What’s Better Content & Sharing Practices: Communal Or Viral?
It has long been assumed that viral content is the best content, and for good reason. Having a piece of content that snowballs into something well-known is great for your visibility and helps put you on the map with a large number of people.
However, creating viral content isn’t always easy. It takes a long time to find something engaging enough, and then it takes an even longer time to promote it and get the word out.
In most instances, viral content just happens and wasn’t even planned.
With all of the work and all of the hype, it makes sense to ask yourself: Is viral content and viral sharing always our best move?
Why Sometimes Communal Beats Viral?
The term “communal” came from ProSEOTalk and discussed this very issue. The term “viral” is the perfect metaphor for something contagious and even sometimes a bit out of control.
Thinking about communal content and communal sharing might be the right move in certain situations for a few reasons:
• Viral doesn’t guarantee success. Just because a lot of people watch a certain video or read a certain article doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful. In most cases, the piece that is viral is not going to be one that is commercial in nature.
You don’t know if these large number of views are going to look at any other part of your website. You of course have a better chance than if no one were to see the article or video, but this doesn’t guarantee anything.
• Communal means sharing content with like-minded people. Communal content is great because it means your content is being shared and written for those in a community, or those who think similarly.
Even though your content might not get millions of clicks, those that are clicking and sharing might be much more relevant, and therefore help you convert.
Despite some of these facts, viral content and sharing does have its place in every industry.
Something viral might not attract the most relevant audience, but it gets the word out just enough that it could reach that relevant audience in an unconventional way, and that’s never a bad thing.
It is simply interesting to take a step back and think about the importance of communal as opposed to the obsession on viral.
What About You?
What are your thoughts on viral content and viral sharing? Is there ever a time when this shouldn’t be desired? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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About the Author
Amanda Di Silvestro gives small business and entrepreneurs SEO advice ranging from keyword density to recovering from algorithm updates. She writes for HigherVisibility, a nationally recognized SEO firm that offers national and local SEO service to a wide range of companies across the country.
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