They say the most important thing is the content but it has to be the “Contagious Content” that actually catches on fire. First of all, you need to understand that your target is basically your audience and nothing else. If you want your content to catch on fire then you need to give your audience what lights up their brain.
You see, you need to trigger some sort of emotion on your audience that will help set your content on fire. Every big company knows the secret of making content go viral and it all comes down to the psychology of people.
Either for social media or making products, these techniques will and can apply.
That is the only secret behind making content catch on fire. I am going to tell you the list of reasons why content becomes a contagious content.
Table of Contents
Things that make up a Contagious Content
Not a huge list of things but the main factors that create the sharability or virality of the content are below.
Emotions
Emotions that people feel when they see your content plays a huge role in the virality of your content. Imagine the last time you shared something or you saw people sharing.
Everyone wants to share it with others so that they can also share their emotions. If you see something joyful and you want to send it to your friend because you want them to feel the same.
Some people say that only positive emotions play a key role in the virality or the contagiousness if you will, but I strongly disagree. I think even controversial topics or even negative ones do go viral for all the wrong reasons in most cases.
Emotions that are very popular among the contagious content are:
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Happiness
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Amusement
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Surprising
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Anger
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Scary
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Lust
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Hope
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Sadness
I am not saying you should use all of them while creating your content but you can pick one. Scroll below for examples.
Storytelling
People love stories and it is one of the reasons that most brands tend to make a lot of money and sales by using stories. When you advertise your products with a story, people tend to remember it and it has an impact on the audience.
You can either have a story behind your product or make a story involving your future customers in it.
Sharability
The sharability factor directly impacts your shares. Companies these days care more about the engaging content than it being visual or helpful. When you create contagious content, ask yourself if this is sharable and would you share it?
The key to sharability is trends. Either you set a trend or take advantage of the current trends. The most shared type of content is pictures and videos.
Social Value
You should also keep an eye on the social value or social proof of the person sharing it. Does it make the person who shares it look good?
Content can get shared over and over again if it makes the person sharing it look good. This is one of the reasons that many of the negative content shared a bit lesser than the positive ones. Imagine Coca-Cola posts a picture with its brand with a meaningful message, things like that get shared.
This is why Gucci products get shared as it makes the people who share look good.
Herd mentality
This means going along with the crowd. If everybody is doing it then even you would do it. If it’s a trend and the whole world is doing it then your audience will also do it.
When the whole world is talking about something, if you incorporate it into your brand then it is proven to do well. This is a bit obvious but it’s one of the main factors in contagious content.
Triggers
Triggers and yes emotional triggers aside I am talking about the trigger factor that happens when someone gets. This is more specific to creating triggers that challenge someone and appeals to them.
Anything that challenges the audience to take action. You can combine the emotional trigger with appealing triggers.
Curiosity is also an effective trigger.
Value
Not the social value but the actual value of the content helps even in the marketing. If your content doesn’t contain anything crazy but brutally helpful than it’s a win!
You see, content is the king and it is and it will always be. There’s no denying that and no matter at what age we are in. The helpful content will always help you win.
Examples of Contagious Content
An Example of Social Value that makes someone look good for having the product.
An example of Triggers used in a product.
A great example of Emotion Triggers that create a bonding with the customers and the brand.
Tesla’s example of storytelling.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that you need to be pretty creative while creating contagious content. You can even combine multiple trigger factors to create it and keep in mind not every business is the same.
It works,
These proven principles do work because if it doesn’t then the biggest companies in the world won’t do it.
Feel free to read more about event marketing.
If you need any help from me, you can always reach out to me.
Sources:
https://www.reddit.com/r/marketing/comments/308kqu/75_reallife_examples_of_jonah_bergers_contagious/
