ben roy's advice to going viral on X:

I'm not normally an engagement whore BUT I'll admit that over the last month I've actively tried to go viral to see how the algorithm works these days

>I've had 3 posts get 1m+ impressions in that time, some of that's luck obviously, but here are a few of my personal takeaways:

Notes to self...

1) One way to go viral is by posting something that you mostly believe but that intentionally shaves away nuance so it becomes controversial (ish). It's like forcing a binary because people on both sides of The Statement reply really intensely to affirm or reject the view. There's a line here that I'm not interested in crossing re: political issues and stuff, but for general life commentary that's lower stakes I think it's ok to get the people going a bit.

2) Another way to go viral is by posting something that invites other folks to share their own experiences. Set people up to use your post as a way for them to express something themselves. Often this ends up being an image or a prompt. It's another way to draw comments & quote tweets but in a more positive sum sense by pulling on the desire that we all have to share about our lives.

3) Another way to go viral is to share something that resonates so deeply with people that they organically want to share that with friends & group chats as a way to say "Hey, this is me too." Articulate something on behalf of others. Be a vessel for shared thoughts, emotions & experiences that are part of the human condition.

TLDR: find a way to say something that gets active engagement vs. just passive likes.

And final thought... I think going viral solely for the sake of going viral is stupid, but it can be useful to think through ideas that are important to you & try to apply some of this thinking to get incrementally more traction & engagement when it counts.

>That's it for now. Back to normie posting.