{"id":447,"date":"2018-11-26T13:08:02","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T13:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arrocomm.com\/blog\/?p=447"},"modified":"2023-05-03T04:52:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T04:52:00","slug":"what-does-it-take-to-produce-viral-content-for-financial-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arrocomm.com\/blog\/what-does-it-take-to-produce-viral-content-for-financial-services\/","title":{"rendered":"What does it take to produce viral content for financial services?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"We\u2019ve all heard the rags-to-riches success stories that brands, content creators, and companies can sometimes experience when something they\u2019ve created \u201cgoes viral.\u201d These stories follow a familiar arc, beginning with a particularly original, sticky, authentic, shareable piece of content, which explodes onto the internet\u2019s collective consciousness like an atom bomb, is shared like crazy through various social media channels, and ultimately results in huge spikes in traffic for the original creators of the viral content. This is the sort of attention that ETF issuers dream about: thousands of prospects pouring into their website or social channels at the top of their sales funnels, eagerly sharing the issuer\u2019s content themselves\u2014for free!<\/p>\n

But what does it actually take to produce this sort of viral sensation? Can financial services companies really hope to latch onto a winning \u201cviral formula\u201d to launch next-level AUM growth in their products?<\/p>\n

Learn more about How to Take Your ETF Marketing to the Next Level<\/a><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all encountered viral content online before, and chances are you\u2019ve probably shared some viral content yourself. But did you ever stop to ask what it was about this particular post that spurred you to share it with others? We have! What follows are the key characteristics common across viral content, together with our commentary on how financial services companies might approach them:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Emotional<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Perhaps most importantly, viral content must spur an emotional<\/em> response in an audience. This emotion can be humor, joy, sadness, jealousy, or even disgust (positive emotions may work best for marketing purposes), but it must make content consumers on the other end feel something. If your audience doesn\u2019t feel something, they\u2019re not going to feel compelled to share your content with others, which is absolutely critical to going viral.<\/p>\n

Already, we can sense your skepticism setting in. Can ETF issuers really produce content that spurs genuine emotion? Yes. It may require a light touch and careful thought regarding the target audience, message, and topic, but it certainly is possible. Even financial products and services can be interesting, engaging, and\u2014yes!\u2014even exciting with an open-minded approach and a willingness to think outside the box.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Authentic<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cAuthenticity\u201d can be a slippery topic to grab hold of in the world of financial marketing, for a number of good reasons. Since they manage investors\u2019 money, many financial services firms understandably seek to project an image of seriousness, responsibility, and trustworthiness; with an imaginative approach, these characteristics can<\/em> be interesting, even viral. But it\u2019s important to not lose sight of the authenticity of your content, which stems from an essential truthfulness about who you are as a company. All of which is to say: your audience is savvier than you think.<\/p>\n

If your company is actually a bunch of brilliant goofball quants, use it! If your company has a quirky side that demonstrates some true humanity and a unique outlook, use that too! Just don\u2019t insult your audience\u2019s intelligence by pretending to be someone you\u2019re not. Human beings are remarkably sensitive to insincerity and are less likely to share content that makes them feel as though they\u2019re being manipulated or lied to.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Engaging (read: video or infographics)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Writers despair, directors rejoice: internet audiences are developing increasingly short attention spans as mobile devices expand their dominance, which is bad news for lengthy blog articles like this one, and great news for short, impactful videos or infographics. Mobile video<\/a> usage has increased by nearly 10 million daily viewing minutes in the last two years, while eye-tracking studies have demonstrated that internet users pay closer attention to information-laden images (infographics) than they do to plain old text.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shareable<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Viral content spreads organically at lightning speed, almost always through social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. This means that your viral content should be posted directly to social media sites (see our ), and optimized from the beginning to display properly in those environments. If social media users can\u2019t share your content, it\u2019s not going to go viral. You shouldn\u2019t expect the tiny \u201cshare\u201d icons on your website to do the work for you, unless you already have very heavy traffic visiting your existing webpage.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bottom Line<\/strong><\/p>\n

So that\u2019s it! While there\u2019s unquestionably a good deal more that goes into viral content, including relevance, audience targeting, irreverence, and a good amount of luck (after all, \u201cgoing viral\u201d is never guaranteed), the key characteristics we shared above should be enough to get those wheels turning on whether your financial services firm may want to pursue this unorthodox, high-risk-high-reward marketing strategy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve all heard the rags-to-riches success stories that brands, content creators, and companies can sometimes experience when something they\u2019ve created \u201cgoes viral.\u201d These stories follow a familiar arc, beginning with a particularly original, sticky, authentic, shareable piece of content, which explodes onto the internet\u2019s collective consciousness like an atom bomb, is shared like crazy through various social media channels, and ultimately results in huge spikes in traffic for the original creators of the viral content. This is the sort of attention that ETF issuers dream about: thousands of prospects pouring into their website or social channels at the top of their sales funnels, eagerly sharing the issuer\u2019s content themselves\u2014for free! But what does it actually take to produce this sort of viral sensation? Can financial services companies really hope to latch onto a winning \u201cviral formula\u201d to launch next-level AUM growth in their products? Learn more about How to Take Your ETF Marketing to the Next Level We\u2019ve all encountered viral content online before, and chances are you\u2019ve probably shared some viral content yourself. But did you ever stop to ask what it was about this particular post that spurred you to share it with others? We have! What follows…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,12],"tags":[28,20,22,44,2,3,26,70,69],"class_list":["post-447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content-generation","category-social-media","tag-advertising","tag-content","tag-content-generation","tag-etfs","tag-finance","tag-marketing","tag-social-media","tag-viral","tag-viral-content"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arrocomm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arrocomm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arrocomm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arrocomm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arrocomm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/arrocomm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1195,"href":"https:\/\/arrocomm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions\/1195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arrocomm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arrocomm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arrocomm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arrocomm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}