4 Lessons in Viral Content from the Best New Account on Twitter

Kyle Krajewski
November 6, 2019
Categories

Are you a fan of the NBA?

Can you also not get enough of Netflix’s hit sketch comedy show I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson?

Then get ready to meet your new favorite Twitter account: @nbaleave aka I Think You Should League Pass. This Twitter account mashes up and draws similarities between these two very different things.

The account’s bio states: “’I Think You Should Leave’ and the NBA are both very good. Let’s put them together.”

That’s it. That’s the account. So simple. So beautiful.

Like all great things, there are lessons to be learned from it. So let’s get to learning.

1. What’s “good” content is really relative to each specific audience.

If this account teaches us anything, let it be this: whatever in the world you can think up, there’s an audience for it. Great content comes out of establishing a very specific audience and creating content unique to that audience. What’s good for one group of users isn’t always good for the next. Your social content won’t be as effective if it’s just thrown out there like a big net to catch everyone who might see it. It’s better thought of as a tasty piece of bait on a hook dropped in front of a few hungry fish.

2. Make it timely or don’t make it at all.

Especially on Twitter, users are following events and conversations in real time. So good content as it relates to these events and conversations needs to react fast. It needs to exploit what’s happening right now for that sweet engagement. Whoever runs this account is ready to fire off a post at all times – whether it be during NBA action in the evenings or when league news comes out to the public in the mornings. If you’re a second too late, you might as well just wait for the next thing to chime in on, because you already missed the wave.

3. It doesn’t need to be flawless to be successful.

Good, viral social content isn’t always a perfectly crafted, fully produced, Sistine Chapel level work of art. If you’re spending days, weeks, or even months trying to figure out how to make the perfect piece of viral content, it’s more than likely going to fall flat because it’s going to come off as inauthentic and – again – not super timely.

4. You shouldn’t have to think too much to feel something about it.

Good social content gets right to the point. It doesn’t drag you along with lines and lines of copy that’s trying too hard to communicate a story. Good, viral content is most often something visual that sharply strikes some kind of feeling – in this case: humor.

Remember: as a marketer, or creative, or whatever, whenever you see something online that you like or think is good – even something as silly and inconsequential as this Twitter account – you should stop to ask why it is good.

There are always lessons to be learned!

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