Get ready for viral success by doing this: 6 steps to follow before your stats go boom!
Ok, so you have done your best niche research, created great and engaging content catered to all the most pressing needs of your digital audience and have been building, step by step, every important aspect of your business.
Hey, no time to lose when you are working online to reach the life or your dreams, right?
Then, suddenly, you get struck with a lightning bolt, one of those rare occurrences that every digital creator or blogger ever dream of: your content goes viral.
My God. The rush of emotions, the thrill of getting, suddenly, feedback and attentive eyes from all over the internet. It’s a seminal moment in the life of any content creator that immerses himself into the depths of building an online presence as rich and as fruitful as the vision inside their minds.
The numbers are rocketing up, comment section or notifications going above the tens as that work, that resulted from so much planning, dedication and pleasure, finally gets its worth in terms of visibility.
Hundreds, thousands, millions of views, likes or page views can change a life, and you’ve heard of all those stories before. It’s finally your turn to reap at least a bit of the benefits of this whole interconnected global system that has us together, for better of for worst.
Getting here was painful, laborious, challenging, you have almost given up several times. The digital sun has shined. I’ll never forget this feeling.
For digital living entrepreneurs though, going viral once, twice, every week, is a very important achievement – how many of your colleagues in this business doesn’t strive for this – but it’s hardly a goal in itself, especially if your income depends specifically on what you present to the world.
Going viral, with all of its challenges, expertise and trial and error stages, is a bridge to an even better endpoint: a surge of sales, of connections that will be developed into bigger business, of lasting digital acquaintances that will keep on coming back to your profile or platform after the big rush.
For creators whose income is completely connected to performance, just the way that I like it, without being dependent of external mechanisms, social façades or shady practices, going viral is a crucial opportunity to escalate the next action your viewers will take.
Is it a digital product that you sell you want to explode? Is it new followers or subscribers you are going after? Are you using online platforms to make your creative or technical skill know? No matter the endgame, a big boost on visibility should work in your favor, to actually generate leads, fruitful interactions, sales or popularity benchmarks.
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If you are not ready to go viral, all you have left after a booming push is views. As interesting as that can sound, I’m sure the residual feeling after the big, big wave crashes will be of disappointment for not being ready enough to surf its tide.
And that, my friend, is what you will find here: an extended checklist to go through so you make sure you are ready to make the best of such a great situation!
On the following topics, you will review every checkpoint worth paying attention to when it comes to your digital presence so you’ll guarantee extra points when it comes to visitors or followers feedback, interaction or acquisition when your content pops off.
Are you ready to make progress? Let’s get into it!
Fully present yourself
One of the most important things you need to have in check is the way you present yourself, your work or your expertise from you social leads. After all, that is what we are actually doing all the time, isn’t it?
It hits differently though when one of your posts or videos go viral. Once you get people’s attention, you need to have everything ready for them to easily get to know you, what you do and what you have to offer in a way that is direct, rich of information and easy to access.
Don’t expect your new found audience to dive into the depths of your landing page, website or profile to find what they want. If it’s not in hand, showed, reinforced or presented in the most optimized version (according to your needs and goals), they won’t really waste time looking for it.
Aside from having all the information available, you also need to keep taking care of it, updating it, renewing values, products and offers as you go along… there’s only a few things worse online than finding old information as you search for the next step of an engaging journey.
PRACTICAL STEPS
Build a efficient landing page according to your needs and goals.
Online resources for that:
Keep your information in check and updated so you won’t look lazy online.
Online resources for that:
Design your landing page, website or digital product with ease and direct information in mind.
Online resources for that:
Define you best interaction
I know there is a lot of things you wish you new audience would do after they find out about you from a viral post. You want them to get to know what you do, to stablish a recurrent connection by following or subscribing to your content, to get their hands (physical or digital) on what you have to offer, to enlist you for a service you provide and they need… the list is endless according to your segment, niche or area of interest.
Unfortunately, after a content goes viral, you don’t have much time to ask all of this from them. It feels more efficient at this point to pick ONE CRUCIAL ACTION you’d like them to take once your stats explode with a little help of algorithmic push.
What do you want all this people to do first? I’m not here to judge your choice, you should be able to answer this question the best way out of your own research or experience. You want them to buy your product from the get go? Do you want to keep them around for longer than the viral content cycle? Do you want them to share this popular content along? What works better for you at this point?
Once you have answered this (and you, of course, can adapt whatever you choose over time), it gets easier to make decisions related to these other topics you see around. For example: if you want them to instantly buy something, don’t waste screen space telling your story, make it about the benefits and great results they will get from your product along with an efficient “BUY NOW” button or link.
Remember this: after your profile explodes in views and reach, you don’t have much time to either prepare for its results or to analyse or build whatever it is you find will be useful. You need to have answers, materials, resources in hand to put them to work as fast as you can. And how do you start to build this collection of tools? By fully understand each and every step of what it takes to get your goal.
It sounds over complicated to explain this, but I have a feeling you can understand its pressing importance.
PRACTICAL STEPS
Study what is the most efficient response you can get from your audience to prepare for a boost in reach and engagement.
Online resources for that:
- Insights and analytics stats from social media services
- Google Analytics
Build a landing resource, be it a page, a site, a shop or a form, accordingly.
Online resources for that:
Simplify input methods and users’ journeys
As mentioned before, you won’t have much time to build upon the new-found success of a viral post, video or content. Usually, it comes in waves of duration, from the moment the content gets boosted ‘til it fades out, and the audience interest in what you have to offer feels as explosive as short-spanned.
