Six Steps to Going Viral

"I was up in that back field, the big one that's totally secluded. I was mowing along. (You know I always feel like I'm being watched up there.)

Anyway, I went all the way to the end, where the trees get thick, and as I came right up to the edge, my heart just about stopped.

Right in front of me, a hand pulled down the branches and I saw two dark eyes. It was a man with long black hair. He had it pulled into braids, and he had mud paint on his cheeks. Like war paint! I backed the mower up real slow and got out of there."

This is a true story, from a friend of mine. I actually got shivers when she told it to me.

"Was he good looking?" I asked.

"Oh, yes! Gorgeous."

"You dreamed it," I kidded her.

But I knew she wasn't trying to fool me. And I knew that once again this lady in my life had told me a true story I'd never forget.

Why are her stories so memorable, or "sticky" as the authors of Made to Stick would call it? Because through a lifetime of storytelling, she's perfected the six steps to going viral:

1. Simplicity
2. Unexpectedness
3. Concreteness
4. Credibility
5. Emotions
6. Stories

My story-lady may just have missed her calling as a copy writer for an ad agency, but I'm glad I get to hear her sticky tales. And I am eagerly awaiting the next installment of the Mysterious Man by the Mowing Field.


Made to Stick photo, by L.L. Barkat.

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Over at HighCallingBlogs we're reading and discussing Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, starting this Monday the 6th. Want to join us? :) Also, feel free to leave your link here...

Increase Your Blog Traffic: Top 5 Book Rec's

"He's a great writer. Smart. He should have a wider blog reach. Any ideas?"

This is the kind of question I've been asked many times over.

I often write long emails in response. Because increasing blog traffic isn't simple.

Okay, it's not hard either, for the blogger who is evocative, funny, or some kind of "expert." Still, there are principles and fascinating case studies and techniques and... you get the idea.

To save me from long emails, what I really need is a post to point to that says, "Here are my top five book recommendations that will answer your question. I promise if you read these books you will increase your blog traffic. If not exponentially, at least respectably."

Thus, this post. When I was a wee little blogger (and in many ways I still am! :), these were the books I read that changed everything for me. All right, one is a book I'm reading RIGHT NOW, because... well, I'm still interested in new ideas on the subject.

Here goes, without much explanation...

1. Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers. This is the very first blogging book I ever read, right before I started a blog. It helped convince me that blogging was the way to go. It's a great foundational resource. Lots of tips.

2. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Cool ideas and case studies about being part of groups. Which every blogger really needs to be (unless the blogger has no interest in increasing blog traffic).

3. And Then There's This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture. Fascinating stories about stories and web experiments that have gone viral. It'll spark your creativity. At least that's what it did for me.

4. Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves. What Penenberg did to promote this book is as good as the book itself. Really.

5. Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust. A lot of this is just good business sense, framed for the web. Still worth a read. (Okay, and favorite advice from the book: promote others 12 times as much as you do yourself.)

Curious... have you read any of these? What do you think? Any others you'd recommend, so I'd have to change the title of this post to the top 6 or 7 or... ?


Trust Agents photo, by L.L. Barkat.