You've probably seen dozens of articles, infographics and guides claiming to explain what makes content go viral. But those claims are rarely baked up by data. BuzzSumo analyzed millions of content pieces over the past recent months and got a pretty good idea of what made them popular. Which formats were more effective? What emotions did they evoke? Are images important? Take a look at the findings in this infographic which comes courtesy of uberflip.
Key takeaways:
- On average, long-form content (over 2000 words per piece) gets shared way more than short-form content (below 2000 words). The longer the content, the more shares it gets.
- In terms of emotions, people seem to love to share pieces that either make them laugh or be truly awe inspired (for a total of 42 percent). Conversely, the least popular emotions are sadness and anger, which made up 7 percent.
- We've all heard experts say that visually compelling content increase engagement. Adding images to your content and posts will also help get it shared on Twitter as well as Facebook.
- This may seem obvious, but list post and infographics receive more average shares than other types. Quizzes have also become quite popular in the past year. The key seems to be to provide information that is accessible.
- Getting influences to share content has become a key aspect for success of content markets. These contacts can impact highly targeted groups of people for a relatively small investments.
