9 Content Attributes for Achieving Viral Social Media Growth

Kallaway

Intro [0:00]

Social media has changed, and new content strategies are outperforming older ones. The speaker, with millions of followers and billions of views, has identified 9 content attributes responsible for top-performing videos across various niches. These attributes are crucial for getting more views and converting customers. This video will break down these 9 attributes and provide a checklist for developing viral ideas.

How to get more attention on your videos (Understanding the algorithm) [2:11]

To succeed on social media, content needs to achieve two main things: getting attention and holding attention.

• Getting Attention: This involves convincing the algorithm to push your content to more people.
  • The algorithm's primary goal is to increase ad revenue for the platform.
  • This is achieved by maximizing "user minutes," which is calculated by: (Number of users on the platform) x (Minutes per session).

    

  • Content helps increase the number of users through shares, bringing new people to the platform.

    

  • Content helps increase minutes per session through watch time (Average Viewer Duration - AVD), keeping existing users engaged longer.
  • Therefore, the algorithm prioritizes videos with high shares and high AVD, pushing them to more people.

Content Attribute 1: TAM Resonance [6:27]

• Definition: How large is the audience that would find this video interesting and resonate with its concept? (TAM stands for Total Addressable Market).
• Importance: A larger TAM increases the potential for shares because people share content they like and are interested in. The algorithm pushes videos to profiles it believes will resonate.
• Tactics to Maximize TAM within a Niche:
  • Broader and Simplified Premise: Choose topics and premises that are easier for a larger percentage of people to understand.
    • Example: For chemistry content, "What would happen if we added a new element to the periodic table?" has a broader appeal than "Let's explore the chemical bonding properties of valence electrons."
  • Cult Hopping: Use a famous celebrity, brand, or movement to increase the resonance surface area of your topic, making it understandable or interesting to a wider audience.
    • Caution: This should be done authentically and relevantly, not forced, as irrelevant references can be disadvantageous.

      

Content Attribute 2: Idea Explosivity [9:59]

• Definition: How shocking or unusual the idea or its frame is, measured by a "shock score" from 1 to 100.
• Importance: Shock is a powerful emotion that strongly drives sharing.
  • People share content that evokes strong emotions.
• Mechanism of Shock: It's the difference between a viewer's current belief (baseline expectation) and the new reality introduced in the content. The greater this delta, the greater the shock.

  

• Tactics: Engineer maximum shock by introducing non-obvious takes or premises on ordinary topics.
  • Example: Instead of basic smart contacts for better vision (low shock score), create a video about contacts that grant night vision or allow sight with eyes closed (high shock score), which performed well.

    

    

Content Attribute 3: Emotional Magnitude [13:23]

• Definition: How large an emotional response (1-100 scale) a video idea creates.
• Importance: The deeper the emotion felt, the higher the likelihood of sharing.
  • People share to gain social or professional credit (e.g., sharing a funny meme to be seen as funny).
  • Emotionally driven content is easily communicable.
• Most Shareworthy Emotions: Shock, fear, anxiety, and sadness (negative emotions often trigger more visceral reactions), followed by happiness and joy.
• Tactics to Drive Bigger Emotional Response:
  1. Show visuals where the subject is feeling the desired emotion.
  2. Use music and sound effects (SFX) that match the target emotion.
  3. Deliver words in a tone and pacing that match the desired emotion.
  4. Use specific trigger words that align with the desired emotion.

     

Content Attribute 4: Novelty [15:49]

• Definition: Being the first to cover a story or presenting a unique, different take on it.
• Importance: There's a significant premium on being the first to introduce new content.
  • Viewers are less likely to share content they've already seen multiple times, as it diminishes the "social credit" for sharing.
• Tactics:
  • Aim to be among the first to cover a topic.
  • If covering an older or widely reported topic, introduce a fresh frame or premise that makes it feel remixed and novel.

