February 3, 2016: A new research paper from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism identifying the characteristics of shareable social media content provides insights likely to be eye-opening for many content marketers.
The study demolishes the myth that articles that “go viral” are shallow, silly, celebrity-oriented, and listicle-based
It builds on prior research into the properties that make content popular — and in rare cases — viral, particularly the 2011 work of Wharton researchers Jonah Berger and Katherine L. Milkman, who analyzed the most-forwarded articles from the website of the New York Times.
Entitled Do you think it is sex? You are wrong! This is what people share most on social media, the new study, by Satu Vasantola, is based on data from an examination of the most widely shared articles from three popular European news-oriented web sites, the BBC and Finland’s Helsigin Sanomat and Yleisradio, whose owners were willing to share usage data.
Ms. Vasantolo classified usage data along multiple dimensions, including form (article length, type), topic (domestic, foreign, sports, art, health and science, lifestyle), and headline type (fact-based, mysterious, opinion, and personalized). Each article was also further classified in terms of emotional affect (feel good/tears/anger-frustration and amazement).
What kind of content is shared most?
While the study results varied materially from site to site, the findings generally demolishes the myth that articles that “go viral” are universally shallow, silly, celebrity-oriented, and listicle-based. For example, on the BBC site, “up to 69 percent of the (shared) content was news articles,” with “23 percent of the most shared content (being) feature articles.” And while “positive feel good stores were the biggest category with 36 percent, 29 percent of the most shared stories were classified as evoking tears, sadness, or nostalgia.”
On the two Finnish sites, the majority of shared stories had fact-based headlines, with medium-length stories being most widely shared, with most falling into the “amazement” and “feel good” emotional categories. Here,”as much as 44 percent of the shared articles related to lifestyle and 35 percent were domestic. Especially popular were articles about health, money, children, and education.”
Takeaways for Content Marketers
People have a hunger for substantive, in-depth information — not just short-form breaking news. At the same time, however, stories that strike an emotional chord with a given audience will naturally travel farther. And when articles give people something to do — for example, solving a local or specific problem — they’ll have a higher chance of being shared.
1. Long-form articles absolutely do get shared.
Stories that analyze a subject and discuss it in depth are passed around. You should have a bunch of these “pillars” in your content plan. When people enter the moment in which they’re searching, browsing, or otherwise seeking an analytical treatment of a complicated issue/product/situation, have something for them. A well-designed long-form article has the added utility of serving as the source for multiple social media message campaigns.
2. Emotional positivity is (almost) always appropriate
Generally, news articles with positive “feel good” emotional valence tend to outperform articles evoking negative emotions. However articles evoking negative emotions will be shared if the context is appropriate (the BBC site produces many “dead celebrity” articles matching this classification, and they’re widely shared). It’s not always possible — or even appropriate — to inject emotion into content. The challenge for content marketers is to find the emotional connection through the truth of a given story. The data itself tells us that articles with the “hottest” emotional valances (joy, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust) perform better than articles with no noticeable emotional affect.
3. Tools-oriented articles — personalized — do very well
Write articles that hit people where they live. Make an effort to give individual members of your audience tangible information to improve their lives: as Ms. Vasantolo puts it, “give people tools to build and reflect their identity.” If your content actually empowers people, they’ll naturally want to share it with their own circles.
A complete copy of this interesting study can be accessed here:
http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Do%20you%20think%20it%20is%20sex%20You%20are%20wrong!.pdf
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