Going viral
kind of... maybe?
Hi, Mel here.
First, the obligatory Sunday plug for our latest episode…
Okay, now that’s out of the way… what do you count as “going viral”?
Ben had a hit LinkedIn post this week. See, I told him it was fun over there.
At the time of writing he’s had over 1,200 reactions, 70+ comments and about 60 reposts. I don’t know how many impressions it’s got, though. That’s between Ben and his analytics. But did he “go viral”?
One definition I’ve seen is a post counts as viral when the number of impressions exceeds your number of connections.
I’m not so sure.
I’ve got over 9,000 followers and around 5,000 connections, so using that definition my post goes viral if it gets over 5k impressions. By that benchmark, I’ve had five viral posts in the last 28 days and over 50 viral posts in the last year.
Now, I consider myself to be fairly “good at” LinkedIn. But I’m not that good.
Another definition says a post needs over 500 likes and 100,000 impressions to count as viral. But likes and impressions are impacted by how many followers you have, so this definition doesn’t take into account the size of network the poster has.
For me, I count a post as being “a hit” if I get 3 x more reactions than normal. That’s how I know something has really resonated with people beyond my usual circle. So, maybe it’s better to just compare our content against our content.
If you’ve got any “oops, I went viral” moments, let us know!
You’re the voice
Our next episode is called You’re The Voice, all about why tone of voice is important for you and your business.
Ben kindly gave me a shout-out in Thursday’s email (thanks pal) because I won the Brand Copywriting Award at the Women In Marketing Awards. The full list of winners, commended and highly commended is here. My win was for tone of voice work, I just want to give some love to all the copywriters in both categories. The finalists in both copy categories were:
Megan Rose Douglas
Gemma Strang
Anita Ellis
Roanna Lynch
Tasmin Lofthouse
Emily Lyhne-Gold
Kendra Futcher
Clare Lynch
Bex Elder
Danielle Brough
There’s a special sense of community amongst (most) copywriters. Someone at the awards evening even commented to our Queen and categories judge Vikki Ross how tight the copy crew is. Thanks Gemma for capturing the stages of my disbelief.
Anyway, our fence blew down and I have a 6yr old’s birthday party to go to. Hope you have a better Sunday than me.
See ya,
And find our swiftie tallboy producer Ant Henderson on LinkedIn
The back catalogue
Replays here…
11 Somebody Told Me: Referrals ft Bob Burg and Penni and Jo Pickering
10 Paranoid Android: AI vs creativity ft Tom Albrighton and Molly Scanlon
09 Shiny Happy People: Personal brands ft Lea Turner and Steve Folland
08 Chasing Rainbows: Business planning ft. Alastair Thomson and Melanie Johnson
07 A Design For Life: Creating for yourself with guest co-host Dan Nelken ft. Penny Brazier and The McKinneys
06 I Bet You Look Good On The Timeline ft. Dave Harland and Jonathan Wilcock
05 Flaming Lips: Public Speaking ft. Pascalle Bergmans, Becki Wilson and Nikki Pilkington
04 A Little Respect: Client Relationships ft. Jodie Newman and Sophie Cross
03 All Together Now: Communities ft. Mark Masters and Ant Henderson
02 It’s Oh So Quiet: Finding Clients ft. John Lyons and Bonnie Harrington
01 Fools Gold: Pricing your projects ft. Tom Garfield and Ange Lyons
00 What’s The Story? Podcast origins
I have 1370 connections, so by one of the definitions above almost all of my posts go viral
When I think of the term "going viral", it only brings with it negative connotations (but that's probably just me).