291. How to make your voice go viral
After a surprise viral moment from my analysis of the ROYAL ROLLED R (hello 1.5 million views 👀), I’m breaking down the real reasons voice-led content spreads online.
In this episode, I share the 5 elements that helped the reel take off — and why going viral is about far more than trends and hacks.
We cover:
Why your actual voice matters online
The power of unscripted expression
How expertise attracts attention
Why strong opinions drive engagement
The role of topical content + timing
The truth about “viral success”
Transcript
Welcome back to That Voice Podcast.
A special hi if this is your first time here.
SO bit of an update.
A few weeks ago I posted a little vocal analysis video of The King Speech to the US Congress.
It went, what I thought at the time, extremely viral.
Over 300k on insta, 25k on TikTok and heaps of people were asking for a longer breakdown.
And so on Ep 289 of That Voice Podcast I did 5 voice lessons from the King’s speech and posted a special You Tube edition.
If you’ve been here a while you’ll know this podcast is an audio only experience.
So it was a special video appearance.
And as part of promoting the episode I do a few social media videos to encourage people to this amazing podcast.
And at the very end of the king’s speech episode I added a little bit of fun, because I noticed King Charles rolled the R – only at the end.
So I broke all the rules of short form video content and posted the landscape snippet from the You Tube.
And here it is for your now –
INSTA SNIPPET
Now much to my absolute surprise, this really took off online.
Let me give you some time of recording this stats.
Instagram – 1.5 Million views, 31 thousand shares and I don’t have the exact increase in followers but it’s about an extra 4000.
The same video went pretty well on TikTok, it’s up around the 280K view mark.
Little aside for the business owners here, it’s all vanity metrics until it moves the needle in your business.
With so many new people I’m offering a free class on June 2 – it’s the first free class I’ve done in over 2 years. It’s called SPEAK TO BE REMEMBERED and I’m going to share how you get heard, trusted and taken seriously in your communication.
I would LOVE to see you there, the link is in the shownotes. And really until this increase in audience filters through to sales, you can’t get too excited about it all.
And this is what viral content is fantastic for, audience growth, new people learn who you are and how you can help them.
And in today’s episode I’m going to share HOW TO GO VIRAL WITH YOUR VOICE.
NOW huge part of this is luck. All those people saying do this and you will go viral. It’s risky bisky business verging on false advertising BECAUSE there is no guarantee.
I have seen you cannot go viral if you are not posting organically in portrait short form video. Um well this one was a screenshot from You Tube. So debunk there.
AND this same video didn’t make any waves on You Tube Shorts where it’s had a grand total of 944 views and I was going to look up how badly it went on LinkedIn and realised I didn’t even post it there.
Now in saying that, it’s not a complete fluke, so today we’re breaking down the elements that made it go viral and they’re similar qualities of the videos I’ve had go viral in the past.
At the moment my record is still a 3.2 Million video on TikTok that I posted in 2020.
So here are the 5 ways to make your voice go viral.
NUMBER ONE – As it says on the tin – you gotta use your voice. I always smirk when I see those text over video reels – which I like posting too – that say you’ll go viral with this b-roll and this sound. Come on, people rarely go truly viral when following trends. It’s about setting trends or better still completely original – out of the box. Trends are fun, but it shouldn’t be a going viral strategy.
You might be thinking well I see those carousels go viral? And yeh that’s because of story and shareability.
Here on That Voice Podcast, the way to go viral is using your voice – and not just talking to camera, but expressively using your voice. The way I said ‘Oh King Charles’ definitely got the comments, there were so many about how passionate and excited I was, many comments also telling me to get a life.
So I feel so boring in way advising you to use your voice online. If you are still in the mindest that you can do what you need to do and get where you need to go without posting original face and voice to camera content…. I don’t know what to tell you.
If you are wanting to change that self talk and belief – join Soul Speakers my group program and I’ll help you work through it.
So that’s it, every video that’s ever gone viral for me has featured my voice.
