3 Things I Learnt From Observing a Friend Go Viral on Social Media
Going viral doesn’t bring money, but it opens up opportunities to make some.
I’ve always wondered why people care about going viral on social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Tiktok. From a shallow perspective, it seems like they are only chasing fame or validation.
My Singaporean friend, Muhammad Noor Tijany, started his first IGTV on 30 August 2019 with 1,574 views. He posted an average of 1–2 videos per month. Covering issues related to spirituality and religion.
He would occasionally cover trending issues in the Malay Muslim community. One of his early viral videos reached 122k on 19 June 2020. His next hit video had 105k views on 12 December 2020. With every trending issue, he got better at delivering his message in his own unique way.
Genius Turner quoted Paulo Coelho best “ Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.” in his article. Jany, too kept taking chances in doing what worked.He gained audiences from other countries like Malaysia, reaching 489k views on 25 December 2020 and the most recent, a whopping 1.4M views on 8 Feb 2021. He now has 17.4k followers on his Instagram account.
Accumulating a large following can lead to money or employment down the road.
This reminded me of Zulie Rane’s story that I read. Like some of the Twitter users she approached. My friend had no businesses to monetize his followings. But he’s an active youth member who volunteers in his community.He received invitations to become youth ambassadors of organizations. Jany’s greatest success at 22 was to get recruited by Ok Lets Go (a leading podcast show among the Malay community in Singapore) as one of the content creators in NJU. . He now gets paid a great sum of money with every video he publishes under their brand name.To make money from their viral tweets, creators have to look to other sources of revenue. Some creators link to shops to monetize their followings. Others court brand sponsorships. Accumulating a large following can lead to money or employment down the road.
There is no quick way to build a genuine audience.
Like many successful influencers, my friend didn’t achieve this overnight.
Sinem Günel gave advice that I really like in her story. After 2 years of work, she gained her success, niching down on topics that she is an expert about.My friend got to where he is today by consistently uploading videos for over 3 years — even when there isn’t anything that’s trending. Many others posted similar content like him. But he didn’t quite land such an opportunity as he did.The most overlooked truth is that someone with 100k followers wants the same thing as someone with 10 followers: More eyeballs on their stories. And if person A and person B are writing equally good stories, the person who shows up more frequently will always outperform the other. Success is a numbers game:The more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it.
Going viral is a game of probability.
Eve Arnold shared a precious lesson here. When producing viral content, you should concentrate on everything that can’t be measured or what he calls the ‘intangible value.’For Jany, it would be how much better he had become in terms of public speaking. What skills he has gained from learning to edit videos. The connections he made from networking with other influencers and his audiences.But while it seemed like those skills led him to success, it’s luck that enabled him to hit the home run. When covering trending issues about influencers, he betted on the chance that those influencers would share his work. Enabling him to reach a wider audience — that maybe, their fans would come over to become his.It’s so often that you hear of an entrepreneur who has demonstrated such ‘skill and vision’ and has talents that surpass the average human. Those features are the sole reason he or she has reached the pinnacle of success. Yet, Taleb argues, their success is often down to pure luck.
Applying it to Writing
You want to write viral articles to reach a wide range of audiences — as it opens up a variety of opportunities. But it shouldn’t be your goal. It should be to provide value and gain a genuine audience.
Consistency is key. Many people want to make money by writing. But not many are willing to put in the work. To learn the nuances and show up for your work.
In Arabic, luck is better worded as Rizq = blessing. The reason why you keep writing is that you’ll never know when blessings find you. Put in the work, leave the outcome to a higher power. That way, you won’t stress yourself up on things you can’t control.
Basrah is a Year 3 Medical Student in FK UMSU, Medan who is also an aspiring authorpreneur. Read Basrah's humble beginnings, "From Rejection to Motivation". Feel free to send Basrah a message here.