures look professional.

Get lots of recommendations and endorsements from your LinkedIn connections.

Build your connections.

Join LinkedIn groups relevant to your niche or your ideal customers, and then connect with people in them.

Do the same with relevant Facebook Groups.

Be consistent in your social media usage.

Create as much content as possible, so that you increase the possibility of one of your posts going viral.

Try to post every single day.

Stay just under the maximum character limit (1300), as LinkedIn favors long posts heavily.

Use spacing to make your posts mobile-friendly.

Write an engaging hook.

Grab the attention of your audience.

Tell a compelling story.

Close off your posts with a Call To Action.

Directly ask your audience to do what you want them to do (like the post, comment) or get them to answer a question you have for them.

Treat everyone as if they are important, because they are.

Partner with influencers.

Leverage these LinkedIn influencers.

Here’s how to go viral on Facebook:

Paying for Facebook advertising to promote content is the easiest way to ensure that your content appears in Facebook newsfeeds.

Invest in paid promotions behind a piece of quality content is a great way to seed it within your community.

Groups are also an opportunity for promoting content but you need to be non-commercial when posting in them.

Strive to make your content so compelling that Facebook users opt in for it in their newsfeeds.

Stories that get pushed up the newsfeed depend upon the source of a post, the type of content, and the level of engagement; namely reactions, shares and comments.

Affinity with the people that you engage with regularly. Is a factor.

Events, recommendations, reviews and check-ins are all ranked highly within networks.

Live video (and video in general) also performs well in the Facebook newsfeed and is prioritized over all other forms of content.

Videos that users search for or return to the platform to watch are also prioritized.

 Episodic and regular programming also works well.

The level of engagement on a post is a strong indicator based on reactions, comments and shares.

Posts with an ongoing comment thread are likely to be bumped back up and into your newsfeed.

Negative signals of any form are usually pushed down and out of the newsfeed.

Posts that are click bait are usually marked as spam.

Baiting involving tags, comments, or reactions, likewise gets marked down in the newsfeed.

Links to low value content also get pushed out.

 Facebook prefers you to serve content on the platform itself.

If you link out, make sure your landing page is substantive, and loads quickly.

Make your stories so valuable that people want to see them first.

Posts from brand pages are set to be set back to zero.

Paid promotion instead is required.

Meaningful conversations and discussions that keep people coming back will be prioritized in the newsfeed and often keep surfacing up top.

Seeking recommendations, events, reviews and check-ins are also strong signals.

Stress social purpose!

Brands that listen to users and create meaningful content and conversations shall rise up the newsfeed.

Optimize your marketing and public relations efforts for word of mouth and social sharing.

Get personal! Post on your profile about: a birthday; a job promotion; yours or your child's wedding; your newborn baby; family high school or college graduations; an anniversary; other personal achievements or milestones.

Here’s how to go viral on Twitter:

Brand yourself as an authority and expert.

Appeal to emotions.

Use great timing (mid-morning or mid-afternoon or when your topic is trending).

Grow your Twitter followers.

Be very kind to them.

Follow others, but also ask others to follow you.

Include links to your Twitter page in all your communications, including your business cards, and in emails you send out.

Use personal words like “you” and “yours.”

Also use unusual words to grab people’s attention.

Select your words carefully.

Strive to stand out and appeal to your followers.

Ask for people to retweet.

Include in your tweets a link to your site or blog.

Ask people to share your posts.

Thank them for doing so via a-reply.

Always post compelling high-quality content.

Share articles, discounts, coupons, and website content your followers are likely to care about.

Be sure to only tweet about quality content.

Produce consistently high-quality content and share it freely.

Keep tweeting good content. Be patient. Going viral generally won’t happen overnight.

Determine that you will tweet a certain number of times a day each day.

Use compelling images.

Try to tweet at optimal times.

Use 1-2 #hashtags per tweet!

Make them #obvious hashtags that are simple and straightforward.

Say please when requesting anything.

Use tweet links because readers are willing to retweet content that points to useful and entertaining information from around the Internet.

Keeping your tweet at around 100 characters and not longer.

Never abuse your followers.

Instead, lead them.

Only ask them to ReTweet your best content.

Tweet at your followers at the most active times.

Write compelling and contagious headlines.

For more clickable headlines, get right to the point.

Longer Twitter posts often get more clicks than shorter posts.

Hire a public relations expert & social media advisor to advise, guide & inspire you.

P.S. What would YOU add to this?

The author, Dr. John B. Charnay, CEO of Charnay and Associates in Greater Los Angeles, is a leading and award-winning public relations expert and advisor...and a top social media advisor. He has been a strategic PR advisor to many famous celebrities and Fortune 1000 CEOs. He has extensive experience teaching at the graduate and undergraduate levels at leading universities throughout the greater Los Angeles area, including USC, UCLA, CSUN, FIDM, Woodbury and Pepperdine. To meet him and ask for his support, invite him to be LinkedIn (email in profile) and contact him today!