People do not share things because they are good. They share things that do something for them.
This is the part most brands miss. Sharing is a social act with a cost — every share is a small statement about the person sharing it. Content gets shared when that statement is one they want to make.
Which reframes the whole problem. The question is not "is this good?" It is "what does sharing this say about the person who shares it?"
The five things sharing does for people
- It signals identity. "This is the kind of person I am." The most powerful driver by a distance.
- It provides social currency. Knowing something first, being useful, having the good recommendation.
- It maintains relationships. Sending something to one specific person because it made you think of them. Enormously under-counted, because it happens in private messages.
- It expresses something they could not say themselves. The content articulates a feeling they had and could not phrase.
- It helps someone. Genuinely useful information, shared for practical reasons.
Brand content typically does none of these. It describes a product, which does nothing for the sharer.
The emotions that travel
High-arousal emotions get shared. Low-arousal emotions do not, regardless of how positive they are.
- Travels well: awe, amusement, anger, anxiety, surprise, indignation
- Travels badly: contentment, mild interest, satisfaction, sadness
This is why "we are pleased to announce" content never moves. It is not that it is corporate — it is that satisfaction is a low-arousal state, and low-arousal states do not produce action.
What this means practically
Take a position
Content that says something arguable gets shared by people who agree, and argued with by people who do not. Both are distribution. Content nobody could disagree with is content nobody needs to pass on.
Be specific enough to be surprising
General claims are unshareable because they contain no information. A number, a name, a real example — specificity is what makes something worth passing on.
Make the sharer look good
Ask directly: does sharing this make someone appear informed, tasteful, funny, or generous? If not, it will not travel regardless of quality.
Optimize for sends, not likes
The most valuable sharing now happens privately — one person sending something to one other person. It is invisible in most reporting and it is where the strongest signal lives. Watch saves and shares rather than likes.
The uncomfortable part
Virality is not a strategy. It is an outcome with high variance, and building a business on it is building on weather.
What is strategic is understanding why things travel and building it into ordinary content — so that the floor rises even when nothing takes off. A brand whose normal content is specific, arguable and useful will occasionally produce something that moves. A brand chasing virality directly produces novelty that ages badly.
And when something does take off, the return depends entirely on what you do next. Our piece on turning one viral moment into six months of content covers that.
The bottom line
Sharing is a social act. Make content that says something about the person sharing it, use high-arousal emotion honestly, be specific enough to be surprising, and measure sends rather than likes.
Want content built to travel? Let's talk.