byJoe Wadakethalakal
How do I go viral? Its the first question Im usually asked when I meet someone.
The truth is, although were known for creating alotof viral content, there really is no guaranteed formula to manufacture virality (almost every week well see content go viral at Brilio which completely surprise us). The fact is the virality of content is influenced by a wide range of factors, most of which areas much as we hate to admit itoutside of our control as publishers.
In the era of social media, our role as media owners have changed. Media companies are no longer one of the few voices capable and responsible for setting the conversation and shaping public discourse. The unprecedented popularity of social media and the resulting proliferation of user generated content has given users the ability to define what content is popular, and what is not.
This shift in the control of content production from media firms to users has made it far more difficult to predict what content will turn into a 'hit' with audiences. Simply put, when you had an audience focusing on a limited set of channels, it was a fairly safe bet that one of those channels would generate a popular hit. Today, we effectively have an infinite number of channels, and the next hit could come from an established media company or from a woman hallway around the world in Texas sitting in a parking lot outside of a Kohls department store.
Now while we dont believe that theres a sure recipe for virality, we thought it would be interesting to look back on the 1 billion+ content views we generated in 2016 to see if we could glean any insights on how one might increase their odds of actually going viral. Weve organized our findings into three categories; distribution, genre, and content type. Lets take a look at the insights.
