So, you’re going viral. Now what
Listen. I messed up.
Nobody, not you, not me, not Mark Zuckerburg, not whoever the CEO of LinkedIn is, knows for certain if something will go mega-viral.
There are formulas to improve the chances, sure. But nothing’s certain.
I know this because I went viral recently, and I fucked up.
Bad.
I wasn’t prepared.
If I had followed these steps, I would have gotten more leads for my business.
Here’s how to be ready.
Calm down
It’s exciting to go viral, but just accept that it’s happening.
If you’re uncomfortable with the attention, it’ll pass. If you want more, that’s great, don’t try to force it and be cringe.
Just play it cool.
Clean your profile up
Basic stuff
Imagine everyone’s looking at your profile.
Your profile photo from six years ago. Your description you wrote when you weren’t funny. Your header image from your last corporate gig.
Pretty much worthless.
You’ll need:
A modern, clean profile photo. I swear to God, just make it semi-normal. You can even use an AI headshot app, I don’t care.
A simple header description. For LinkedIn, this is the 1-line that will appear next to your name on the feed. Use this format:
<Title> at <Company> | We do <blank>
An inoffensive header image. Don’t put thought into this. Blank is fine if nothing else.
A LEAD MAGNET! So many people overthink this. Got a signup form for your newsletter? Use that. A landing page for your startup? Put that as the featured link. Something that can convert some percentage of your profile visits.
Here’s what that looks like.
Remove anything you don’t want people to see
Remember. There might be a midwest city’s worth of internet anon’s crawling your profile, posts, and whatever else they can find.
Do me a favor: right now, go to your profile, and search for any words that might get you canceled.
“But I don’t talk like that!” you might protest. I don’t care. People say dumb shit sometimes. Especially 15 years ago, when most of these platforms still existed.
Purge anything embarrassing from your feed.
What you should do regardless of platform
Don’t reply to everyone
Say it with me.
“I don’t need to engage with everyone who replies to my post.”
Don’t put pressure on yourself to reply to every low-effort comment and bad joke.
Reply to comments as you normally would. If someone’s adding value, let them know.
Just like “no” is a complete sentence, “liking” a reply is enough of a comment.
Add a lead magnet reply to your post
This post got 8M views.
But it drove sales. How?
All David did was add a simple reply to the original post.
Half a million impressions on a link because he replied to the original post.
Do this on Twitter and on LinkedIn if something is getting clear traction. It doesn’t impact reach and gets serious eyes.
Jason Levin, the king of memes, gets it.
He plugs his meme-making tool under every viral post.
Do this on Twitter
Pin the post strategically
As of this writing, Twitter boosts posts a small amount when you pin them to your profile.
Do this 6-8 hours after your post to get a little bump in the engagement.
Do this on LinkedIn
Do not edit
Do not edit your post after you post it. That kills reach. Especially don’t include links.
LinkedIn posts stay in circulation a lot longer - there’s a long-tail to post engagement that doesn’t really exist on any other text-based platform.
Expect decent engagement numbers even 7+ days after the post.
Strategically evaluate any cross-promotion
If you post a meme like this…
…you might get a DM like this.
I leave this up to you.
If it’s a random blue-chip meme page (like this one), there’s almost no downside.
Free publicity.
If it’s questionable, then say no.
Just remember
It’ll pass.
Enjoy it, and remember that the easiest way to go viral is to increase your surface area for luck.
By posting consistently.
And being funny.
