![\"luke](\"http:\/\/mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/luke-mckinney.jpg\" "\\"luke")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe problem is that trying to be viral is like trying to be cool: that\u2019s the absolute worst way to do it. It\u2019s like trying to headbutt through a brick wall by thinking really hard about how awesome it would be if it worked. It won\u2019t, but it will hurt, and the harder you try the stupider you\u2019ll look. (And actually be, depending on how many times you try). If you actually want to break through you need to spend years honing your skills, or \u2013 and this is where we come in \u2013 hire someone else to do those things.<\/p>\n
My name is Luke McKinney. I\u2019ve been writing online for six years, and that career was created by viral articles. I\u2019ve experienced more varied and publicized viral events than the crew of the Starship Enterprise. Most infections teach obvious lessons like \u201cdon\u2019t stand on rusty nails\u201d and \u201cthat dog isn\u2019t foaming at the mouth because it wants to share some fizzy soda.” The lessons I\u2019ve learned from three of my own articles are less urgent, but hopefully more useful in your daily life.<\/p>\n
1. Fun Articles Do The Work For You<\/strong><\/p>\n You share something viral with other people the same way you\u2019d do it in the real world: just go and have fun with as many different people as you can. My first writing gig arrived because I\u2019d designed Zombie Emergency Procedures for the laser physics lab I was working in. Because, unlike my coworkers, I knew we were living in a science-fiction clich\u00e9 and wanted to be ready.<\/p>\n I stuck the poster online and promptly got on with doing something else. I advertised it less than an embarrassing skid mark, but the whole point of the internet is that everything can be seen by everyone. That\u2019s what the internet is for. Out of the blue I got an e-mail from a magazine editor asking if I wanted to write for money. Meaning that the first person to even suggest this wonderful dream to me was offering to make it come true.<\/p>\n Some people think in terms of pure numbers, hiring hordes of bots to boost their view count, but when you\u2019re paying machines to look at themselves online you might as well spend your money on porn. Because at least then real people are getting work, and are capable of feeling pleasure while masturbating. Just like in the movies, real people and passion beat the endless hordes of heartless machines.<\/p>\n This piece launched my career, and unleashing the zombie hordes is still one of the most viral things I\u2019ve ever done.<\/p>\n 2. Know Your Trends<\/strong><\/p>\n The Internet is made of trillions of processors capable of nanosecond computations, and the users have even shorter attention spans than that would suggest. It can suddenly devote more person-hours to My Little Pony than humanity spent on the space program. It can switch its love on and off like a light and, in the case of tidal memes like Gangnam style, the results move more quickly.<\/p>\n My second huge surge in popularity came with the first Star Trek reboot. Which was awesome. Spiritually drunk on awesome space explosions I poured my love out into the Star Trek Movie Quick Recognition Chart.<\/p>\n It went stratospheric. It went higher than I\u2019d ever been on sites I\u2019d never submitted anything to. That\u2019s the whole point of viral: you can\u2019t make it happen yourself, but when you create something cool other people will do it for you. The problem with trying to surf popular trends is that you need to understand them. When your whole strategy is subjecting your material to analysis by the most obsessive fans in existence, all of whom have access to a global computer network of research material, you can\u2019t just plaster a few keywords into a page of stock text. Well, you can, but no-one will share it. That\u2019s why it\u2019s important that your writers really research and care about the subject they\u2019re writing about.<\/p>\n The next day a new client contacted me about making funny graphics. \u201cThat\u2019s cool, I just started doing that,\u201d I said. \u201cWe know,\u201d they replied. Shortly after that I went full time.<\/p>\n 3. Content Beats Keywords<\/strong><\/p>\n My most popular article is\u00a0The 7 Biggest D**k Moves in Online Gaming<\/a>, with almost five million views, over fifty thousand Facebook shares, and it\u2019s still climbing. Writing about assholes and electronics sounds like the safest bet possible on the internet \u2013 after all, that\u2019s pretty much what it\u2019s built from \u2013 but there are thousands of these articles. Why did this\u00a0make it?\u00a0Because the vast bulk of SEO articles think keywords are magic words, that just mentioning them will make everything you want come true. The right SEO seeds will push your article to an earlier search page, but without actual content that\u2019s where they\u2019ll wither and die. It\u2019s terrifying how many companies forget that social networks are made of actual people.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not yet possible to hypnotize readers into passing on your article, and even if it was, I wouldn\u2019t do it. The point of writing is to have fun. Creating something the readers enjoy means you get to have even more fun. You need writers who understand the material, not typists scattering buzzwords like glitter to jazz up a flavorless mass of text.<\/p>\n The key point is how your writer approaches their word count. If they cut their work down to fit your word count, they\u2019re professional. If they just keep chugging until they reach it, they\u2019re doing homework. And nobody enjoys reading homework.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Internet has reversed all our survival instincts. We don\u2019t need to stand up to get food anymore, millions of people stay at home alone because they can already see naked bodies, and after millions of years of evolving to avoid disease suddenly everyone wants to be viral. The problem is that trying to be… Read More…<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[14,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1956"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2009,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions\/2009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mediashower.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n