Content Attribute 5: Speed To Value [19:45]

• Definition: How quickly you can tease the incoming value of the video.
• Importance: Value clarity is the primary reason viewers continue watching.
  • Viewers are lost rapidly (5-10% per second) in the initial seconds.

    

• Tactics:
  • Be extremely deliberate with your hooks, eliminating all fluff.
  • The first sentence should provide clear context on the video's topic and ideally set up the incoming value.

    

  • At the very latest, the second sentence should tease the value.
  • Self-audit: Read your script line by line and ask after each line, "Is it clear what the value is going to be for the rest of this video?"

    

Content Attribute 6: Curiosity Amplitude [21:13]

• Definition: How curious you can make the viewer (1-100 scale).
• Importance: Curiosity keeps viewers engaged, as they become fixated on an "open loop" or question in their mind that they need to close.
• Mechanism: The open question can be stated directly or implied by shared facts. The amplitude of curiosity relates to how badly they want the answer.
• Tactics:
  • Identify the most significant pain points of your ideal viewer.
  • Intentionally place a rhetorical question directly into their mind that relates to these pain points.
  • Questions closer to a viewer's core pain point will lead to stronger curiosity and longer watch times.

    

Content Attribute 7: Absorption Rate [22:48]

• Definition: The percentage of words per second that the viewer understands.
• Importance: Viewers cannot stay curious or absorb ideas if they don't comprehend what's being said. Absorption and curiosity are interdependent.
• Tactics to Boost Absorption Rate:
  1. Use the simplest possible words.
  2. Use the simplest possible phrasing with the fewest possible words to reduce cognitive load.
  3. Pair your words with relevant visuals, providing two channels for understanding.

     

Content Attribute 8: Rehook Rate [23:38]

• Definition: A second curiosity loop being reopened in the viewer's brain later in the video.
• Importance: Attention naturally decays. Rehooks "reset" attention, providing a "booster" to keep viewers engaged for longer periods.
  • In short-form videos, rehooks typically occur around the 20-25 second mark.
  • In YouTube videos, they happen every 3-4 minutes.
• Tactics:
  • Analyze the idea holistically to identify multiple strong open-loop questions.
  • Use the best question as the initial hook.
  • Use the second-best question (or a new one) 20-25 seconds in to create a new curiosity loop.
  • Utilize transitional words like "but" or "however" to smoothly move from closing one loop to opening another.

    

Content Attribute 9: Stickiness [25:16]

• Definition: How deeply the topic or premise actually matters to the particular viewer (also known as relevance).
• Importance: If the content addresses a significant pain point for the viewer, they are more likely to stay and watch the entire video. If not, they will "bounce."
• Tactics:
  • Identify the most important pain points for your target viewer avatar.
  • Create content topics that directly address these pain points. This inherently builds stickiness into your content.

My 9 Step Content Checklist [26:35]

To effectively implement these 9 content attributes, follow this process:

1. Identify Outlier Videos: Find the top-performing videos in your niche.
2. Evaluate Against Checklist: For each winning idea, assess why it succeeded by asking:
   • Did it have a massive TAM?
   • Did it have a high degree of Idea Explosivity?
   • Did it have high Emotional Magnitude?
   • Was it Novel (given the take or timing)?
   • Was the value teased quickly?
   • How curiosity-inducing was the initial hook?
   • How well were the words and concepts absorbed?
   • Did they rehook well and when?
   • Did this idea feel sticky to the core viewer?

     

3. Identify Gaps and Remix: Analyze white space and potential gaps in the execution of these winning videos. If an idea performed well despite low scores in some attributes, consider how improving those weaker areas could make your remixed version even more successful. This "idea mining and development" process is used by top creators to maximize growth.

Summary [28:34]

The video covered the 9 most important content attributes for getting and holding attention on social media.

These attributes are crucial because they directly impact shares and AVD, the two metrics that significantly influence how much the algorithm pushes a video. This creates a viral loop where more push leads to more shares and longer watch times.