NUMBER TWO – it has also featured NO SCRIPT. It’s been me expressing freely, using turns of phrases only I would, delivered in a way that’s not text book perfect.
And if no script freaks you out, don’t worry you can write a script, but do not AI it, it will strip out YOU. Build conversational quirks into the script, you know what I mean, like this kinds thing. The stuff that makes you sound like a person. People don’t want flawless they want realness. In this era of AI, your most valuable technology is your human voiceprint. And if we can’t get an impression of YOU, you’ll blend into the feed.
Read my book Voiceprint.
Now the third element of the viral video and quite a few I’ve had, have showed expertise. A niche interest, something where people feel like they’re learning something new and you’re not telling them what to do.
So a lot of my content is advisory. I’m sharing what you can do to be a better communicator – ay nd you better believe I’ll keep doing that, but that’s more for my existing audience, I’ve never had one like that go really viral. And I believe part of this is that I was analysing the King so referring to something, not directing to the audience. And by doing so demonstrated my niche interest area / area of expertise with voice. Which is why I’m happy for this video to go viral – more than my tour of the Bruny Island bread fridge, or Patrick commenting on my new hair cut, because this video people associate with what I have to offer.
I’ve only recently started doing voice analysis vids because silly rabbit me didn’t think anyone would be interested in it. So remember that expertise YOU have IS of interest to others.
Especially when combined with point four which I having an OPINION / HOT TAKE. Not fence sitting. Not presenting both sides equally.
Now do we really know why King Charles used the rolled r only on that final phrase of his speech?
Without asking him, we don’t know if it was planned or the intentional behind.
I interpreted it as a royal smackdown and I wasn’t afraid to put a stake in my sound and declare it.
Do lots of the comments disagree, call me an idiot, call me stupid, how could I be so dumb. Yes sure. You’re going to get that when you commit to your take. It’s the very thing that gets people watching, commenting, sharing – all the actions that make a post go viral.
Find me a viral video that only has one flavour of comments – I’ll WAIT.
So this is where you need vocal courage. Because it takes courage to voice an opinion online. But don’t play it safe and expect to go viral.
And finally number FIVE. The reel was about something really topical. Not just King Charles speaking the US Congress, but the royals in general. And you could see by the comments which regions the post was hitting at which time. So it really took off when it hit the UK – the brits love the royals, and because I failed to mention Wales, there were of a lot of really angry Welsh, and then it hit the US and they were all calling me an idiot because I didn’t know how to say R and what’s the royal ah, the royal arse. And I don’t know whether they were being funny or if some people just don’t know about the concept of accents. And of course US politics is quite a hot button issue in America and beyond.
So jumping on something topical will help your video in the algorithm.
As I mentioned there is so much luck involved, but if you want to go viral to expand your audience, use the elements –
Use your VOICE, don’t SCRIPT it, show your EXPERTISE, commit to an OPINION and make it about something topical.
And remember, consistency for the win.
I don’t know anyone who’s gone viral ontheir first video and if they have they are a one hit wonder that disappears as soon as they appeared.
I have been consistently posting on Instagram and other social media platforms for more than 7 years. So if you are chasing the short cut, the silver bullet, the miracle post – you’re likely going to end up disappointed.
Social content, just like communication skills are something that is built and earned over time.
Soul Speakers my group program is minimum 6 months, and if you want one class to give you all the magic information to become the kind of confident speaker you crave to be – it’s simply not there.
A taste, sure. I’ve got my free class SPEAK TO BE REMEMBERED on June 2. I will be sharing info about Soul Speakers AND it’s packed with value you can take away.
Just like these podcasts. And of course I’m glad you’re here, but be careful you’re not just listening to all the podcasts and reading all the books and turning up to the free webinars… and not taking any action.
The person who’s read nothing, listened to nothing and just posted videos online has a hell of a lot more chance of going viral. Than the well researched scroller just waiting to have the information and motivation to do something with it.
Because I reverse engineered why this post when viral.
The reason it did, its because I clipped it up and hit post.
You’ve got this.
See you at the free class on June 2, registration is in the shownotes.
