Why You Need To Stop Caring About Going Viral

One day in 2018, I became obsessed with going viral.

I poured over dozens of articles written by the likes of Benjamin P. Hardy, Jeff Goins, and Nicolas Cole.

I sat in my chair studying words, headlines, subheadlines, and the general “vibes” I was getting from these mysterious stories.

‘What is it?’ I thought.

Then, about 5 hours into my research session, I felt like someone came over and smacked me in the back of the neck with a rowing oar.

I suddenly saw the forest through the trees and asked myself one simple question..

Why do I care about this?

Seriously, why do I care about 1,000,000 views?

And why did I think all this research was going to get me closer to that?

As I thought about it more, my quest to go viral got sillier and sillier.

Here’s why.

We Think Going Viral Is Normal

Back in the day, Ben Hardy liked to highlight his first ever viral article.

Ben said he got a wave of traffic out of nowhere for this article — and at one point he was getting 200,000 clicks per day to his website because of it.

In the end, the piece was picked up by over 100 publications and syndicated throughout the internet like wildfire.

Jeff Goins says he received over a million views for an article out of nowhere that was published the year before — all because someone randomly shared it via a Facebook Group.

By the time that article’s run was over, it ended with a staggering 250,000 shares.

I don’t tell these stories to inspire you (even though they should), I tell them because somewhere along the way we start believing this stuff is easy.

What compounds the whole thing is the fact that these authors are so close to us. Some of them are right here on Substack. We can tag them in any article if we wanted to.

It’s almost feels like traveling the desert only to die of thirst a few feet away from the well.

It’s sooo close, isn’t it?

These articles are right there. The authors are right there. It’s just the way they structure it, right? “It’s just the information!” we say.

This mirage that everyone goes viral at some point is ridiculous.

It’s hard.

We see the experts doing it all the time (and talking about it later). Our visions become so narrow to the point where we feel like there’s only a handful of good writers in the world.

And then we start believing that if we only write like them, we could do it, too.

That’s the second mistake..

Shooting For 1,000,000 Views Actually Makes Your Articles Worse

Guys, I’ll tell you what..

I could write an article like (insert viral writer here).

But it wouldn’t matter.

I mean, MAYBE I would go viral.

But it wouldn’t be me.

Therefore chasing someone else’s style would be useless.

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”

― Robert Frost

Your audience is smart — they know when you’re into your words.

Give them that.

Existing Audience Helps A Lot

When you have 100,000 freaking subscribers, it’s kind of easy to go viral — I’ll just say that.

So when you see that one author is getting 100’s of likes for an article they just put out yesterday, realize that their following of 100,000+ subscribers REALLY helps.

Here’s How You Actually Go Viral

The only viral article I ever wrote was written at 4 in the morning.

I was pissed off at my friend and couldn’t sleep, so I decided to write an article to spite the entire world.

When I went to sleep and woke up the following morning, my article was on the front page of the Huffington Post

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”

― Saul Bellow

My article was everywhere. It was shared tens of thousands of times on Facebook.

I was big time.

The only common denominator for going viral I’ve seen is that you need to feel a deep connection to the words you’re writing.

Not just moved, or semi-angry — you need to feel it deep down in your bones. If you’re angry, you need to be slamming your fingers down on the keyboard.

If you’re sad, you need to stop, ball your eyes out, then rinse and repeat.

If you’re excited, you basically need to tie your feet to the floor.

You need to almost know by the time you’re done writing that that is about to hit people right in their mouth.

When’s the last time you felt that, honestly?

I thought so.

You know when you’ve written a viral article.

You just do.

It’s not just 99% of you that feels it, it’s all 100%.

Then you hit publish.

And the rest is history.

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