This is EXACTLY how you can go viral.

A Social Commerce Newsletter

Author

Nicole Rechtszaid
October 11, 2024

If you follow me on LinkedIn (how did you find me if you don’t?), you may have seen my post sharing the blueprint on virality.

Surprise! That title is clickbait.

Sort of.

But not really.

Let’s recap it below…

“This is the exact blueprint I've shared with influencers on how to go viral.

And this involves a little bit of viewer psychology. 🧠 

Consumers of content can be split up into a few categories:

→ The Idle Scroller 😴 
Behavior: Casual, unfocused consumption. They may leave a like here and there but are unlikely to comment or share content. They’re just drifting from one video to the next.

→ The Engaged Follower 👍
Behavior: Actively comments, likes, and occasionally shares content. They’re supportive and involved with the creators they follow.

→ The Content Explorer 🧗‍♀️
Behavior: Will often search for niche topics and explore new creators. They’re early adopters of new trends, leaving comments on undiscovered gems.

→ The Troll 🤡 
Behavior: Leaves negative or inflammatory comments. Rarely adds value to discussions but loves attention from controversy.

→ The Learner 🤔 
Behavior: Watches instructional or insightful content. Likely to save videos for later and comment with questions or appreciation.

→ The Influencer Aspirant 🤩 
Behavior: Watches closely, learns from creators, and is likely to experiment with their own content. They follow trends to see what works.”

Understanding these core viewer categories is KEY to making viral content.

I’ve predicted every viral video that I’ve made over the past five years after I became familiar with these core viewer categories.

And I even coached a few creators and brands on how to do this.

The key to kickstarting virality is to get attention and engagement from these groups first:
→ The Engaged Follower
→ The Troll
→ The Content Explorer

These three groups are the most likely to comment and share and often contribute to watch time on short videos by spending time coming back to the video to comment again.

Let me run you through an example:

Imagine you’re a content creator with an audience of 50,000 followers. Your main content type is about skincare science. You have the credentials: you’re a cosmetic pharmacist. And your audience follows you because of this.

You’ve started to accept brand deals and experienced a few comments flagging viewer skepticism about your trustworthiness, but you mostly have positive feedback.

So how do you spin this in your favor, regain audience trust, and boost viewership?

Start with The Trolls and The Engaged Follower.

You’ll do this by making a video that is just controversial enough that it’ll attract the trolls to comment. This will summon your engaged followers to stand up to defend you.

Doing this is simple.

For a cosmetic pharmacist, you can claim that a new filler lasts 20x longer than the current market fillers. Sure, the test was conducted in rats and perhaps it isn’t available to the market yet. But that’s what a caption is for. ;)

See what I mean by feeding the trolls a littttttle bit?

Trolls tend to act faster than reading a caption and engaged followers tend to stick up for you, directing them to your disclosure in the caption.

This boosts your engagement and sends you into the FYP of The Learner and The Influencer Aspirant who will interact with your video through likes, shares, and stitches/remixes/etc.

That will push you over the edge into the page of The Idle Scroller who might like, but will probably watch the video.

Going viral isn’t as hard as you think it is.

Use these tips with caution and DM me your results.

News 📰

Ready for this week’s social commerce and media news? Grab a cup of coffee, tea, or a shot, and dive in.

TikTok Shop

  • TikTok Shop is possibly working on building live shopping studios separate from agency partners in key cities (Business Insider)

  • TikTok Shop’s Fall Deals For You campaign is being participated in by Tarte, NYX, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Phillips, Dyson, Keurig, Benefit, Pacsun, and more (TikTok)

Twitch 👾

  • In August, Kamala Harris’ campaign launched a Twitch account and streamed gameplay on October 9 with a live feed of VP nominee Tim Waltz speech (Engadget)

  • Twitch just clarified dress code rules for VTubers to prevent nudity issues (TubeFilter)

Meta 🌐

  • Guns are being illegally sold on Meta, raising questions about their content moderation (CBS News)

YouTube 🎧

  • YouTube is testing a new UI to make the app more like a Smart TV (Yahoo)

Predictions 🔮

Amazon Prime Day just wrapped up and allegedly had the most successful October Prime Day thus far. Specific sales numbers weren’t released but they claimed that members worldwide saved more than $1 billion across millions of deals.

I predict that brands will underutilize Amazon Live for BFCM this year, but those who do will see a shocking lift in sales. At least an increase of 25% as opposed to prior years, if all other factors remain the same.

About Me

Hi, I’m Nicole! I’m a Gen Z social commerce entrepreneur and TikTok creator. I’m the Co-Founder of Ghost Agency, a social commerce company that supports brands and influencers with content and livestreams. Ghost Agency is one of the first TikTok Shop Partner agencies and we’ve been mentioned in The Information and Business Insider.

Thanks for reading my newsletter. If you’d like to connect with me, you may do so via email or LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out if you have any requested topics, general inquiries, or Ghost Agency questions.