Viral Stories How-To
My most popular posts so far have been my viral links, where I do the links in the form of prose rather than a basic list. This makes the “list” more interesting to read, and probably a little more search engine friendly to boot.
For those of you who want to do their own, I’ll tell you how I do mine, and you can derive from that what you can to write your own.
With my first list, “Drunken Virals,” I did a song. I basically went through the list that Bryan had, a created a one-line lyric for each one. As you read through the list and compare it to Bryan’s original list, you’ll see that I pretty much followed the list in order as I wrote my lyrics.
I visited nearly every one of the blogs in order to come up with a lyric for them. There were a couple that didn’t require a visit, as their names made good enough lyrics that a visit wasn’t required, though I’m pretty sure I visited them anyway.
I also added a few other blogs that I visit in order to complete the lyrics and spread the link love.
For my next viral list, “Pirate Links,” I opted to tell a story rather than a song. A story is definitely easier than a song, as you don’t need to rhyme or match beats. I followed up shortly thereafter with “Lost Links.”
For both of these, I had progressed to where I maintained a list of blogs. Instead of copy and paste, I would use cut and paste to cut the blog link from my master list (a copy thereof, so I don’t mess up the original) and paste into my story. That avoids duplication, and makes it easier as the story goes along. Your master list grows shorter as your story grows longer, so you can more easily find blogs as well as keep an eye for how long you have to wrap the storyline up.
At any point, you can search for more blogs if you need a blog link to fill a space. You may need another character or expression to continue your story.
In preparation for my next viral story, I have better organized my list. Here is my list as it currently appears in my file:
PEOPLE
Average Joe Blogger
The Copywriting Maven
Bloggrrl
CHESSNOID
Blog Duck
Nerdy Nomad
Brave New Traveler
Shaun Low
The Alien Next Door
John Cow
Boston Brat
Miri Guy
Boogie Mum
John Chow
Ryan Shamus
Terence Chang
Phil McDonnell
The Insane Writer
Vegan Momma
Chris Bloczynski
ChrisBlogging
Groovy Vegetarian
Mr. Baconpants
Kenibatz
Omicra
Komirad
Blogamama
Etienne Teo
Mobile Phone Geek
Oil Offshore Marine
Olympic Blogger
Rammel Firdaus
Don Biz Blogger
Groovy Entrepreneur
Mouseki
Demp.se/y
Marketing Deviant
Cariboo Ponderer
The Budget Babe
Utah SEO
Sewing Mom
Lillie Ammann
The Laidback Buddhist
The Contest Winner
Willis Chan dot Com
Terri Terri Quite Contrary
Bimbo With a Twist
Syaf the Geek
Cubicle Denizen
Keeyit
Master Halo 3
Fiona is Me
The Groovy Vegetarian
Brain BimboGROUPS
Digital Lost Boys
Misdo Club
The Daily FuzzPLACES
Skittle’s Place
Road Less Unraveled
OFW Center
Marketing Land
Lewis Empire
Bamboo Nation
Exit 78
Techie ZoneTITLES
Net Business Journal
Voiceovers by Tim McLaughlin Blog
(The Blog Formerly Known as) Taosbound
MakeCentsOnline.com
E-Revenue Select
Everything Finance Blog
Forex Trading Blog
Allscm.com
Dumb Ox Daily News
SEO: Project search engine friendly web directory and blog
Pro Blog Design
Debo Hobo dot Com
The Diva Network
DCR Blogs
The Journey to 30
So Veg dot com
AdSense TrackerPHRASES (& THINGS)
A Nice Place in the Sun
Writer’s Notes
Moms Writing!
Beyond the Rhetoric
Adsense Tips
Easy Tech Talk
Teach Me to Make Money Online
A Little Piece of Me
I’ve Tried That
How I Will Be Rich
Think Like Them
Blog That Outside
I Hate Your Job
Escape Job Hell
Blogging Expertise
My New Hustle
Picture Clusters
Technically Easy
How I Will Be Rich
One Man’s Goal
I Do Things
I Am Facing Millions
Blogging Tips
Hiding-N-Public
A Blog That Lies
Net Monetization
Fashion Style Trend
Life Snippets
Lost in Technology
Smart Not Cheap
Scraps of Mind
One Year Goal
Your Website Profit
Net Hustlin’
Blogging Bits
The Last Page on the Net
I Should Have Bred Iguanas
Weird Websites
Going The Wong Way
Random Encounters of We
It’s Write Now
My Wanderings
Sigh
Say Cheese
Breather
If you’re happy, I would be; from a distance
Stopover
The Daily Trend
Just Another Day
Mother’s Home
DigitalORDER
Chicken’s Life
Every Every Minute
Sabrina’s Money Matters
Welcome to My World of Dreams
Go Smell the Flowers
Idea Sellers
Apple Are
Any Apples
Her Fab Life
How to Draw
Copywrite, Ink
Chimeric Day Dreams
SecretalifeEXPRESSIONS
Neatorama
MissyliciousANIMALS
Rich MinxTHINGS
Back Lot Projects
Market Treasure
Bloggings Most Wanted
BlueJar
Tasty Blog Snack
Norwegian Photo Blog
The Happy Rock
Poewar
High Fivez
Untwisted Vortex
CyberSurge
Slyvisions
Zr5
Misdo Link Love
Queen City Hoops
A Blog About Nothing
The King Kong Blog
E-World Vu
Balls and Walnuts
Tips Supremo
Chill Technology
The Dragon Project
Mottekaero Mister Donuts
Webd360
Blogging Mix
The Blogging Experiment
Blog Sonar
rantbits.com
The Thought Sponge
As you can see, I have organized the blogs into categories of people, groups, places, titles, phrases & things, expressions, animals and things. Some blog names may have multiple uses, which sometimes make categorizing difficult. I only want a given blog in a single category so that once I cut it, I don’t need to worry that it is also in another category. Perhaps someday I will get even more sophisticated and alphabetize!
