Five Reasons Some Articles Will Forever Remain on The Hot Content List

Anyone who has perused the Triond Hot Content List of articles will have noticed that that there are presently two articles on the list that are untoppable and unstoppable. One has been there for over a year and the other will reach there in a few months. What is the cause of this? Let us analyze this without grudging these authors their success.

(1)   Marketing Method

Those who are experts at Search Engine Optimization (SEO), using Stumbleupon, Digg, Reddit and other social bookmarking services including Facebook and the unconventional Craigslist, will always have an advantage over those who depend solely on the quality of their content. There are those who seem to climb the Hot Content List at will and that is because they understand the system better than others. Once an article reaches this list and stays there for awhile it will peak the curiosity and interest of others. There is a saying that “If it’s not broken don’t fix it” so these authors just have to continue doing what they did (within reason of course) so that their article can maintain the popularity it has received. The success of the marketing method will bring more success because who can bury an article that presently has 4066 Triond likes, 247 Facebook likes and 852 comments? What has helped that article is the idea of an offer as seen in many of the comments. (Somehow I did not see that in the article itself). What has helped the other article too is the picture used to highlight the theme of the article. The power of the visual has been used. What was also used was news on what was to be the line-up of stars before the actual event so that though written in 2010 it still has  appeal in 2011 since it applies to 2010-2011. An article with “star” appeal featuring a popular television show that stretches from the 2010-2011 season will no doubt garner the 117 responses it presently has.

(2)   Theme and Title

A captivating theme or title may continue to captivate long after an article has first achieved success. Two of the articles with evergreen success on the Hot Content List have themes that will attract a big, on-going readership. One is on Facebook the #2 most popular site on the internet, the other is about a television show centering on stars dancing. There will always be a great interest in Facebook and celebrities. From my own little experience of a little over a year writing on Triond I have realized that my articles that deal with Facebook get more consistent reads than any other theme on which I have written. They may not get the most reads every day but they get the most consistent reads over an extended period long after they are written.

(3)   Brand name

As I already said whenever an article achieves great success that success brings more success. What do I mean by that? People watch to see who wrote an article that has breakaway success and if that success is maintained, readers will read that person’s articles because they expect their other articles to be a success as well. If they are readers they feel that other articles by the same author will be just as entertaining or informative. If they are writers they believe that the author has secrets of writing or marketing that they can draw from. The writer’s name becomes a brand name and people will rush at their articles just as people will rush after brand name sneakers and reject sneakers with no name or no recognized name. Writers will also add that writer as their friend and whenever that writer produces an article it will be seen on their dashboard. This functions like a veritable RSS feed. The “Brand name” authors therefore will always have more friends to read their articles. A whole “community” will be built around them. People will wait on their every word, I mean, article.

I have heard it said that most of your traffic must come from outside Triond or your writing site. I have heard that it must mostly come from the search engines like Google. Be that as it may I have seen Hot Content List articles shared by hundreds of people on Facebook so we cannot underestimate the power of the home site. The sharing must start somewhere and I believe that it starts on the home site. Also, there are times when most of your comments, if not all, will come from Triond users and if there are many that will make your article even more popular. If the article is successful after an extended period there will be lots of comments from writers saying “Why is this article still at the top?” or “Congrats” from fellow writers who admire the success achieved.

(4)   Spammers

Spammers always look to see which articles are doing very well and jump on the bandwagon. They want piece of the action, piece of the fame, piece of the free advertising, piece of the visibility. Spammers always give top articles a great boost. Check out the two articles with evergreen success and you will see people spamming those articles unashamedly. You will see back to back spamming by the same “bandwagon” writers talking about prices for their products. They will advertise their game consoles, T-shirts, handbags, wholesale shoes and even promote them in French! One Triond writer pumped up the comment count of one of these articles with such non-sensical spamming that could help no one but the original writer. After making three separate comments in two minutes he/she writes “Ok that is enough for today” then the next day he/she writes “Back again” then “Back again for today” “Four more to go” “Three more to go” “Two more to go” etc. The next day he/she writes “What is the count today?” then “It is six” then “Done for today” and finally “C u tomorrow.” One wonders what drives such drivel (No pun intended … yeah right!) No doubt if your article is on the Hot Content List for a long while it will become a billboard for spammers and their links making the popular article even more popular.

(5)   Identifying with History

When writers or even readers see that an article has ground-breaking success they see it as history being made. They naturally want to identify with that success by posting comments. Everyone wants to be a part of history so the flood of comments increases the popularity and success of the already popular article. In one of these two articles the readers are encouraged to comment as part of a “study.” The article says “ … please comment and leave only your name and city …” What more invitation does one need to be a part of a history-making article.

Why is it that these two articles do better than even the other articles that these authors have produced? Maybe they did not use all the ingredients of success that made their top article what I would call “a hit with hits.”

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