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5 Answers
I firmly believe you can't make content go viral; it becomes viral. I work with a company that produced an infographic about LinkedIn; it got excellent press, even being featured in a CNN article, but that had more to do with LinkedIn surpassing MySpace as the #2 social network. In other words, timing that couldn't have been planned.
As far as what you can do, promote and provide links through your social media channels, and submit content to relevant publications. Basically, the same PR that you would do for anything you want attention for. Good luck!
I agree with Sarah. Anything that becomes truly viral is a product of great content first and also a little luck with timing. Submitting to sites is a key aspect of any promotion but you won't get anywhere if your content isn't up to par.
Hey Marc,
The sites that you would be submitting to vary based on the topic of your graphic. If you choose to do a topic that is extremely viral (think top x lolcats) you will have a wide range of social news sites to submit to Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, Buzzfeed and so on. If you go the other direction and do a business related graphic you will have to do some research and find blogs in the niche and reach out to the editors directly. Ideally you will pick a topic that stradles the line of purely viral and business related so you can do a blended promotion, some aggregation sites and some blogs. The real key is knowing the audience at each site and not trying to force something on them that they will not appreciate.
If the only aspects of viral marketing I can control are the quality of the content, and good promotion, the Question that rises is, "What is good promotion?" Realizing that it is feckless to name an outlet due to the relevance of the message. There must still be some broad strokes that can be made to fill in the structure of "Good Promotion"
With that being said, I put the question the responding experts, Sarah and Paul.
Sarah, you stated " promote and provide links through your social media channels, and submit content to relevant publications." What is the best way to build a social media channel? Where is the best place to find these relevant publications?
Paul you said, "Submitting to sites is a key aspect of any promotion" what sites are you referring to, and where does one find these sites?
Thank you all in advance for your replies
Marc Prince
The best way to build a social media channel is to build a presence on sites (at the bare minimum, Facebook and Twitter), and provide consistent, relevant, valuable information. This should, theoretically, help you to organically grow followers, although participating in Twitter chats and including hashtags (#hashtags) can help you speak with those not already in your network. Promote all content (or, in this case, infographics) through these channels.
As far as finding relevant publications, google your subject. If you're publishing an infographic about food, reach out to food bloggers, both formal and informal. It's also a good idea to build up a network of general publications that you can notify of your infographics as they are produced. Software such as Cision will provide you with direct email addresses to top editors and bloggers with influence.
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