5 Key Elements of Viral Content

Mark Smiciklas from Intersection Consulting and author of The Power of Infographics, designed this helpful infographic The Five Key Elements of Viral Content.

The goal of every content marketer is to have his/her information shared across digital channels by their audiences. This is often easier said than done. What factors contribute to people sharing the content they consume online?

In researching the content for this infographic I came across a post in my Delicious archive that helps answer this question. Leo Widrich over on the Buffer Blog wrote a great post about what makes content spread. In it, he analyzes some of the elements that helped one particular blog post get over half a million likes. He also references an interesting research paper about what makes online content go viral.

This infographic highlights five key elements of viral content: scarcity, share buttons, skim-ability, practical utility and consistency. Are there any others you would add? The comments are yours.

Originally posted on Social Media Explorer

I would like to see the URL links to the sources and to the infographic landing page in the footer of the design so they travel with the infographic image as it gets shared across the Internet.

Comments

[Mark Smiciklas]

Thanks for featuring my infographic Randy - much appreciated! Great advice regarding adding the source URLs in the footer area. I've always added these links in the description copy but your point about the source information getting lost via sharing is bang on.