avatarNitin Sharma

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My 7-Step Formula for Creating Viral Content That Helped Me Break the Internet

Here’s how you can also crush the competition and go viral.

Src: ChatGPT

I’ve penned down quite a number of viral posts, and I’ve got the evidence to back it up.

If you check out any of these posts, you’ll notice they’ve got thousands of claps, and people have left 50 to 200 comments on each one.

Plus, they’ve pulled in a whole bunch of readers. And all that attention? It helped me make some serious money.

So, guess what?

Now, I’m all set to share the secrets and teach you how to make content go viral, just like an expert, and earn some money for yourself in the process.

Let’s dive right in!

Step 1️: Define your niche

This is the toughest part, especially at the beginning when you’re not sure which niche will work best for you. Just keep trying and keep going.

Speaking of myself, I started writing about technical stuff because I knew a lot about it. I stuck with it for a year, and because of my expertise, I started getting a good number of views.

Later on, I tried writing about motivation, productivity, and self-improvement, but it didn’t really catch on — not many views.

Still, I kept writing about what I knew best, like programming and other related topics.

After two years, I became really good at writing. Since I’d been writing consistently, I had a good sense of what worked and what didn’t.

Then, I added one more niche to my repertoire — Artificial Intelligence. As you can see from my most popular posts, the ones that really went viral were about AI and writing.

Sure, I had some semi-popular posts about programming, but AI and writing turned out to be the big hitters.

So, define your niche based on your skill, and keep going, you will soon find what makes you real money.

Step 2: Create killer content

I always make it my mission to create outstanding content using the best of my knowledge.

To achieve this, I’ve followed several tips and tricks, such as:

  • Deep understanding: I dive deep into the topic I want to write about, ensuring that I truly understand the subject matter.
  • Multiple outlines: Before I start writing a single post, I create 5–6 outlines, each with a different approach. Then, I choose the one that feels just right. The same goes for selecting the perfect title.
  • Avoiding AI-generated content: I steer clear of using AI to generate content. I prefer to keep things informal and conversational as if I’m chatting with a friend. This means using plain language and avoiding long, complex sentences.
  • Balancing quality and quantity: I believe in the importance of both quality and quantity. To achieve this, I typically dedicate 4–6 hours a day to my writing.

Thanks to these simple strategies, whenever I publish a post, it usually garners thousands of readers, if not more.

Similarly, write about what you are familiar with. Also, feel free to use my tips and tricks if you wish.

Step 3️: Focused on building your brand

In my view, building a reliable brand is the key to consistently earning money online.

To achieve this, I’ve implemented a variety of strategies over time.

Here are some of them:

  • Simplicity and punctuality: I always made sure to keep my content simple and made a commitment to deliver it on time. This meant putting in 4–6 hours every day to learn something new, write content daily, and consistently publish for a continuous span of three years.
  • Trustworthiness over affiliation: I consciously avoided including affiliate links in my content. This was a deliberate choice to foster trust and credibility between me and my readers.
  • Emphasizing quality and quantity: My approach wasn’t just about producing a high volume of content; it was also about ensuring that the quality remained consistently high.

As a result of these efforts, I’ve managed to amass a following of over 26,000+ on Medium.

I’ve also achieved a six-figure income online, collaborated with more than 100 clients, and reached an impressive readership of over 3 million on Medium.

For a significant portion of these 3 years, my focus was solely on the Medium platform along with freelancing.

However, I’m now diversifying my presence to other platforms like LinkedIn, Beehiiv, and Twitter to further expand my reach and opportunities.

Step 4️: Master the art of storytelling and ignite emotion

If you’ve been following my journey, you might be aware that I didn’t start with any innate writing talent, nor did I take any formal writing courses.

The reason behind my content going viral boils down to a combination of straightforward strategies, writing about what I’m knowledgeable about, and putting in hard work.

However, I also made an effort to learn the art of storytelling to enhance the quality of my content.

Along this path, I’ve discovered that viral content often taps into strong emotions. Whether it’s evoking laughter, awe, anger, or inspiration, the key is to connect with your audience on an emotional level.

Create your content in a way that triggers a powerful emotional response, as people are more likely to share content that deeply moves them.

Step 5: Engage with your audience

We all know that in every business, the audience is important.

If you don’t have one, you are going to suffer a lot. And that’s where your hard work, patience, and the enormous time spent with the product make no sense.

For me, my audience is my readers.

And that’s the reason, I have always tried to make my audience happy. First of all, I build trust by providing quality articles, avoiding affiliate links, and providing what is best for them.

Read any of my blog posts, you will be going to see something valuable that will help you become better.

Actually, this is my intention with every post that I publish.

Besides this, whenever someone messages me on LinkedIn or tries to need any help, I try my best to help them.

Because of these simple tactics, I usually get more engagement in my posts, I usually see more comments, and that’s what makes me more money.

Step 6: Stay up-to-date with trends

Honestly, it’s important to be real about it: if you don’t have the skill, it’s better not to dive into writing about it.

Look at my own journey as an example.

I kicked off my writing career by focusing on what I already knew well. Then, after two years of practice and learning, I decided to explore different topics that aligned with my growing expertise.

This move paid off, and it’s a big reason why my posts started getting more attention.

Another thing I’ve learned is that staying up-to-date with the niche you’re writing about is a must.

Let me break it down.

I write about AI, and for me, it’s crucial to keep tabs on the latest features of ChatGPT. That’s why I invest some of my earnings in the ChatGPT pro version and dedicate time to learning how to use it.

Why? Because it helps me write better articles, plain and simple.

And here’s a nugget from my experience: viral content often goes hand in hand with what’s hot and trending right now.

So, keep a keen eye on industry trends, stay in the loop with the latest news, and pay attention to what’s popular in the culture. This way, your content will stay fresh, relevant, and right on time.

Step 7: Analyze and Iterate

I have to be honest not all of my posts become viral.

The concept of virality depends on a number of factors, and even algorithms play a crucial role.

However, I always try my best to write informative posts for my readers so that they can benefit from them, spend more time on them, share them with others, and engage more.

This, in turn, helps me make more money.

In addition to this, I also analyze which posts become viral and which ones don’t.

As of now, I have written more than 500 posts on Medium and have analyzed numerous viral posts to understand why they went viral.

Based on that, I try to follow the same approach for my new posts.

Similarly, you can continuously monitor the performance of your content using analytics tools. Pay attention to what works and what doesn’t, and be willing to adapt and refine your approach based on data-driven insights.

Also, it has become a lot easier, now, thanks to the Advanced Data Analysis feature of ChatGPT.

Note that you can even analyze my viral post that I have included at the beginning of this post to get better help.

Hope you like it.

That’s it — thanks.

Don’t forget to subscribe to me on Beehiiv for a thrilling dive into AI, tech wizardry, money hacks, side-hustle secrets, and beyond. Your adventure awaits!

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Motivation
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