From this list, I can pick out whatever I need to fill in the story. It makes it easier when blogs are in categories like this, so you don’t need to hunt around for the perfect blog name to fit your next line.
Study this well, folks, because tomorrow there will be a test for some of you!
Also, this is my most current list. If you don’t see your blog in it and you have linked to me or commented on my blog, please let me know that I have overlooked you so I can be sure to get you into the next viral story!
Popularity: 91% [?]
Your method is so organized! No wonder you do such a great job with these link posts! Thanks for putting Writer’s Notes on your list!
Jeanne
Wow, must have been a long day for you today!
Actually, a long night Friday. But, I’ll explain that in Tuesday’s post.
Hey dcr! You’ve been tagged with the nonsense story meme on A Nice Place In The Sun. Thank you for including me in your upcoming story! I’m excited! Hope you’re having a nice week-end.
Ann
I think a few of those blogs you found on my blog. That was my intention, of course. I give out free backlinks and end up paying other folks for backlinks! weird, isn’t it? I believe that blogging is one big experiment, so I am giving out backlinks like crazy to see what happens as well. Thanks for mentioning me.
Perhaps, possibly and probably. I find ‘em everywhere. There are probably multiple sources for many of them. I check links on blogs I visit (such as yours) as well as the links on their blogs and so on and on in a chain sometimes.
But, that does show the importance of getting your link “out there.” You never know where someone might find it!
Thanks for including me on your list and for being so organized and creative!
I agree with Michael - giving out backlinks works wonderfully, and costs nothing but a little effort.
I thought these viral lists were a bit boring as they were, and started a viral meme story thing - people write a little paragraph to continue the story. and tag the next blogs by using blog titles/associated words in the text. The longer the story becomes, the more backlinks for everyone.
I think people have enjoyed doing it, several versions are still “alive”…
Thanks for including me in yours - are you planning to use ALL these in one story? LONG nights in dcr-land….
That’s a neat idea. I remember those neverending stories from the BBS days, and doing it with viral links can be a useful way of putting it to use in the blogosphere.
Yes, I do hope to use them all in a story.
That’s genius. Pure genius, if only my writing were so organized. I have titles, outlines and ideas written on the backs of receipts, napkins, even on a voided check, all in a collective little stack of brainstorming on my desk.
If only I had my other projects so organized!
PHEW! What a list!
However, I have just put it on two of my sites.
Lets share the link love.
And thanks for including me!
It has just appeared on
http://www.jdonuts.com
http://mmo.jdonuts.com
http://misdolinklove.blogspot.com
wow what a list.
Just one questions: Animals?!
Mink = Minks = Minx
I was wondering how you managed it so successfully, the whole categories thing makes sense…!
Very nice organization no wonder your viral links are so good
Wow, definitely an extensive list of links to post. However, what happens in the future when you have say, 5000-6000+ links in your database? Wouldn’t that take A LOT longer to write a story?
At some point, I’ll have to break them into separate stories. Kind of like the Pirate Links and the Lost Links posts. The different stories may be related, or maybe not.
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Wow! Thanks for including me in your list. I thought I left a comment on this post yesterday, but when responding to today’s comment, (thanks again for the tag by the way, ) I saw where I didn’t. So thanks again for including me in the fun. It’s going to be fun writing exercises along with other writers! I love the viral links going around. Did you see where I added you in my last tag? I hope so, the link is behind the words “golden icon” at the end of ‘The Nonsense Story’ post.
Have a great evening!
Ann
wow … neat idea how to make a story using the links!
thanks for keeping mine!
today is my first visit in your blog, can i be qualified to be included in the list? thanks.
[…] Viral Stories How-To - dcr Blogs […]
Great job, awesome stuff and a big hi from Dubai,
Happy flower smelling!
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Simply amazing! Well organized and concise. Merry Christmas!
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