Exclusive tip from the best Top Hat Seminar in town
99.9% Of Viral Stories Have This Name in Their Title
A defined number of views is guaranteed, or I will refund your reading time.
I will give you the name in 200 words, but I need to explain something first, or you will accuse me of click-baiting you into reading this article.
The fact I wrote it was a warning sign you should have contemplated longer.
Have you ever noticed how “viral” doesn’t have a clear definition? For writers, there’s no standard like in the music industry where platinum is 1,000,000 units sold, and a diamond is 10 (million, not ten, ten).
Small-time online writers like me usually speak of viral when their stories get 1,000 views. Specialists like SproutSocial put the threshold at 100,000 views. And experts like Teachable consider “a video to have gone viral if it gets at least 5 million views within about a week of its initial posting.”
If we waited for 5 million views to claim our article went viral, fewer people would be bragging about it on Medium.
According to the Institute for Research (data from 2022), the consensus among online writers is around 20,000 views within a week of publication.
Now you understand that each of us has a different comprehension of “going viral.”
Definitions change as we become more experienced.
When I published my first article on Medium, going viral meant ten views. As mentioned above, I’m older and am now more of a 1k views kind of writer.
In the context of this article, my definition of going viral means 1 (one) view.
Indeed, 99.9% of the articles with my name (Smillew) in the title are viral (to me), and I read them.
That’s the defined number of views I mentioned in the subtitle above. And here’s the guarantee: “Tag me in any of your articles’ titles, and I guarantee you’ll get at least one view of your story. Let’s be crazy and make it a read even!”
If this weren’t the case, I would refund your reading time of this story (in #SmillewCoins).
Takeaway
Having words without clearly defined meanings in your titles is an efficient way to clickbait followers into reading your articles. It’s not your fault if they misinterpreted the title, is it?
(Like the tag wall of shame, you should use this trick parsimoniously.)
Are you looking for someone to blame for this story?
Look no further than Michael Burg, MD (Satire Sommelier). He wrote this:
Fun fact: Michael blamed his story on Alex’s story, so I guess I’ll do the same:
