How to Go Viral With Your Blog

Just received an email from a customer.  He builds decks, and he wrote:

I am trying to get my friends to “like” and “share” the home page on our website.  What is the best way to do this?

My response:

Rather than focusing on your homepage, I think your best bet is to write more blogs that help people — with headlines that get attention. The blog on your site has tools like Facebook share buttons to help them spread a little faster.  Here’s one quick, free headline idea off the top of my head, which I could see spreading virally through social media…

Deadly Decks: 5 things to check to keep your family safe this summer

This headline could be effective for a few reasons:

• It’s timely — it mentions “this summer” and everybody is currently spending time on their decks
• It’s specific & practical — your article should give people a specific # of things (not necessarily 5) to check to prove the value of the article.  The fact that you’re giving them action steps makes it practical.
• It’s personal — words like “deadly” and “your family” are both mentioned.  You can quickly abuse and overuse this strategy, but it has the ingredients for a viral headline that people will share to help their friends stay safe.  I’ve seen the examples you’ve shown of poorly-built 2-story decks, so I don’t think this headline is exaggerating.
  

Once written, you email all your friends on Facebook with a link, and encourage them to “Share” it with their friends & family.  Keep in mind that this headline will draw a lot of clicks from your friends initially, but people will only continue to share it if it’s a really good article.  Not long… just good. 

Make sure your article is easy to read, and really delivers on the promises in the headline.  It’s best to lead off with a few sentences about why the tips in your article are worth their time to read.  Also include an image in your story, which will help it get more clicks through social media. At the end of the article, don’t be afraid to ask readers to share it with their family and friends.

Hopefully this helps get your creative juices flowing about ways to get more people sharing posts from YOUR website. 

Keeping with the theme… if this article could be helpful to your friends, please share it or link to it!