How Does Viral Marketing Create Viral Articles?

Viral Marketing Rocks!! But how do you create articles that spread like a virus? The very term viral means something that spreads like a disease! Internet Marketers use viral marketing to describe what Social Media Creates. Traffic! So how does a virus spread?

Disease can spread from one person “sharing it” with another. It can be spread through simply breathing the air (word of mouth) in a room where someone “sharing” the disease (idea) is talking. But, it’s NOT just the contact. The person contacted must “be susceptible (interested) to the disease”, and the disease must be highly contagious.

Now the question becomes, “What makes a person susceptible to an article?” “How do we create highly contagious articles”, and “What can we do to help them spread like a virus?”

1. Extreme interest in any subject forces an individual to read every article they can find on that subject. That means the logical 1^st step to creating viral articles is in finding subjects that a lot of people are interested in.
2. Finding the best keyword associated with that subject is of paramount importance. Since key words are the words people use to look up everything they are interested in, then once you’ve found out what is of interest, you must use the best words that are searched frequently.
3. Instantly capturing attention from the start, and keeping it to the end, is a must! People share what grabs them and holds them through to the last word.
4. Incredible content is the key to holding interest! Creating unique, interesting, and valuable content on a subject that interests a large group of people will guarantee that it will be shared, and the larger the group the faster the article goes viral.
5. Promote, promote, promote! Producing and posting your article should take just 30 – 40% of the total time you spend on the article. 60 – 70% of your time should be spent promoting it for free (at least the free part is what I’m showing you).

The 5 key Viral Marketing elements above need a bit of explaination to bring them to life! That’s why I included THIS LINK to an actual fact filled completed example that is packed with screen shots giving you proven results that you can duplicate!

Extreme Interest

The other day I was bored, and so I started playing a game that came with my computer, a Windows 7 software freebie. It’s Mahjong Titans, an electronic Mahjong Solitaire version of the ancient Chinese game called Mahjong.

The problem I soon ran into was the fact that I had no idea how the game scored, or even how the different Tiles that are used in the game were valued. So, I did a Google search, and to my surprise I couldn’t find anything that gave me an in depth explanation of the scoring for the game.

That is when the light bulb lit up on BRIGHT!

Time to do some research!

Windows 7 managed to sell 240 million copies by the time it was a year old. On September 13th, 2011Microsoft announced that, since its launch in October 09′, 450 million Windows 7 copies had been sold. But they hadn’t bother to provide a good set of rules to the Mahjong Titans game.

That’s 450 million people who have the Mahjong Titans game & are trying to play without proper instructions. That means a good number of them are searching for instructions, just like I was.

Now, I’m getting excited! In my google search I had found an Ask.com question from a lady asking if anyone knew how the game was scored. No one was able to tell her. Time to solve the problem!

That is when I determined to find out for myself exactly how it works, and to publish instructions for the game. THINK ABOUT IT! 450 million people! And it’s a game that I’m doing research on! How hard can that be? It was a lot of fun!

This is a very good example of A High Volume – Extreme Interest Subject!

…&

I found it by accident, Right?

You could say that, but the fact that I’m always looking for Extreme Interest Subjects for Viral Marketing made it impossible to miss. Once you begin to recognize them, they will begin to hit you square in the face on a regular basis. Let’s take a look at how this played out.

Finding The Best Keywords

In this case, finding the best keyword (KW) was easy. I started with the name of the game, (no brainer) and searched it using my Traffic Travis KW tool. It quickly showed me that “Mahjong Solitaire” got more searches than “Mahjong Titans” did.

You can see (in the dark blue box below) that I actually searched the name of the Microsoft version of the game, but (in the green box) the single KW “Mahjong” gets 820,000 searches per month (S/M), and that the competition is Low at only 3%! Sweet Deal!

I only concern myself with the “U.S. Count” (in the yellow box), but any global searches that end up at my site are certainly welcomed. It is also important to Viral Marketing that we don’t ignore other KW’s that are searched! We should use them ALL somewhere in our article, so that we can include them in the SEO TAGS section. (More on that in a minute.)

You can see (in the pink box) that “Mahjong Solitaire” gets 22,200 S/M (low competition 13%), and “Mahjong Titans” (Lt. Blue Box) gets 14,800 S/M (low competition 19%).

Here’s What’s Interesting About This KW Search!

It is very rare that you find the competition lower on the KW’s that are searched the most for any given subject! Take advantage of that whenever you find it. Part of this presentation explains why I don’t depend upon search engine page rank (PR) to get my traffic.

The main reason is that it just takes too long, and it takes too much work to rank high in the search engines. I don’t have that much time! This is the newest of all my sites & I want traffic NOW! If I had to wait for my Google PR to rank me high enough to make the front page (based upon most of my KW’s) I’d go broke!

Instead, I focus all my efforts on getting free traffic as fast as I can, (to each article) and that’s why my focus is on creating articles that go viral! When the search engines see that my site is getting loads of traffic they will raise my rank automatically. That’s why PR doesn’t concern me.