Once you have all the content figured out to the format that works best to your project, be it physical, a service or digital, you should implement an optimised (and usually very short and practical) version of it to make it work as efficiently as your audience views.
As you reframe your copy and complete content, think about optimising its flow to answer the most pressing questions your new visitors might have first: who you are, what you do, how beneficial it can be to them and how to get it.
I’m assuming a lot by summing it up to this pattern, but feel free to rearrange this format the best way it can suit your own activities.
Though menus, bio links, external linking to social media and contact forms and platforms are useful, they are typically used by your “regular” audience, not the one coming from a huge rush of viral explosion.
If this works for you, try to put everything that feels secondary to making the best of an overflowing situation in the background. As you go viral, your focus should be getting the best and the most of very few activities.
PRACTICAL STEPS
If your digital platform allows this, try creating a landing page gathering all of this quick shot tools separate from your main and habitual point of entrance so you can easily switch up as some of your specific content goes viral.
Online resources to do that:
For landing pages…
For extra linking pages and forms…
Read more…
The more information, the better (just maybe not at once)
I know, I know… I have been telling you to optimise and remove any excess of content from that high impact first page that your new visitors will access, but it sincerely goes both ways, and for two different reasons.
First, you need to make sure all the information your new user needs is available easily from your viral post that went boom! That means making it easy to read, yes, but also keeping it very complete in terms of anything that might help you succeed on your goal, be it a sale, a subscription or a contact lead.
So, optimising content doesn’t necessarily mean removing it all from the main landing page, website or link in bio. It means leaving everything that’s essential for a successful conversion journey.
Second, you can remove “excessive” content from the first impact page that will hit your fresh audience, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be useful in the longer run. Keeping a link to a full presentation, tutorial, FAQ, guide or brochure available for the audience that is coming in hot is also a very useful tool to keep at hand.
You never know: maybe a part of the whole rush of new visitors will actually be involved with your story and will want to connect in deeper ways with what you do or with your profile. In that case, you have to be prepared to present as much information as the user needs to guarantee a seamless experience and improve your chances of finishing the deal.
PRACTICAL STEPS
Link to PDF presentations, to a complete website or blog that details each part of your work, to a full FAQ guide that answers all of the user’s questions to make the best of an active new follower or viewer.
Online resources to do that:
Don’t bypass your branding
As you fine tune your online presence, there’s another aspect that deserves your attention and that should be present at every decision you make about it: your brand values.
Branding is how you communicate the vision you have for your endeavor to be read in between the lines, that is, in between every aspect of the content and the material that you share.
It speaks to the bigger picture, to the set of patterns and choices that will guide everything that has your imprint on: core values, stylistic choices, lasting impressions, design identity, feelings that you want to project into your visitor or viewer, pillars that give your mission stability, confidence, support and foundation.
Branding choices should be above this set of tools I’m sharing that are useful for your online project when an specific aspect of it goes viral. Ideally, you have built your entire operation, be it physical or digital, around big themes that inspire, guide and consolidate your work online.
When it comes to the response to a viral situation, it is important to make sure every aspect you want to develop as a brand is also displayed in your material, tools and resources that a new visitor will see once it reaches you by the success of a video, a photo or an article.
It’s more than just aesthetics or written words. Branding should guide every single decision you make about your venture so that it can communicate the exact vision you have and also leave an everlasting impression on every one that gets in touch with you or your brand.
It’s an evolving process, and you may find yourself in different stages of branding development, but make sure that each one of these topics that came before this are aligned to a bigger picture, to how you want to present yourself and to be read by your new found audience.
When developed with intention, branding becomes an extra, and even untouchable tool to expand on the connection between yourself, what you do and who you want do reach. Don’t take this for granted!
PRACTICAL STEPS
Researching and learning about branding is the most valuable tool to build a strong and valuable brand online.
Online tools to do that:
- Amazon, blogs and social media profiles dedicated to the topic
- Inspiring brands that you follow as extra source of ideas
- Udemy for great and cheap online courses on branding
Check your links
From a more theoretical place to a very practical one: no strategy will work if you don’t make sure all the ways to access them are working.
It might sound basic as ****, but please make sure every single hyperlink you use on your social profiles, on your landing pages and on your blog or website that relates to building a bridge between new users/viewers and benchmarks are working.
If you have checked them already, please make sure to check them again. I can’t even put into words how many stories I have heard about missed opportunities for viral content that didn’t extend to fruitful connections, sales or subscriptions because of faulty links.
Sounds like bad luck, but it’s way more common than you think.
You become so focused on creating content, landing pages, blog posts, videos, multimedia presentations, checklists, selling pages, marketing campaigns… that sometimes what gets you the most trouble is a wrong or a faulting link from your social media profile or multimedia platform to your online store or front page.
Check this…
PRACTICAL STEPS
There’s not much you can do to bypass this step: make sure all the most important links from your social media or platform accounts are working, updated and acting out according to the best user experience you can get.
Online tools that you can use to improve this:
That’s it for our practical guide! I hope this checklist will help you guarantee the best results that you can when luck and hard work finally reaches that perfect combination and turn your content, your post or your video a viral success!
Do you have any question about any of these steps? Please feel free to reach me at my Patreon profile and check out every available slot for direct consultation!
I wish you all the success on your online journey!
