The things we express on social media through share, like or retweet, our own understanding on those issues is limited and sometimes we even don’t know anything about them. We don’t have any personal experience to share whether the rule of Babar or Alexander was good or bad. People living in other countries don’t have any personal experience of the societal structure of the United States of America, whether families are flourishing there or breaking and what is the impact on society if families are breaking we are unsure on this. From our personal experience we don’t know how the administration of Donald Trump was or how the administration of Barack Obama and what was the difference in the administration of both the leaders.

There is a possibility that we have an opinion on most of the topics around us, when we read or listen about them on social media either we are favouring them or protesting against them.

Let’s take a few examples here, suppose we don’t know anything about missile technology but it doesn’t mean we don’t like to read or share about it on social media. If we come to know that our country has developed a specific type of missile which can destroy 500 spots of enemy at one single point of time we will definitely share about that achievement on our social media handles. We may even share the video of such missiles already developed by some other country. Similarly we are unaware related to the complexity of cancer but if we come to know that a particular type of plant leaf can be helpful in caring the cancer or a particular type of powder can help cancer patients to fight it we will share such things through our social media if a political leader shares some statistics related to crime in the country to prove that crime against women has decreased, there is a possibility that we will share such statistics on our social media, if we have liking for the political leader.

There can be multiple reasons for any information getting viral on social media, we may say that anything can get viral on social media in other words anything can be viral on social media. The range of viral content is huge, a cacophonous sounding song can get viral as compared to a melodious one, a dog slipping in a pit can reach to lakhs of people, wardrobe malfunction of an actress, ideas of cooking food, advancements in the medical field and much more can get viral.

How does content get viral on social media and as a user what is our role in making the content viral?

The quality of content depends upon the perception of users, let’s take an analogy for some people bitter gourd is tasteless but for others it may be healthy vegetable. Similarly some parents think that vaccination is essential for their children but a group of parents maybe of the view that vaccination leads to long term health consequences. Therefore public perception plays a pivotal role in making the content viral.

Whatever absurd you think on any topic in the digital world you will get supporters of your views. There is hardly any idea or a thought without support on social media, one can find various groups on social media with various ideologies, for example there are groups of people who believe that this world can be a better place without whites and there are groups who believe that this world will be a better place without blacks. One can never get disappointed in terms of diversity of thoughts on social media. Once you are part of a group and start to engage with the group on social media then the rest of the work is taken care of by the algorithms of these social media organisations, they will make sure you remain part of the group and adhere to the ideology of that group.

There is a possibility that you start to believe that most of the people in the world think like this only on any given topic or issue. Every social media user is an information receiver and simultaneously information spreader also. Different types of processes work behind the content which we share, like or tweet on social media.

From the perspective of social media two processes are important to understand.

On social media the persons with whom we interact frequently if they are spreading something chances are there we may also get into the flow. For example Ricky may not have any information on a particular issue or topic but he follows Michael and thinks that Michael is a sincere person therefore chances are there if Michael is sharing something on social media Ricky may like it, share it or retweet it. Slowly and gradually a chain will form because those who are in direct connection of Michel and Ricky and those who are indirectly connected to them will also give their responses to the content and the content will become viral.

What is important to understand here is that those who have liked, shared or retweeted the content of Michael may not have full knowledge or information about the issue or topic but since most of the people have done that therefore they also became part of the social media wave. Similarly when something becomes part of twitter’s trending list top 20 or 30 hashtags, it naturally gains momentum.

Any country has two or more main political streams or ideology, therefore whenever any hashtag which is relevant to a particular ideology gains momentum in social media people associated with such groups start to like it, share it or retweet it. There is a possibility that most of them who made the content viral may not have much information about the issue or topic but since they are part of a group they are riding the wave in social media without giving much attention.

One important reason why people make the content viral on social media is because they want to maintain their trustworthiness in the social media groups they are associated with. They want to prove that they are with the ideology of the group and therefore they have to react to the posts made by the group. Most of the people want to be a part of a larger crowd on social media they don’t want to stay aloof.

Every type of content has a critical mass on social media, for example if a blog has gained 1000 views then probably more people will click on it and read it out of curiosity. Similarly if a particular song has garnered 1 million views on YouTube then naturally it will gain more clicks and views and the wave will keep on getting big.

Social media is an interesting world, here also if a content is rich with likes, tweets, retweets and shares then there is a high possibility that it will keep on getting Rich, on the other hand a content which is poor in terms of likes, shares and retweets will remain poor.

People operate social media with a mind-set of maintaining their position and to remain part of a larger mass, that is the reason why a piece of content with more likes and shares will keep on rising and becomes trending, and the content which fails to garner initial social media momentum fails to become a trending content.