Content marketing has been a great and effective way to acquire customers. One question that all entrepreneurs ask is how to create viral content. In this Ink Talk, Sattvik Mishra, Scoop Whoop shares his lessons and the thinking that drives stories at ScoopWhoop.
Reality - Not all content goes viral - "while we had some wins, most of them were duds" he recounts. Why do some content go viral?
While traditional media hasn't changed - newspapers, websites, apps are all just versions of what editors want readers to read, content consumption has changed. e.g. While newspapers decide what news to put up on what pages, social media feeds are deciding for consumers what to consume.
News is very subjective - for a millennial a Game of Thrones episode would be a huge thing, while there are people who don't follow it. To be relevant to your targeted audience - you need to listen to know what they are talking about and what they'd like to talk about.
The most important sauce to content - EMOTION - happiness, anger, surprise, fear just anything! - without creating that emotional connect, content doesn't go viral.
e.g. He talks about how ScoopWhoop covered Rupi Kaurs's response to Instagram for removing her photo:
The article questioned notions of patriarchy which evoked anger, disgust - and was read more than 9 Million times.
Only X can write for X - a 20 yr old can't write for 40 yr old nor the other way - which is why diversity in a team is very important.
Make news relatable - Here he share how ScoopWhoop made youngsters read about the budget:
He shares "you can make something as boring as the budget and make it as interesting as the budget if you make it more relatable."
This doesn't mean you could just use the above lessons and continue to make viral content - you need to change and evolve with your audience.