Great content marketing is something that can be the difference between 300 views on your content or 3,000,000 views. The good thing about this though is that all types of viral content marketing pieces follow a similar pattern.

In 2018 I created the most commented video on LinkedIn at the time and since then we’ve created over 40 different posts or articles that have used the same layout to go viral. 

Here is how to do it. 

How To Write Copy That Goes Viral – Your Outline

Start with a significant achievement or problem, recognize key people who helped you and finally, share your insights others on how they can do this and then offer something to the audience where they have to act or comment to obtain it. 

The key thing here is to stir curiosity and emotion into the same pot and make it relevant for the platform you want it to go viral on.

Below is the post in its entirety:

“Last week I connected with the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

And only ninety days ago I had 400 connections, today I now have over 4800+ people who are a part of my community on LinkedIn.

In this time I’ve:

– I’ve connected with employees and CEO’s of New Zealand’s and Australia’s biggest companies

– Had over 500,000 views on my content – Called and shared coffees with 77 different CEO’s, GM’s, authors, editors and entrepreneurs

– Had over 112 book suggestions from the Editor in Chief of @Entrepreneur Magazine through to New York Times Best Selling Authors

The greatest lesson I’ve learned from building this community is that regardless of who you are and what position you’re in, people always want to offer help, you just need to ask for it.

I want to say thank you to a few people who have helped me understand what real marketing is and how to build a community -Sarah, Jonathan, and Kate

I also want to thank both Reid and Jeff for building an incredible platform that has allowed me to connect with so many people.

I’ve also created this video to share with everyone I’ve connected with.

Finally, I’ve written a 50-page case study outlining exactly how I did this and if you want it just leave a comment saying “Send It Over”

Here is the structure of my post and how I’ve incorporated both emotion and curiosity for the reader.

Intro – Share a significant achievement that others want

“Last week I connected with the Prime Minister of New Zealand.”

This makes a person wonder and guess how the f*&% did he do that?

Further proof of my achievement:

“And only ninety days ago I had 400 connections, today I now have over 4800+ people who are a part of my community on LinkedIn.

In this time I’ve:

– I’ve connected with employees and CEO’s of New Zealand’s and Australia’s biggest companies

– Had over 500,000 views on my content – Called and shared coffees with 77 different CEO’s, GM’s, authors, editors and entrepreneurs

– Had over 112 book suggestions from the Editor in Chief of @Entrepreneur Magazine through to New York Times Best Selling Authors “

Again this creates more curiosity from the reader. I’ve name-dropped positions of power and credibility.

Middle – Express gratitude, recognize people because people support humility over arrogance

“The greatest lesson I’ve learned from building this community is that regardless of who you are and what position you’re in, people always want to offer help, you just need to ask for it.

I want to say thank you to a few people who have helped me understand what real marketing is and how to build a community –Sarah, Jonathan, and Kate

I also want to thank both Reid and Jeff for building an incredible platform that has allowed me to connect with so many people.

This part of the post makes me look more human and the reader picks up an emotional tone by letting people know that they can ask for help. This is a common theme among our society that people are often afraid to look stupid or ask questions. If you allow others to see you’re like them you become more relatable. 

I baked this into my copy and we do this with a lot of the other content we produce for our clients. 

Conclusion – Offer something of relevance to the platform’s audience with a relevant call to action

“I’ve also created this video to share with everyone I’ve connected with.

Finally, I’ve written a 50-page case study outlining exactly how I did this and if you want it just leave a comment saying “Send It Over”

The video that was shot on my cell phone that gives me another added bonus of being real to the reader.

The last offering of the case study allows me to share with the reader and makes it known that they can do it too (hope) it also offers something of tangible value to the reader.

This is often known as the heroes journey.

The hero’s journey, is the common template of a broad category of tales that involve a hero who goes on an adventure wins a victory, and then comes home changed or transformed and shares that victory with others. In my case, I started with 400 contacts and in 90 days I had 4800 and then went through a number of learnings to get the success story on the otherwise while leveraging help from others. 

This is the script for Star Wars.

This is the script for Lord of the Rings.

This is the script for every comic book ever written.

This technique is one of the things I learned from my copy-writing coach and has helped us turn good content into great content. 

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts each platform has it’s only intricacies for going viral that will help the content get traction (Instagram, LinkedIn) but if it’s going to go viral the copy and content need to be spot on.