LinkedIn is stuffed with narcissists, and I’ve the info to show it.
It began after I needed to go viral on LinkedIn. Somewhat than merely guessing what may work, I took a data-driven method, scraping posts and analyzing what drives engagement. What I found was shocking (and miserable): Essentially the most profitable posts are overwhelmingly self-centered, with folks speaking about themselves in supposedly “inspirational” methods.
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As a substitute of becoming a member of the self-congratulatory parade, I made a decision to name it out. I constructed the Viral Submit Generator, a software that robotically creates eye-roll-worthy posts, making the formulation painfully obvious to everybody. In a pleasant twist of irony, this software mocking viral content material went viral itself.
On this publish, I am going to share how that occurred and what I realized about product-market match, distribution, and fashionable virality alongside the way in which.
The Beginning of the Viral Submit Generator
About two-and-a-half years in the past, I made a decision I needed to go viral on LinkedIn. That was my aim: to put in writing a publish that may take off. Naturally, I began questioning what actually makes a LinkedIn publish go viral within the first place.
So, I did what any curious marketer would do. I scraped over 200,000 posts and filtered them based mostly on engagement metrics to determine distinct patterns among the many most profitable ones. I particularly checked if key phrases had been inflicting them to go viral. After analyzing all that knowledge, it was fairly apparent what was occurring.
These viral posts all adopted the identical formulation. The LinkedIn person shared some private story with a lot of dramatic highs and lows, giving imprecise recommendation about “hanging in there” or “believing in your self.”
This perception led me to create the Viral Post Generator, a parody software that generates cringeworthy LinkedIn posts based mostly on minimal enter. The idea was easy:
- Inform the generator what you probably did at this time.
- Add any “inspirational” recommendation.
- Select a cringe degree (low to excessive).
- Get a wonderfully crafted viral publish that mimics the precise patterns of profitable LinkedIn content material.
The technical approach was straightforward, especially by today’s standards. This was before ChatGPT rolled out to the public. Using the most viral posts of all time as inspiration, I created about 50-100 templates to serve as the foundation.
For the interactive element, an AWS library provided natural language processing to analyze user inputs, match them with the right template, and even adjust the text slightly to fit the sentence structure. The entire project came together on the no-code platform Adalo, proving that deep technical skills aren’t necessary to create something that truly resonates with people.
How a Parody Tool Actually Went Viral
Having built a tool that parodied viral content, my next challenge was getting people to use it. The initial launch fell completely flat. After sharing the Viral Post Generator across X, LinkedIn, and Reddit, all I heard was crickets. Nobody seemed interested.
This initial failure taught me a crucial lesson: Having a good product isn’t enough. Distribution strategy makes all the difference.
Pivoting tactics, I began tagging social media profiles that regularly criticized LinkedIn’s culture of self-promotion. By positioning the tool as being “inspired by them” (despite never having interacted with these accounts before), these larger accounts began sharing my product, giving me instant access to their established audiences.
On Reddit, my posts initially confronted deletion for promotional violations. By reframing the dialog to contain the group, telling them I created the software for them, and welcoming them to share their finest creations, these restrictions remodeled into alternatives for engagement.
Individuals who really feel like they helped spark an concept are more likely to assist it. By giving folks credit score, I gave them a motive to share what I’d constructed. It was some of the efficient methods I discovered to achieve audiences I’d’ve by no means accessed as a newcomer.
When Acquisition Comes Knocking
Because the Viral Submit Generator began to take off, I received a message from the founding father of Taplio, a platform that helps customers develop their LinkedIn presence. He noticed the software’s potential as a model consciousness play and needed to accumulate it.
At first, I wasn’t positive. There was one thing extremely satisfying about constructing one thing that had my title on it. However as visitors began to gradual and the fact of sustaining momentum kicked in, the provide began to look extra interesting. I used to be drained. Retaining the software alive meant continuously selling it — posting, replying, and discovering new methods to maintain folks .
Behind the scenes, the technical stress was much more intense. Sleepless nights turned the norm as I continuously frightened in regards to the website crashing whereas hundreds of tourists had been actively utilizing it. As a solo creator with no assist staff, the stress of being “web well-known” had rapidly misplaced its allure.
After weighing these components, I quoted what I thought of a excessive acquisition worth. The Taplio founder instantly declined, not even providing a counteroffer. As a substitute, we agreed to a 24-hour take a look at: I would come with an advert for Taplio in my generator to measure its model consciousness worth earlier than figuring out a good worth.
