Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Go VIRAL

How can you make your blog/tweets/Instagram/site/whatever catch on?



As one who has never had a post take over the Internet by storm, (or as they call it, go viral, which sounds ominously sickening) I can’t speak from experience. I’m an observer, just like you.


I find there are three kinds of posts that sometimes (but statistically rarely) catch massive attention.


The first are inspirational yes-we-can and never-give-up and the-best-is-yet-to-come sort of posts. When written with passion and conviction, (and especially from experience) they are needed and wanted and— let’s face it— like water on parched earth. I save, disseminate, and re-read these.


The second are the things-are-so-hard-right-now and I-could-use-your-support for-the-challenges-I’m/my friend/someone I know-is- facing and feeling-overwhelmed sorts of posts. If the story is told well and from a place that feels authentic, our empathetic nature just gravitates to disseminate these and try to enlist help.


The third sorts that catch attention are the mysterious, impossible to explain. At least I can’t. These are the nonsensical-peculiar and can-you-please watch-this-because-it-is-intriguing/amusing/or I don’t know what and what-the----?!?
Example of such is here.


The third kind of viral posts exemplify why no one can reliably plan an economy, or predict the future, or answer the ultimate matter of why we are here with complete accuracy.



And these third viral kinds of posts are the most interesting to me. Even though most are strangely inane, I continue to marvel at what our species will deem worth our while.

10 comments:

Vijaya said...

Interesting thoughts Mirka. I'm such a sucker for cute animal pictures doing cute things or even just sleeping. LOL. I've only had one post that reached a lot of people and that's Love Story because it got picked up by New Advent. It was certainly thrilling! Esp. since I was up late rambling and hit Publish.

Mirka Breen said...

So is one to conclude that rambling and hitting "Publish' is the way? ;)

Kelly Hashway said...

Remember that whole "What color is the dress?" post that went viral? It was so stupid, yet everyone saw it, shared it, and chimed in to debate the color.

Kelly Hashway said...

Maybe I'll try a "What color is my book cover?" post. ;)

Mirka Breen said...

Just as an E-experiment it might be worth it. But the no-rhyme-or-reason ones do not repeat, I think.

Mirka Breen said...

:P

Vijaya said...

Haha! My inner editor is apparently turned off at 10 pm.

Barbara Etlin said...

LIke Vijaya, I love funny animal videos. The most recent one I retweeted was a lackadaisical beagle who was supposed to be exercising on a dog treadmill. He sat and pawed at it, giving the occasional yawn.

I had one blog post that was inadvertently very popular. It was a non-review of a Shakespearean play I had seen and refused to review because it was a preview (and I hoped that the flaws would be ironed out.) Merely mentioning the theatre and the play was enough to make lots of people (or bots) take notice!

Mirka Breen said...

I forgot about the cute animals behaving like themselves videos. If I counted the number of times I watched these I would run out of numbers.

Anonymous said...

I can usually skip most of the animal videos, but I can't always keep from clicking on the talent show ones, where an unknown singer knocks the socks off the judges. :) As for my own posts, I think my shy guard is often on when I type them, whereas people who really put themselves out there seem to gain a lot of interest.