Go viral or go home

What makes a picture, video or article go viral? Is there a formula to success? What content 'cracks' Instagram algorithm? And would these pictures be good enough to do so?

These million-dollar worthy questions are on the top of many of our minds. People who chose Internet and social media to be their full time jobs are dreaming of ‘cracking’ the secret to going viral. The more people join Instagram and other social media networks the harder it gets to remain visible and on top of people’s feeds and, speaking from my own experience, these changes can be hard on the long-term and dedicated users. I have recently tweeted that Instagram is doing everything to make it impossible for honest people to use it. The game is getting more competitive by the hour and what used to be more than good enough a year or two ago, just won’t do these days.

With the incredible easiness of how numbers on all social media networks can be faked, it leaves me frustrated and demotivated at times knowing that a content that I work hard to produce will be overlooked if I just keep being honest. And yet I still try and believe that quality and hard work will always be recognised. But have any of my posts ever gone viral so far? Not that I know of.

4 weeks ago I started making my weekly vlogs and started taking YouTube more seriously. And with that I started looking into what makes certain videos so popular. My confusion with things that go viral is based around the fact that very often those are just not good or interesting at all in my opinion. And yet people seem to love them. I have stumbled upon an exciting book by Jonah Berger ‘CONTAGIOUS:WHY THINGS CATCH ON’ where he claims to have found a formula that will help you achieve viral kind of success. I am finishing reading it as we speak – it’s good and it opens your eyes to some of the psychological factors that make people talk about certain things over the other, so I do recommend you reading it if you are interested. Because going viral is a psychology. It is understanding of what will make people interested and excited about certain things. It is a science and it takes time to master it.

I already mentioned once before that I struggle between wanting to produce a high quality, planned, editorial style pictures  and seeing that a simple SELFIE performs better and engages more people. I am still in the process of figuring out which way I should proceed and I wanted to know what you guys think about it.

What makes a perfect Insta shot for you? Is it the hyper real, mega edited, dreamy lifestyle or is it a snap from the every day life, ‘caught-in-act’ kind of picture? There are so many questions I have about this and I would love to have a conversation with you all about it. Let’s do it in the comments section of this post and help each other understand the formula behind success.

GESTUZ top and jeans
BOSIDENG jacket
MISSGUIDED heels

PHOTOGRAPHY BY PATRIK LUNDIN