Lesson #21: Make Something Worth Sharing
Everyone wants to go viral.
But viral is not something you can manufacture on command.
You can plan the idea.
You cannot script the reaction.
What you can do is make something worth sharing.
The moments people share are the ones that make them feel something.
Surprise.
Laughter.
Curiosity.
Nostalgia.
Even outrage.
They feel spontaneous, genuine, and human.
People do not share content simply because it was promoted.
They share it because it moved them.
Listeners can smell manufactured virality from a mile away.
Your job is not to chase shares.
Your job is to make something people naturally want to share.
Some of the biggest viral moments we created began with simply doing our job well—making content we believed our audience would love.
At Z100 Portland, we invited disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding, then one of the most controversial figures in sports, to make her singing debut at our annual Last Chance Summer Dance.
It was bold.
It was local.
And it was impossible to ignore.
The story became worldwide news and even made The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
We did not begin by asking:
“How do we make this go viral?”
We asked:
“What would our audience love right now?”
Another time, after taking our air staff to see the Jerry Maguire film, we heard an opportunity in Bruce Springsteen’s “Secret Garden.”
We created a special version for the morning show, weaving dialogue from the film into the song.
The audience response was immediate and overwhelming.
We shared it with Columbia Records, and what began as a local radio idea spread across the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and beyond.
It became so big that Howard Stern devoted an hour of his program to it.
Neither idea began with a meeting about how to go viral.
They spread because they captured something people were already feeling.
That is how the best ideas travel.
Not because they were engineered to satisfy an algorithm.
Because they were timely.
Emotional.
Unexpected.
And worth talking about.
The goal should never be to manufacture a viral moment.
The goal is to understand your audience well enough to recognize the ideas they will care about.
Pay attention to what is happening around them.
Notice what they are watching, discussing, celebrating, remembering, and feeling.
Then create something that belongs in that moment.
Something surprising.
Something emotional.
Something human.
Something people cannot help talking about.
Put the idea into the world.
Then let the audience decide where it goes
Takeaway
Do not chase virality. Give your audience something worth sharing—and let them do the rest.