The 5 emotions behind highly shareable content

Thanks to campaigns like the Dollar Shave Club and Blendtec’s ‘Will it Blend?’, make something viral has become, without a doubt, one of the most common and frustrating marketing briefs of the last two decades.

But at the core of virality, and why so many companies get it wrong, is that it’s no longer about what’s likeable to everybody, but what’s shareable between a community of people who want to have their name associated with the content.

People can watch something without emotion… God knows everyone’s done that while binge-watching The Big Bang Theory. But the likelihood is that you won’t share something without feeling an emotional connection with it.

According to a UCLA study, as soon as we encounter new information, we immediately use the brain network that triggers the thought, How can this be interesting to other people? Simply put, we are wired to share. But not all content is wired to be shareable.

Virality used to be repeatable to an extent, but now the algorithms have changed, and it’s notoriously difficult to get the formula right. In fact, the chance of reaching the front page of YouTube these days is roughly 1 in 2,000,000.

However, Tim Staples, writer of ‘Break Through the Noise: The Nine Rules to Capture Global Attention’ and CEO of creative agency Shareability, feels like he’s cracked the code: His agency has had a video reach YouTube’s front page an amazing 25 times.

How? According to Tim, in order to create popular, shareable content, you need to appeal to at least one of these five key emotions:

Awe

If you think about it, Red Bull’s association with extreme sports was a marketing masterclass.

By attaching themselves to consistent examples of awe, they produced and sponsored a multitude of share-worthy events, including a live parachute jump from the edge of space.

Awe is an emotion based on respect and of witnessing something you’ve never seen before. On YouTube, many creators have tapped into this emotion by challenging who can out-extreme the next guy. But tapping into this emotion can backfire for creators, as witnessed by Logan Paul’s suicide forest video scandal in 2017.

Curiosity

Curiosity is hard-rooted into our evolutionary characteristics through a trait called neoteny.

Neoteny means that humans inherently retain a plasticity of behaviour only found in young animals. We are essentially more child-like than other animals throughout our life, continuously evolving through learned, rather than inherited, behaviour.

It’s why we seek to learn for the rest of our lives. Without learning something, our days feel unfulfilled and meaningless.

So when we find something that answers questions we’ve always had or that helps us receive knowledge in a way that’s not been presented before, we share it.

Not only do we want others to learn from it too, but it makes us feel smarter.

An example of the curiosity element in action

Empathy

Gary Vaynerchuk claims that one of his keys to business success is empathy:

Content driven towards empathy, whether in B2B or B2C, is about knowing your end user deeply and fully understanding their difficulties and concerns. Brands can tackle severe problems in the world in ways that make sense with their values.

It’s important not to repeatedly ask am I being empathetic because I care, or am I being empathetic because I know being understanding will give me leverage. Being kind and empathetic is always the best option.

So much content is now driven toward celebrating the shoes you’re in. But watch what happens when you put yourself in somebody else’s.

Happiness

No matter how shit the weather is or how badly you screwed up at work, I bet a genuine laugh can reset your entire day.

And when that laughter comes from content, we instantly want others to feel it too. There’s proof of the shareability of happiness wherever you look on the internet — the content that generates the most traffic is memes, funny videos, or Reddit’s aww section.

Think about all of your favourite brands and entertainers. Chances are, at some point, in some way, they made you smile. Doing what you can to make your audience smile is an excellent way to make a lasting positive impression.

Surprise

Although Tim Staples swears by these emotions to create shareable content, you need to first grab the audience’s attention before they uncover the story of the video. To do that, you need to reveal the video’s surprise moment before it has even begun.

For example, one of Shareability’s most effective marketing campaigns was working alongside WWE superstar John Cena. Immediately, in the first few seconds, you’re asking why is John Cena bursting through a wall.

With this video structure, you’re essentially giving away the final act of the video, then using the remainder of the video to explain the narrative of why the final act happened in the first place. This keeps people sticking around to watch all the way to the end.

Surprise is a multiplier. Partner it with one of the other emotions in this list, and you’ll see how shareable your content can become.

Watch and Learn

The next time someone shares something with you, whether online or offline, pay attention to why they’re doing so and which emotion has been triggered.

With attention now the currency of the internet, content creators need to tap into the shareable emotions, making them the lifeblood of a growing audience.