The Final-Minute Viral Push
Because the 24-hour window began, I seen our numbers dropping. I wanted one final shot at making this work. I believed, “The place have not I attempted posting but?” I remembered there is a subreddit referred to as r/InternetIsBeautiful the place folks share cool new instruments they discover on-line.
I posted there, and it blew up instantly. Somebody noticed my publish on Reddit and shared it on X. That publish went loopy viral. Inside a number of hours, it hit 22 million folks and practically 180,000 likes. It was utterly sudden.
The chain response intensified as Reddit’s official accounts started sharing the software. Instagram pages with tens of millions of followers picked it up, and hundreds of customers began posting about it throughout social platforms. In a single day, the generator reached 1.4 million customers who created and shared their parody posts.
Then got here the technical nightmare. Too many simultaneous guests crashed not simply my software however all the internet hosting platform. An Adalo employees member later confirmed their system went down particularly due to the visitors surge to my generator. After a number of tense hours, the whole lot got here again on-line, and the flood of customers continued unabated.
By the point our 24-hour take a look at concluded, the Taplio founder did not even try to barter. He merely agreed to my unique asking worth — a transparent indication I may have requested for extra. However at that time, I used to be prepared to shut the chapter. What had begun as a weekend facet undertaking had remodeled into an acquisition success story in simply seven breathless days.
The Unbundling of Phrase-of-Mouth
Past the acquisition, this expertise revealed one thing profound about how content material spreads in at this time’s digital panorama. Our typical understanding of virality, one particular person telling two individuals who every inform two extra, has turn out to be outdated.
what I name “word-of-Slack” and “word-of-WhatsApp.” True virality now happens in personal messaging platforms and closed communities, not on public social media feeds.
Trendy word-of-mouth has fragmented into what I name “word-of-Slack” and “word-of-WhatsApp.” True virality now happens in personal messaging platforms and closed communities, not on public social media feeds. This perception basically modified my method to designing shareable experiences.
After I constructed the generator, I didn‘t hassle with these social sharing buttons that no person clicks anyway. As a substitute, I simply wrote, “Take a screenshot and share it.” Easy as that. I made it so customers couldn’t copy the textual content immediately. They needed to take screenshots.
This was among the finest choices I made. When folks took screenshots, they grabbed my yellow background and watermark, too. They may share them anyplace they needed, of their group chats, Slack channels, or DMs. My branding went alongside for the journey. This straightforward method labored manner higher than fancy sharing widgets ever may have.
Submit-launch analytics confirmed that non-public channels drove nearly all of new customers. By designing for these intimate sharing contexts quite than public platforms, the software achieved exponentially larger attain than typical social media methods may have delivered.
The Amazon Strategy to Product Improvement
Amazon has a superb framework for growing new merchandise and options. Their groups begin with the press launch in thoughts, actually typing up what they think about the TechCrunch or Enterprise Insider headline could be earlier than writing a single line of code.
This “working backward” method forces creators to concentrate on what makes a product newsworthy. As a substitute of making an attempt to determine what options to develop and methods to construct them, Amazon groups begin from the top: The headline that may announce the product. Solely after they’ve clearly envisioned this announcement do they work backward to develop it.
For the Viral Submit Generator, I utilized this precise method. Earlier than improvement, I envisioned how tech publications may cowl a software that parodied LinkedIn’s self-promotion tradition. This psychological train clarified what to construct and why folks would care sufficient to share it.
The protection that ultimately got here from Business Insider, The Guardian, and BuzzFeed adopted patterns remarkably much like what I had imagined — not by coincidence, however as a result of I intentionally created one thing designed to impress a particular dialog.
By beginning with the headline you hope to earn, you create a North Star that guides each improvement choice towards a product worthy of that protection.
Tapping Into Shared Expertise
Regardless of all of the technical features behind my generator’s success, the true magic got here from tapping into one thing deeply human. I related with a day by day frustration that LinkedIn professionals skilled however not often mentioned brazenly.
What I created wasn‘t only a parody software. It was permission to chortle at one thing all of us discovered ridiculous, but continued to take part in. I’ll always remember watching folks’s reactions once they used it: “Sure! Somebody lastly stated it!” That second of recognition created a connection way more potent than any technical characteristic may have.
This emotional factor explains why my undertaking unfold so rapidly. Individuals who really feel understood don‘t simply use your product. They champion it. I realized one thing big from all this: Nice advertising and marketing isn’t about fixing issues or including options. It is about making folks really feel seen.
In a world the place everybody‘s combating for consideration, generally the most effective technique isn’t being the loudest or most cutting-edge. It‘s being the one who places phrases to what everybody’s been considering all alongside.
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