This guest post is by Greg Digneo of Cloud Marketing Labs.
Admit it: you think I’m nuts. There’s no way a new blogger can write a viral blog post with five simple steps!
Well, as the saying goes: “I said it was simple, but it ain’t easy.” In fact, it will take a lot of work, but it can be done.
The myth of the viral post
There isn’t a blogger alive who hasn’t dreamed of writing that perfect blog post that will be read by thousands of people.
You spend time researching a trending topic. You relentlessly pursue the perfect headline. And you pour your heart into creating epic content.
Raise your hand if you’ve done this and have not created a viral blog post.
Writing about a trending topic, creating a perfect headline, and writing epic content are vital to having a post that goes viral.
But you are missing one thing: relationships.
In order for a post to go viral, it needs to be seen by the right people.
What is a viral post?
Before we get into how to build these relationships, I want to first share with you my definition of a viral post.
Math geeks will tell you that a post goes viral when the viral coefficient is greater than one.
But for the rest of us, a viral post for a new blogger is when one of your posts gets read and shared exponentially more than the others. It’s as simple as that.
Below are the steps you can use to create a viral blog post.
Step 1: Find a topic
There are two key ingredients that make a successful topic.
First, the topic should be one that’s trending. If you are a blogger, there is almost no chance that a “Twitter” topic will be successful. It’s been done. However, the topic Pinterest will generate more interest. It’s a new social media company, and bloggers and marketers are still trying to figure out ways to leverage it.
To find a trending topic, read blogs in your niche and take note of which topics are getting the most comments, shares, and links.This will give you a good indication of what your audience wants to read and share with their social media following.
The second ingredient to a successful topic is the ability to write five unique posts on the topic.
For instance, you might write one post called “3 Steps to Drive Traffic with Pintrest,” and another post called “10 Companies Profiting from Pintrest.” But make sure you can write five posts, each taking a different angle on the topic you’ve chosen.
Step 2: Find four blogs to submit guest posts to
Once you have your topic, find four blogs to submit guest posts to.
ProBlogger has a lot of advice on successfully submitting guest posts to popular blogs.
For this process to work correctly, ensure that the blogs you are submitting your guest posts to have large Twitter followings.
Step 3: Time your posts
The most effective way to guest post is to write multiple posts that go live around the same time. That will give your audience the impression that you are everywhere.
To do this correctly, prepare to schedule your posts to go live in about 60 days’ time. Some of the more popular blogs receive a lot of submissions and have a large queue of posts they have to publish before they get to yours. But as long as you plan ahead, most bloggers and content managers will work with you to publish your post on the day you request.
Step 4: Publish a post on your own blog
By now, you have written five blog posts and four have gone live on popular blogs. That leaves one post for you to publish on your own blog.
Publish this post two or three days after your final guest post has gone live.
Step 5: Email bloggers
Before you email the bloggers you’ve submitted guest posts to, check to see how well your post did relative to those around it. If it got a comparable number of shares, comments, and links, then you’re good to go.
Here’s the exact message that I write to bloggers.
Hey (Popular blogger),
I wanted to let you know that I created a follow up post to the one that went live on (date the post went live) that I think your readers will enjoy.
Pinterest is a hot topic these days and I couldn’t possibly provide all of the information in one post. I would love to know what you think.
Regards,
Greg
The goal here is to get the bloggers to tweet your post, but you’ll notice that in this email I didn’t ask for the tweet. There is a chance that the post won’t resonate with the blogger’s audience. If that’s the case, you don’t want to ruin the relationship and ask for a commitment they are not willing to fulfill.
The bottom line
The truth is you might have to guest post two or three times on a blog in order to build the kind of relationship you’ll need to have that popular blogger tweet your link.
And if even you follow this process, there’s no way to guarantee that the post will go viral. However, getting your content seen by top influencers does give you a fighting chance.
Like I said, it is a simple five step process, but it’s not easy to execute.
Most of you are going to read this post, file it away somewhere and go about your business. And that’s fine. I do that all the time. But there are a few of you who know deep down that your content deserves to get read on a consistent basis.
You know that your content is as good as, if not better than, the influencers in your niche. You just need your big break. Do yourself a favor. Stop waiting for someone to hand you your break, and go grab it.
The world needs to hear what you have to say. So, what are you waiting for? Get your content seen. Like right now!
Greg Digneo is the founder of Cloud Marketing Labs which works with B2B companies who want to generate more online sales leads. You can download his free ebook which shows you how to generate 100 sales leads in 30 days.
