3 tips to give your reader a quick dopamine hit and get high engagement

Hey there!

Welcome to another edition of ‘The Virality Week’ where I breakdown the psychology behind viral tweets and threads, so you can use those concepts to write highly engaging content for yourself.

Let’s get cooking.

The breakdown

Dickie is a master of writing online.

With the new years around the corner, everyone online is looking for a quick dopamine hit to kick off their new years in the best way.

• Books

• Habits

• Podcasts

• Newsletters

They want the best of everything.

[Whether or not they take it seriously is an entirely different thing]

So, he went ahead and:

• asked a question each day of last week of new years

• compiled their answers in a notion document

• shared it with them in this thread

He’s literally giving people WHAT THEY’RE ASKING FOR.

Here, Dickie also establishes credibility by saying that he’s spent X hours compiling the curation, which means that he’s done the work FOR YOU.

You just need to click on the link and all the information in there is yours.

Curation is also the easiest way to create content when you have nothing to write about.

The Rewrite

What can you create a curation for in your niche? 

• Books

• Authors

• Courses

• Resources

Once you create a curation, you can mine the data for analytics and successfully repurpose content from that thread.

For example:

Books

Book Summaries of the highest liked book in the thread

Authors

Writing tips from that author to improve your writing skills

Courses

Lessons you learnt from that course

Resources

How you use those resources and how can they help you

I love Dan’s content.

He breaks almost all the writing rules I know, and yet is successfully getting high engagement.

In this tweet above, he’s using the comparison format, while driving the point home.

• Bland but HEALTHY

• Difficult but REWARDING

• Uncomfortable but NECCESSARY

Most of the content online is talking about things that people already know or are thinking about.

People know:

• they need to eat BLAND food because it’s healthy

• the last reps are the hardest

• silence is comfortable but neccessary

He’s telling people what they already know, while giving them a dopamine hit of being wise.

The Rewrite

What are people already thinking about in your niche?

For example: Most writers know the writing and editing together is frowned upon.

So, I can write something like:

Writing and editing together is like working out while having your lunch / dinner / breakfast.

It doesn’t make sense.

If I just wrote “Write first, edit later” , it’s too bland for people to notice.

With this tweet, I drove the message home by comparing working out with writing so that it really drives the point home.

If you want high engagement, comparisons are your secret weapon.

The breakdown

Lists are quick hack for a dopamine hit.

They look nice, and the information in there seems structured well.

Just like the above tweet.

Apart from the list, Justin uses the ‘It looks tough from the outside, but it’s really isn’t. Here’s the breakdown.’ route.

90% of his audience loves it when he talks about a creating a side income and compares it with a FT job.

The Rewrite

What can you make a list of in your niche (while conveying your message at the same time?)

• X books to get you started with writing online / business / copywriting

• X productivity tips that will get you more done in 2 hours than any other productivity app

• X podcasts to listen to if you’re a writer / entrepreneur / copywriter / SEO expert

That's it for today!

To recap:

• Curate books / videos / resources

• Talk about something people are already talking about in your niche

• Create a list of something (books, authors, resources, accounts) in your niche.

Thanks for reading this edition of ‘The Virality Week’.

If you enjoyed reading it, reply with the rewrites of these tips, and let me know what you'd like me to cover next week.

Cheers.

Kush.