Before we dig in I have a question for you…

What came first – the chicken or the egg?

I’m serious.

Contrary to what everyone thinks this question has an answer.

So try thinking about it seriously for 30 seconds. I’ll wait…

Back already? Want to know the answer? Well the answer is … (drum roll please)…

The EGG.

The reason is very simple …

A long time ago creatures that were very similar to chickens but not quite chickens roamed the earth.

They were one tiny mutation away from becoming chickens … but they were not there yet. It doesn’t mean they weren’t happy. It only means they weren’t chicken.

Then one morning, one of these nearly-chickens laid an egg. And this was not an ordinary egg – the DNA of the almost-chicken mutated and that egg carried the first chicken in the universe.

Cool isn’t it?

My son loves reading Wikipedia entries and he stumbled unto that.

But how does that relate to viral content?

Well … we tend to share stuff that we find impressive. The reason we do this is because it gives us ‘social equity’. When we tell a really good story it makes us look smarter and more interesting.

So if you create a piece of content that when shared makes the ‘sharer’ look smarter or cooler or funnier – you’re on your way to creating a viral piece of content.

And what’s really cool about this is that you can easily find interesting stories and facts to incorporate into your content…

Just pay attention to how you react to stories and facts … if you’re thinking – “Wow, that’s pretty cool” or if you experience a strong emotion, then email yourself a note about that particular story or fact.

If you properly tag those emails, pretty soon you’ll have a bunch of stories you can use in your content.

But that is just the beginning.

Another factor that increases the viralness of your content is – useful information.

If you provide useful actionable techniques in your content then you increase the amount of social equity a reader gets when he shares your content.

So a strong recipe to creating viral content is to …

1. Collect stories and facts that impress you or trigger a strong emotional response in you.

2. Use them in your content.

3. Give away useful, actionable techniques in your content.

And that’s it … you now have a recipe for creating your own viral content

P.S.

If you found this a article just a little bit helpful then I have a small favor to ask of you…

Please share it by pressing one of the social media icons at the bottom of this article or by sending it to a friend.

It would mean the world to me!

P.P.S.

The inspiration for this article came from a brilliant book about viral content called “Contagious” by Professor Johah Berger.