Last week, I had the opportunity to sit in on a webinar offered by OfferPop featuring Scott Stratten, more popularly known on Twitter as @Unmarketing. I've had the good fortune of seeing Scott speak on a couple of occasions at Tweetstock and he is definitely one of the best out there when it comes to doing content marketing online.

During his webinar, he had one point that he really managed articulate better than I had ever seen before, the concept of "going viral." While this is definitely a buzz term when it comes to creating and sharing content online, what does it actually mean? What is the process beyond the idea of just getting lots of views, hits, likes, and retweets? In this blog I wanted to share Scott's insight on this topic.

You

You are the origin of the content, whether you're an individual or a brand sharing this content. Be it a blog post, video, picture or tweet, all of this is considered the content you share through your various network sources.

First Circle

The first circle of people are the ones that you have direct access to. These are your friends, family, followers, those who like you on Facebook or follow your brand on LinkedIn. These are all people who have already decided they like you, so it is easy for you to directly share to them since they're immediately within your reach. At this point they decide, "Is your content worthy of a reaction?" If it meets that criteria your first circle can choose to share, comment, like or retweet your content.

Second Circle

The second circle is the first circle of your followers. These people don't know you and aren't predisposed to your content. They are judging your share solely on the basis of the quality of the content. Since they aren't biased towards you or your brand, these users are a lot more skeptical of your content. If your content is good enough to be shared by those without an inclination to share, then you're definitely onto something.

Third Circle

This is where your content crosses the plane into viral territory. This should be your goal when creating content, that it should cross into the third circle and beyond. This is where you find new readers, fans, followers and potentially new customers. People who had never had any exposure to your content are now seeing it for the first time. These are the readers you want to hit with any content you create. "Going viral" isn't necessarily getting a million views, it's being able to get your content to that third circle, reaching the people you couldn't reach on your own.

If you'd like to watch Scott's webinar, it's available online here, or if you'd like to just check out his section on viral marketing you can skip ahead to it here.

To view the original article, visit the Lone Wolf blog.