Over the past few weeks I’ve been surprised to see some really great posts struggle to gain any momentum, as well as seeing some really crap posts do surprisingly well in terms of being shared by a large audience. My suspicion is that in both cases it had a lot to do with the design of the sites that the blog posts were hosted on (here’s a very good post on how design impacts shareability). I thought it would be interesting to put this question to the community to see what people thought were the most important factors in assisting a blog post to go viral and to see how important design really is. I’d love to hear as many people’s opinions as possible on the topic, especially around design impacting shareability. What do you think?
Marcus Taylor is head of social media at SEOptimise and has an interest in social networking psychology. Marcus has written a book on the topic and has spoken at leading industry events including SMX and SMM as well as writing for many blogs including State of Search, The Wall, and Social Media Club. You can also find Marcus on Twitter, and LinkedIn.
I’d add
- the (perceived) quality of the post
- the main stream compatibility of the content
- the image/s used in it, do they catch attention
- the readability of the text, does it strain the eye
- the digestibility of the post (can I overlook it at once or do I have to save it for later?)
- the initial push of active sharing
among others.
I would personally go for:
- The credibility of the blog and author
- The uniqueness & timing of the post
- The angle & idea behind the post
Another great blog post by you – thanks :-)