What I learned when one of my articles spread like wildfire: Reflections on a viral post
Originally published in Medium
I’m no different than any other writer out there. I want my words be to be read, commented on, shared, and appreciated. I can’t imagine I’m much different from most writers that way.
That’s why I have a hard time explaining the panic that set in when one of my Tech.co articles started to go viral. (Here it is: Which Universities Produce the Best Startup Talent?)
“Umm, why are THAT many people reading this?”
With most of my posts, I’m generally pretty happy to see that it was shared over 100 times. That’s sort of become my litmus test: 100+ shares = decent post. Hopefully a couple comments show up as well. But this one time, without any warning, my article climbed to more than 15,000 shares, with dozens of comments. And not only did it climb high, but it climbed highquickly. The first 10,000 shares happened within the first week.
Now, I partly knew what I was getting into. The article was written for two reasons: my unrivaled interest in higher education and the fact that I knew it’d get a few more clicks than the average post. People love rankings, especially when they involve something as precious as their alma mater.
Some wins
There were some early indications the post was going to be popular; things started happening that don’t happen for most stories I write.
First, the article was not only shared a lot, but it was shared by accounts with large followings, including by many of the very schools I’d written about.
On Reddit, where I often post my published work, the story did really well on several different subreddits. If there’s one thing I’ve learned the hard way, it’s that Reddit isn’t always very kind to my writing. And Redditers especially hate self-promotion. This one passed the test, though.
Lastly, the man who founded Tech.co tweeted out the story himself. Not bad validation that the company was happy with the direction of the article.
I made mistakes
I’m not going to say I rushed the story out; it took me plenty of time to come up with the concept for ranking the schools, to develop a methodology, and to actually compile the research before even typing my first word. But where I failed was that I didn’t adequately explain my methodology for compiling the schools in enough detail in the article. And with college rankings, that’s bound to rub someone the wrong way. I was consequently blasted in the comments.
For clarification, my methodology used an inverse score quality based on where schools were ranked in the top 25 for computer science related fields in given publications like US News and World Report, LinkedIn and Angellist. So if a school was ranked #1, they’d get 25 points for that ranking, #25 ranking would be 1 point. Then I added up the scores from the various rankings to come up with the final list based on total points. I capped it at 25, because given how few schools would make the final cut, it felt unnecessary to dig for schools listed past 25 in various rankings. The most scientific thing on earth? No. But I’m confident it gave a great general idea which schools were producing the best startup talent?—?and that was the whole idea. Then I divided up the public and the private schools when I published the story.
Reflections
I consider myself lucky to write for great publications in the first place. I was a fan of Tech.co (formerly Tech Cocktail) long before I ever figured on writing for them. Working for technology companies in San Francisco, they’ve been a fantastic resource to learning industry insights. So to have anything I write for them receive traction is a pretty flattering feeling.
The story reminded me to keep a thick skin. The comments came pouring in, and while some were appreciative of the work, many were haters. And that’s OK. It wasn’t entirely bad that the results were debatable. Each one of the rankings I used to compile my list were debatable in their own right. Readers debating your story means that people are engaged with it. It’s good to remember that instead of construing it as sharp criticism; we all need to question what we read. I was trained in college to restrain myself and not respond to criticisms in the comments of my stories, so I let them slide. It’s all part of the process.
Still, there’s also a dirty feeling I get when I think about what I did. I ended up with a Journalism degree, and wanted to be a journalist as early as my sophomore year of high school. But I wasn’t taught to create material so that it would be shared; I was taught to create stories that are compelling, thought provoking, and truthful. There’s an aspiring journalist that dies inside me when one of my main motivations for writing is exposure.
I think about all the professors I had: old school, tried-and-true, tested soldiers of the trade who told me it was worth the $10 they’d collect for the stories they’d write for whatever small town paper in North Dakota that gave them their first start. As long as they got to tell the truth.
“Adapt or die.”
But let’s be real. We don’t live in that world anymore. Our content needs to be sharable. The game has changed and so have the journalists. And for that, I’ll celebrate my wins when I get them.
I’m still pretty surprised the article caught on like it did, and I’m forever grateful for it. I’ve now written one of those stories. The ones I read from social media because one of my friends recommended it. With any luck, it won’t be my last.