How to make articles go viral? It depends on the goal you want to achieve.
By now i’ve got few Hackernews front page hits and countless selections in newsletters.
Platform plays a great role. The CIA article i shared got feeble interest on LinkedIn and Twitter, but got popular on r/Python
The SQLite book performed well pretty much everywhere. Someone else posted it on Hackernews. On Twitter it took off when a db expert posted about it.
It is interesting to note that there is a weak link between virality and good content. Virality means it is read widely. But, if you post good content that most people don’t understand, it won’t go viral. So, the balance must be struck between content that many people can relate to and depth.
As software engineer i bet on good content as, by writing them you grow at the same time. I reserved my newsletter (Luminotes) for technical deep dives. Not many people are interested in it. But, people who are in the field do see the potential, wondering why it’s not read more widely. I got a recommendation from a Google eng (Michal Pitr) and exclusive permission from a university professor (Murat Dogruel) to publish his techniques to the wider public for the first time. I would not have received those without good content.
As i like Python and Python is popular, some deep dives do go viral. Like the Ruff internals article.
As blogger, i don’t have goals to tick. I got all bloggers want to achieve.
But, i keep going as i was writing those articles for myself all that time. Sure i tuned some for virality, but it was content for my own consumption first.
So i guess, writing deep dives for oneself is a good bet that outlives the hackneyed goal of blogging. If your article does not take off, don’t worry. Maybe the title was not well-crafted. Or you choose the wrong platform. Or most people won’t find it useful.
But, keep going.