5 Simple Posts for Local Publishers That Go Viral and Drive Traffic
Thoughtful, well-crafted and articulate articles are terrific and the backbone of any great site, local or otherwise. However, some of the most engaging and shared (viral) content are quick hitting, to the point, and often just plain short.
Here are a few posts from our network that have proven to be extremely popular and well shared that any publisher can learn from and apply immediately to boost their brand and reach. Just remember to prime the pump by sharing your more compelling content to your Facebook Page, email subscribers and occasionally even to your personal profiles.
Remember, the most engaged your audience is and the more they share your content the better you'll also rank in search engines like Google and Bing!
1. Lost Pet
We saw a very brief article at LakeCoToday.com about a lost female husky generated 1,001 Facebook likes. Don't underestimate the power of tapping into your community's desire to help out.
2. Local Benefit
Whether it's an event in your calendar or an article (preferably a combination of the two), local benefits are an example of doing well by doing good. In the case of a benefit for a girl injured in a recent sledding accident the event page created by a member of the community became the de facto homepage of the event. Hundreds of social shares and thousands of pageviews later the hosting website has benefited tremendously from great heartfelt user generated content.
3. Timely School Announcement / inclement weather
If you're in a region that gets snow or other inclement and experiences regular school closings you can get a lot of mileage out of simply reporting school information. Sure, this information is available other places but if you can pull it together, make it easily digestible and get it into social media early you can benefit from a few minutes worth of timely reporting.
4. Local traffic, natural disasters or fire reports
Sometimes stuff happens and while it's inconvenient or unfortunate it's also incredibly relevant. When you can post information that is informative, local and timely people will share it. We've all driven by the house that burned down or a business with firetrucks outside and wanted to know, "what's happening there?" As a publisher, answering that question can go a long way.
5. Local Team or Celebrity News
People are proud of where they call home and love to hear about locals doing well. This can be a local athlete who has moved on to the next level or a student who won an award or made a great discovery while away at college. When you can present a nice human-interest story at the local level, you get a chance to nurture people's soul.
Bonus Topics
Not every site wants to cover these topics but local crime and obituaries also have a tendency to go viral and there are different ways to present this content to make it more or less classy. Like all things, use your discretion and match your publications tone but don't neglect covering relevant local topics just because they may be sad at face value.
Happy posting and if you follow these tips and notice they go viral please share them in the comments below.
