Learnings from going viral

A couple of weeks ago I took the lazy option.

I recycled a slide from a presentation I'd given the week before, a slide I've been using for years, and I quickly and thoughtlessly tossed it as a post on LinkedIn before heading into a client Zoom. (You can see it here. )

An hour later I minimised the Zoom window to see that the post had got some traction, more likes than normal.

(Up till that point, I considered a post getting 30 likes to be a runaway success).

Before too long it started going what I considered to be viral-for-me ...100 likes, then 200 … and still the notifications pinged.

“Look kids”, I said thrusting my phone at them when I got home, “I’ve gone viral on LinkedIn!”

I don’t remember their response - I suspect that’s either because a) my children were savagely underwhelmed at my news or b) I didn’t actually both to listen to them, transfixed instead on refreshing my feed to see that number growing.

You might know that social media feeds are designed to give the user a dopamine hit, a dose of a sweet feel-good chemical flooding the brain.

I’ll put my hand up and say although I was completely aware of what was going on at all times, I was powerless to resist that hit, spending a criminal amount of the hours I have left on this earth checking every 2 minutes to see that number of likes tick ever higher.

500 likes!

700!

One. Thousand. Likes.

Once I got to a thousand I stopped checking, bored.

The novelty had worn off.

At the time of writing, the post has had 1419 likes, 135 comments and a completely mind-boggling-for-me 113K impressions.

Here’s what I learned about what I’m going to consider qualifies as “going viral”, in case it's of use to you:

• I’ve absolutely no idea why that post struck a chord.
• I’m glad I spent time on my profile page about 4 months ago. It still needs a touch up but a LOT of people looked at my profile, and I’m pleased I don’t have to feel embarrassed by it.
• Having a dated image and font made no difference, though I still cringe that I've never thought to update them in all the years that I've used that slide. It's a good reminder to me a) to keep things simple and b) that things don't have to be perfect to get results.
• You get a LOT of connection requests if you have a popular post. Only about one in 30 people will personalise a connection request, and they’re the ones that really stand out.
• Eventually you’ll get a few dickheads in the comments, missing the point of your post entirely and getting wound up over nothing.
• If you're lucky, you'll get lovely supportive comments (and a shout out here to Fiona Fraser who did a beautiful job of gently pointing out that 'Taupō' should have a macron.)
• Social proof plays its part - people who don't normally engage with your posts will happily like your post when there are hundreds of others people also liking it.
• I thought long and hard about my follow up post and it got…. 5 likes. I might have been better not overthinking the post!
• And lastly, I might have to eat my words about social media likes not paying your bills. I have had two complete strangers reach out to ask for help with their marketing. They seem genuine but time will tell.

The whole experience was a fun little insight into what being popular for 5 minutes is like, and I’m pleased I got to see what it’s like from the inside.

How about you? Have you had a taste of going viral? What was your secret?