Instantly Capture Attention

There are many ways to capture attention and hold it.

1. The title, must be descriptive and on topic. It must grab the interest or the article won’t get opened to begin with. If you aren’t interested in Viral Marketing, or if you don’t know what it is, you most likely will never read this article.

2. Pictures capture the eye, and that captures the readers attention. Using screen shots to illustrate a point continues to keep that interest. Check out THIS ARTICLE about Guerrilla Marketing & Social Media. It’s all about the “SHOCK VALUE” photography can have to capture a readers attention.

3. Bold Statements instantly grab your attention. Either you are wondering why the statement was made, or are wanting to know what is meant by it. In either case, it got your attention.

4. Ask Questions. Questions force the mind to focus on the subject. Using questions frequently throughout your articles forces the reader to constantly re-focus on the subject. Questions are an excellent subliminal way to create interest in the information that’s inside the article, causing the reader to want to continue on to find the answer.

5. Tasteful Highlights. Using bold, italicized, & colored text (tastefully) does two things. First, it allows you to draw the eye to important points that you want to be certain are not skipped over.

   Highlights also allow the reader to quickly find points of interest and speed read an article. Use them to aid in navigating the article. It makes the article more appealing to the readers eye. Many readers are lost simply because the article doesn’t have “eye appeal”.

6. Tell stories. If you can give the same boring facts in story form your chances of keeping the readers interest are much greater. The story I’m telling you right now happens to be true, but it is the story of how the life of a viral article was conceived, developed and grew!

Incredible Content

In Viral Marketing the very best content entertains while providing solutions, entertains while solving problems, and entertains while sharing information. It’s human nature to want to enjoy everything we do.

Promotion is 80% of your success…

Since the above statement is fact, this section is the most important of everything this article talks about! I’m about to share my personal Social Media Promotional Program. Once you’ve seen what I do and how I do it, you will be able to easily duplicate it with equal or better results.

It’s A Routine!

Below is the actual form I use to “check off” or “keep records” of the promotion of EVERY ARTICLE I POST!

Article Tracking – MASTER COPY

Video Opt In URL: http://127.0.0.1/donhall2nd/free-video-opt-in

Posted on http://127.0.0.1/donhall2nd/ site and pinged – on date here – DONE

Added to Webmaster tools tracking – on date here – DONE

Title: (Example) Best Blog Sites Review – Alexa Ranked – August I, 2013

URL: http://127.0.0.1/donhall2nd/reviews/best-blog-sites-review-alexa-ranked-august-1-2013-2

SEO Description: (Example)

We joined ALL the Best Blog Sites to privide you with “Insider’s Screen Shots” of Navigation Bars, Writer’s Tool Bars & much more. Top 10 + 1 Alexa ranked..

TAGS: best blog sites,top blog sites,top 10,alexa ranked,alexa traffic rank,alexa global traffic rank,writing platforms,August 1^st 2013,2013,wordpress

Promoting ArticlesTo Do List. mark – DONE when completed

1. Post article – (date here)
2. Ping it – (date here)

2. Add it to Webmaster Google list individually – (date here)
3. Share on Twitter, Digg, G+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Stumble – (date here)
4. Repurpose Post it to at least two Doc sites – (date here)
5. If Video is made, post it to YouTube & other sites / Promote it – (date here)
6. Comment on forums & backlink/minimum 3-5 – (date here)

Social Notifications: mark – DONE when completed

Facebook – (date here)

Twitter – (date here)

Google + – (date here)

LinkedIn – (date here)

Digg – (date here)

Stumbleupon.com – (date here)

Pintrest – (date here)

Article posted on Doc sites:

Date posted: (Site) – (date here) Pinged – (date here)

Site/URL:

Date posted: (Site) – (date here) Pinged – (date here)

Site/URL:

Video posted on Video sites:

Date posted: On YouTube – (date here) Pinged – (date here)

Site/URL:

Date posted: (Site) – (date here) Pinged – (date here)

Site/URL:

Date posted: (Site) – (date here) Pinged – (date here)

Site/URL:

links not live

Forums with backlinks:

Date posted: – (date here) Live backlink PR

URL: Pinged – (date here)

Date posted: – (date here)Live BacklinkPR

URL: Pinged – (date here)

Date posted: – (date here) Backlink Not Live

URL: Pinged – on date here

Date posted: – (date here) Live Backlink PR

URL: Pinged – (date here)

Date posted: – (date here) Live Backlink PR

URL:Pinged – (date here)

Date posted: – (date here) Live Backlink PR

URL: Pinged – (date here)

Date posted: – (date here) Live Backlink PR

URL: Pinged – (date here)

Forums messages used; – who posted what / where?

Hey all,

I just found…. It’s @

Now, Go check out how I use this form, & Jing screen shots to document my articles successes and failures! Follow this link.