What does it feel like to go viral?

annsmarty on Fri, 2013-06-21 16:24.

Social & Community

3 comments

Reading this post about accidentally going viral and how it hard then to get rid of the fear that was your hugest accomplishment in life (and it passed), I thought to find more case studies like this (sorry, this one is not about Google)

So you think you want your photo to go viral? - This one talks about going viral and getting zero benefit from that. It poses a good question (which I can't disagree with as I am not the real artwork provider): "In the age of sharing and the viral nature of the Internet, where does one draw the line between ‘fair use’ and ‘theft’"
What's It Like To Go Viral On YouTube For The First Time? A Chat With Ian Bennett - This one offers a cool tip on how to make any article go viral (at least in what direction to brainstorm): "The travel videos invite the viewer to experience something new, but Games We Play offered something the viewer could relate to directly from their own experiences."
Behind the Crap: what it feels like to go viral - This one describes going viral on Slideshare (which is the easiest channel to go viral by the way....)

So what do we get for going viral? That may depend, but apart from the pressure of not making all your further content as successful, those are mostly good things...

I remember a few years ago, I was referenced by NYTimes and enjoyed a quick moment of fame... What did I get from it besides thousands of clicks? None of the people coming actually became my client or even a connection / follower... So what did I get? I got known in my industry as someone who was referenced in NYTimes (that's the heck of a link) which turned out to be very good for my business and brand, so I can't complain! :)

Do you have any other personal case studies of going viral?

Image via Debbie Ridpath Ohi licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Comments

I have had a few things go viral

SEOEnquirer on Fri, 2013-06-21 16:37.

The stuff I have that goes viral usually starts at Reddit and then slowly it starts hitting twitter and FB. I have had server melt downs a few times were there has been so much traffic that the servers can't take it so now I use AWS for any site that have a chance of going viral.

I have had servers get 50k+ request a second, sounds like fun but it isn't when the sites sitting on a $40 a month vps or on a 5 year old dedictaed server. you learn from your mistakes and you move on :)

one thing I will add though

SEOEnquirer on Fri, 2013-06-21 16:43.

If you are running cheaper vps system then to give yourself a chance install nginx and get rid of Apache. Even the Googler tweaked version of Apache. To really bullet proof your vps against spikes in traffic add Varnish to the mix.

For a run down on how to do this go here http://www.ewanleith.com/blog/900/10-million-hits-a-day-with-wordpress-using-a-15-server . Not my site but this guy has helped me a lot! I have setup some cheap vps systems for clients that can take a beating. Some blitz.io tests say I could easily take 2 million visitors a day.

Pro tip when looking for a cheap vps (IE not AWS) then get one that uses ssd's and not hdd's like Ramnode.

Most will not benefit because

GrowMap on Mon, 2013-07-01 09:57.

Many don't stand a chance because when they get mentioned on some major site and the traffic comes their hosting company takes their site down for going over their allowance.